Okay Geek Farm
iPhone OS 4 Hands on Demo
Nick Mahar
There is no more reason to jailbreak your iPhone - After Apple announced their latest OS last week, many people wondered what’s the point of jailbreaking anymore? I was lucky enough to get the new OS 4.0 through a developer I know, and I’ve been messing around with it for less than 24 hours, and y’know what? I already love it. I have had some weird glitches occur on me but they should all be fixed by official release this summer.
Video demo & Impressions after the break!
Wallpaper
One of the smallest yet most satisfying features of the update is the ability to have separate wallpapers for the home and lock screen. As you can see on the right, I’m sporting the T3ch H3lp Logo as my wallpaper. It’s really a nice touch and I like that Apple is finally allowing more customization and personalization.
Gaming
If you look at the top right corner of the screen you’ll see the new Game Center icon; Apple believes that the iPhone/iPod Touch gaming has become so successful that it needs something like a Microsoft’s Xbox Live type service. The Game Center will allow you to add friends, play games with friends, enter matchmaking, and win achievements. It literally is Apple’s version of Xbox Live, but on the iPhone.
Folders
This is one of the best ways to organize apps; Instead of having 15 pages of apps you can now create separate folders. I have a ton of games so this has been really convenient for myself in keeping order. The picture to the right shows the folder right above the iPod icon, and you can name the folder anything you want. The picture on the left shows what happens when you click the button: the screen splits right where the app is and reveals all its hidden goodies.
Folders will help cut down on flicking through multiple pages of apps. I also use it to create a “crap” folder - I put apps I know I’ll never use, like Stocks and the default Compass app, in it.
Major Glitches
I have surprisingly had many glitches during my playtime with the new OS. Some are typical and no big problem, but some just were oddly confusing.
- Can’t backup in iTunes. I get an error message every time, as well as thousands of others.
- Wallpaper problems; At first the wallpaper images, including the lock screen, were completely blurry. Finally that cleared up. The second problem is that you cannot set a picture as wallpaper from the photos, like you should. The only way to do so is through the settings.
- Text Deleted. I haven’t found anyone else with this problem but for some reason all of my texts were deleted. I was texting friends and all of a sudden, poof, they were all gone.
- Folders on iTunes. iTunes doesn’t recognize Folders as being present on the phone so you can’t arrange your apps from iTunes.
- Places. Photos now have events, faces, and places. Places seems to crash often and then dissapear from the menu.
Video Demo:
