Steve wrote:

antonp wrote:
Just a question on restoring your iphone. Will that delete all emails and text messages currently in the iphone? cheers
(antonp has made 1 comment)

Yup, it will restore it to ‘out-of-box’ condition so make sure you backup everything you need. Old Emails will still sync back if the messages are still on the server (i.e. Yahoo / Xtra, Gmail, Exchange, AOL or IMAP). Then, when you connect to iTunes for the first time tell it it’s a new phone (rather than restore from your backup)

If your iPhone is JB you can just backup the .sqlite databases that contain emils/sms/contacts from the phone and put them back after the restore with 4. That of course if 4 gets jailbroken.

(xescuy has made 22 comments)

Mak wrote:

However, a big downside – Google Sync. Since the upgrade to iOS4, Google Sync is forcing people via it’s Exchange profile to set the phone’s Auto-lock to 1 minute and grey out the option to change it. This has been reported to Google as a bug and hopefully it will be fixed by the launch of iOS4 to the public. If not, there will be a lot of angry users – including me!
(Mak has made 99 comments)

Is the workaround (disable mail acc/change lock time/re-enable/don’t go back into general) not working anymore??

(xescuy has made 22 comments)

@ Steve:

Woohoo! I like the playlist editting. Thats brilliant.

Can't wait to try it, going to wait for official release. I will do an upgrade first I think (only because I am lazy and don't want to start fresh just yet!), but if I have any problems I will go down the new profile track.

Thanks for the info all.

(nullafy has made 18 comments)

Hmmm, as a 3G user there doesn’t seem to be much for me there. I think I’ll leave the installation for a while. I can see what is going to happen though (and the same thing happened with the other OS upgrades) – Application writers will be using the new OS4 dev and applications will start appearing in the iTunes store requiring OS4 to run their new applications.

Annoying as hell….

(da5id has made 7 comments)

leStar wrote:

Can you edit playlists on-the-fly with iOS4?

Yes you can. You can also create new ones from scratch and name them.

(Steve Lawrence has made 645 comments)

Love rotation lock.

Multitasking is weird. Every app is automatically multitasked and appears in the dock thing. I only want/need certain things to multitask. And having to scroll accross to get to iPod controls and rotation lock is just weird. I still stick by my resrevations that it's poorly implemented.

Agree with everything above too.

I am running a 3.1.3 profile on iOS4 and I've only noticed one app so far that crashes on me. I might do a restore when the official public version comes out – not worth doing it twice since it'll be out on Monday/Tuesday.

I love how smooth the OS is too. Just closing apps and gliding between pages is magical. So much more streamlined and well, smooth than before.

However, a big downside – Google Sync. Since the upgrade to iOS4, Google Sync is forcing people via it's Exchange profile to set the phone's Auto-lock to 1 minute and grey out the option to change it. This has been reported to Google as a bug and hopefully it will be fixed by the launch of iOS4 to the public. If not, there will be a lot of angry users – including me!

(Mak has made 222 comments)

I would, just to give you a clean slate, however you need to make sure that you have backed any images, files or anything else you want to keep first. And not just using the backup facility, I mean manually transfer the images etc to you pc/mac.

If you don’t then you will lose them permenantly, because you won’t be restoring from your backup and the last backup will probably get overwritten with a new ‘clean’ one.

I lost an awesome home screen image I had set cause I din’t save it.

(Daniel Burgess has made 613 comments)

So when I upgrade to iOS4 should I use the “Restore” button instead of “Check for Updates” ?

(brycebeattie278 has made 13 comments)

Can you edit playlists on-the-fly with iOS4?

(leStar has made 63 comments)

@ mitchellc:
I actually got it from a free wallpaper app which you can download here

(Steve Lawrence has made 645 comments)

Steve, do you have a link to the wallpaper you are using? The color spectrum, its very cool. Great article as well. Also, does anyone know if it is possible to use iTunes 9.2 on a PC to restore the iOS GM yet?

(mitchellc has made 1 comment)

"I think that apps should have a time-limit for the app switcher. If you haven’t used a certain app within, say, an hour or two, it should disappear from the app switcher"

Brilliant.

Carrying on from that, an option within settings to set the timeout limit – i.e. 1 hr, 6hrs, 12 hours (kill all but essential).

(dckiwi has made 9 comments)

I guess my next question would be, is there a way to backup text messages and emails to save me losing them?

(camtab has made 464 comments)

Just to clarify what you mean by a new profile. My iOS4 is a little buggy so may need to implement your suggestion. Do you mean doing a completely clean restore and then set the device up as new..let that install the base files and then sync from Itunes (not restore from backup?) Anythign I need to look out for before starting this process (i assume I will need to set up the wifi passwords again as they are stored in the backup file i wont be using likewise emails will be lost and access manually setup again?) and Camera Roll will go back to be empty but I can install photos from Iphoto?

