Scenes from the iPhone 4.0 event (photos)

We take you to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., where Steve Jobs and company unveiled features in the newest version of the OS, such as multitasking.

CNET Reviews staff

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CNET Reviews staff

April 8, 2010 11:05 a.m. PT

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Jobs takes the stage

CUPERTINO, Calif.--Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at a media event Thursday morning to announce some key features in iPhone OS 4.0, which he says will be released this summer. The upgrades include multitasking, background audio, background location, voice over IP, a new folders feature, and the new iAd mobile advertising platform.

Meanwhile, new models of the iPhone and iPod Touch will be out this summer. And the newly released iPad will get OS 4.0 in the fall.

Click here for a full summary of developments from Thursday's event.

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mobile browser market share

Jobs notes that the iPhone OS claims 64 percent of mobile browser usage in the U.S.

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SDK

Developers can access a preview of iPhone OS 4.0 beginning Thursday, Jobs says.

They can now access calendar, photo library, still and video camera data, quick look, and SMS inside their apps, Jobs says.

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Custom wallpaper

New custom wallpapers are demonstrated. Just like on the iPad, these can be different from what is used on the lock screen.

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How multitasking was done

Scott Forstall, senior VP of iPhone Software, takes the stage to explain how multitasking was done. "We looked at the tens of thousands of apps, and distilled down the services that these apps need to work in the background. Then we implemented these services ourselves in a way that preserves performance."

It should be noted, however, that the iPhone 3G and older models of the iPod Touch will not support multitasking.

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audio on lock screen

Forstall explains how you can now use audio controls of third-party apps on the iPhone lock screen. Previously this could only control the iPod app.

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Pandora

Music service Pandora can now run in the background while you switch between apps. The iPod controls, which work with a double tap of the home button, now work for Pandora, too.

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Forstall announces Sykpe

Forstall said that one out of every nine international calls are connected by Skype. Now when iPhone users are on Skype, calls will keep coming in even when you're using other apps.

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David Ponsford of Skype

Skype's David Ponsford takes the stage to demo the application on the iPhone, noting that the service has amassed more than half a billion registered users.

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Incoming Skype call

Using Skype, incoming call invites come in as a standard iPhone/iPod notification. Clicking the answer button just brings that app back.

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Background location

Forstall demos the new background location services. There are two classes of applications--things like turn-by-turn directions (TomTom, Garmin, et. al.) and social-networking applications like Loopt.

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Cell towers

Forstall says Apple is using cell towers to make new GPS services work without using a ton of power.

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Location status bar

There's now an indicator on the status bar to let you know if an app is using your location (kind of like the little satellite logo in Android).

Users can also enable or disable location by app in the settings menu. Apple is including a little arrow in the new "location services" menu that will let you know if that particular app has used location within the last 24 hours.

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Jobs annouces folders

Jobs gets back up on stage to announce "folders," a solution for nesting groups of apps together

Jobs calls the folders implementation "beautiful."

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folders example

Create a folder by placing your finger on an app until it jiggles. Then you drag one app on top of another and it instantly makes a folder. The icon changes to show you a small preview of all the apps that are in there.

When you tap on the folder it expands to show you the apps. "You can have as many folders as you like," Jobs says.

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Organize mail by thread

Jobs demos a revised mail app. Some of the new features include:

A unified in-box (all your various accounts in one in-box)
More than one Exchange account.
Fast in-box switching (to still switch between accounts in the new unified mailbox).
The capability to organize by thread and group together messages by date.
The capability to open attachments with whatever app you have installed on your machine.

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iBooks

iBooks is coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch. It looks like a smaller version of its iPad sibling.

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iBooks features

With iBooks, titles can be read on many devices. Apple is also syncing what page you're on between all those devices (as Amazon does).

"Winnie the Pooh" is getting bundled in as a free book.

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Enterprise features

Forstall moves on to new features for enterprise users, noting that 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are using iPhones.

New features include:

Better data protection. Encrypt all your e-mail, including attachments with PIN codes.
Mobile device management. Letting IT managers deploy iPhones and manage them remotely.
Wireless app distribution. Companies can push out custom apps over the air instead of relying on an iTunes sync.

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Game center

Forstall talks about a new developer preview called "Game Center"--a "social network for gaming." It offers matchmaking, friend invites, leaderboards, and achievements.

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Jobs announces iAD

Jobs announces a new platform called "iAd"--mobile advertising that's built into OS 4.0.

Apple wants to help developers make money off their creations, Jobs says, but "most of this mobile advertising really sucks, and we thought we might be able to make some contributions."

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Apps and ads

Jobs says ads are easy on the desktop because of search. But people are spending all their time within apps. "This is where the opportunity to deliver advertising is," Jobs says.

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Ad impressions

Jobs says the average user is spending 30 minutes a day using apps. That's 10 ads per device each day.

He says he wants to get 1 billion ad impressions per day by the end of the year.

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Toy Story ad

Jobs demos iAds in a simple news-reading app. If you click on a Toy Story 3 ad, for example, it takes over the whole screen.

Jobs says it's all done in HTML 5 (making a crack at Flash).

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Ad game

Shown is another ad that has a built-in memory game users can play.

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Air Jordan

Jobs demos an Air Jordan shoe ad within another app. It has a little horizontal timeline viewer where you can see all the variations of the shoe throughout the years. There's also a Nike ID shoemaking tool right within the ad.