Today, Apple released the latest version of the operating system behind the iPhone, iPod and iPad, iOS v4.1. Of course, the iPad still only runs iOS 3.2 which is a little disappointing. However, also announced was a status update on the future iOS 4.2, which will bring multitasking, folders, and other functionality to the iPad, will be here in November. Finally!
I hadn’t downloaded iTunes 10 yet, so I had to sit and wait a bit. iTunes 10 is an improvement in the look n’ feel, so that’s a plus. I’m not the biggest iTunes fan in the first place after often losing photos, overwriting contacts, and other disasters that never happened with my BlackBerry Pearl. Not even once. And with this latest version also comes support for Apple’s new music-related social networking service, “Ping”. More on that as it evolves.
iOS 4.1 has a few new features:
- Updated Game Center
- HDR photos
- HD video uploads over WiFi
- TV show rentals
I can’t wait to try out the TV show rentals feature, though mostly just to test out the technology. My eyes wouldn’t last long staring at any phone’s relatively small screen for 30 mins or more at a time. The HDR photos addition is arguably one of the cooler features, however I can’t give it a test drive with my 3GS, it’s for iPhone 4 owners only. There’s a great tutorial on the subject of HDR photography at Ars Technica and how to use the new feature. Some may argue that the method in which iOS implements the feature is “not true HDR”, which is an interesting point. I’ll take a look at some of the third party apps for comparison before I render judgement on the quality of the resulting image, though.
The iOS 4.1 installation to my iPhone went smoothly, just as I expected. There are rarely huge problems updating the iPhone operating systems, but always remember to do a separate backup of your device before you start any update as a best practice! The best improvement with the update was the extra speed on my 3GS. From applications to animations, and even resuming from it’s “locked” state, my phone runs perceivably faster.
I do recommend that everybody grab this latest update to your phone, it’s a safe and quick installation.