Is that correct?

(camtab has made 464 comments)

Just to be clear everyone…. Steve is NOT a member of the Apple developer program and as such he is not under NDA and therefore no NDA has been broken.

He sourced his copy of iOS 4 from the internet and has installed iTunes 9.2 which is available via Apple.

(Daniel Burgess has made 613 comments)

Nice post Steve.

Few of my own thoughts on iOS4. I agree about the closing out of apps in the dock within an hour of installing OS 4 I checked my dock to find all the apps I had used in the dock, at least 20. Simple apps that you do not want to run in the background will be sat open in your dock using memory, As you say closing apps completely from the dock is going to get cumbersome very quickly. From what I have read I think devs will introduce multitasking options and settings to their app. i.e. what do you want to do when you quit the app 1) Quit completely 2) leave running fully 3) freeze the app and open exactly where you left it 4) close the app but leave the one particular process you are using running i.e. close facebook but leave your status update processing. Time will tell how well the multitasking performs

For me the OS improvements are great but again overdue, the new OS is just average. I am not quite sure what I wanted in terms of features but I didn't want to be over it within a day or two which I was. I think it is the new hardware which is going to carry the iPhone through another year as the number one rather than the software.

When I get my new iPhone I will be doing a clean install as you suggested as I also found GM OS4 buggy when using a backup.

Keen to hear what others think.

(Paul has made 318 comments)

Great review! I love iOS4. I believe the reason that there are 2 ipod icons is because if you are using Pandora for example, the icon on the control screen will change accordingly. Quite cool, except for Pandora not being available in NZ. I look forward to the actual release, and definatly excited about getting the iPhone 4!

Cheers,

Allan.

(Allan has made 42 comments)

antonp wrote:

Just a question on restoring your iphone. Will that delete all emails and text messages currently in the iphone? cheers
(antonp has made 1 comment)

Yup, it will restore it to ‘out-of-box’ condition so make sure you backup everything you need. Old Emails will still sync back if the messages are still on the server (i.e. Yahoo / Xtra, Gmail, Exchange, AOL or IMAP). Then, when you connect to iTunes for the first time tell it it’s a new phone (rather than restore from your backup)

(Steve Lawrence has made 645 comments)

I have the GM on my iPhone 3G and it is quite disappointing.

The only features that came through were folders and a few other little tweaks.

No screen rotation lock.

(Ethan Rose has made 8 comments)

Just a question on restoring your iphone. Will that delete all emails and text messages currently in the iphone? cheers

(antonp has made 1 comment)

Its still faux multitasking, the app is not running in the background. It has been serialised and I imagine will stay in memory so as to remain quick to re-launch. If you ran ‘top’ you would not see the process running.

Although it does surprise me that the phone would get sluggish and not save their states to disk upon low memory! Stink if thats the way it performs

(martin308 has made 10 comments)

@ martin308: @martin308 The apps sat in my dock were indeed using memory, I gave it a good test and as I opened then quit more and more apps and they sat in the dock I watched the free memory trickle down and down to near 5mb left at which point the OS became sluggish until I started to close them manually from the dock. Something as simple as a currency converter for example, you open it, convert your currency and close it, no need for it to run in the background yet it sits “open” in your dock, if this was the last of 20 apps you opened you then have to scroll all the way along 5 dock screens to close it fully. Steve jobs mentioned in the iOS4 Keynote devs will have 7 different multitasking API options to choose from, which one they decide to use is obviously up to them and which suits the app better. I personally would like to see an option within the app to completely close on quit as I can think of many of my apps I would not want to run in the background i.e. weather – quick look at the weather and close, not left running, using memory, using battery and taking up running application dock space.

Your probably right I do not fully understand how multitasking works or is going to work, we will find out how individual apps perform next week onwards and how devs choose to implement multitasking.

Should be interesting indeed

(Paul has made 318 comments)

@ martin308: I could be wrong but I think you are slightly incorrect as well. The apps CAN run in the background if programmed correctly as that is the point. Pandora for example keeps running…sure not ALL your apps in the dock are running when you switch out and I am sure Paul was just making a point, but they can and will run if that is how the developer codes them and most will want this.

(camtab has made 464 comments)

@ Dan:
Just a query but isnt that just as “illegal/against the EULA” (whatever you want to call it!)?

I dont care either way, any info is good for me

(martin308 has made 10 comments)

@ Paul:
Im not sure you entirely understand how “multitasking” works on the iphone. You cant leave the app running fully in the background, when they are sitting in your dock they are not using memory all their objects in memory have been serialised to disk

(martin308 has made 10 comments)

@ Paul: Cheers Paul..appreciate that

(camtab has made 464 comments)

@ camtab: Completly correct Camtab. When you reinstall the OS just hit set up as new iPhone. Lot of manual re-setting up to do but I think it’s worth it.

(Paul has made 318 comments)