Apple iPhone 3G

iPhone 4 launch day came and went and Number Four has taken over. Today, as the dust settles, we hope to move away from the hype and take a clear-headed look at what’s new in the iOS4. No, this isn’t a full-featured iPhone 4 review, nor is it intended to introduce you to the OS basics.

Instead we’ll stick to the new stuff. And Apple promised lots of that: multitasking, homescreen wallpapers, a revamped email app, and more. Here is our brief scoop on all the new stuff and all that’s still missing.

What’s new:

• Homescreen wallpapers
• Folder organization of the homescreen icons
• Multitasking and fast app switching
• Google/Wikipedia search in Spotlight
• Bluetooth keyboard pairing support
• SMS character counter
• SMS search
• Email threading
• Unified Email inbox
• Email archiving is now available when you setup Gmail
• Spell checker
• iPod music player can now create, edit and delete playlists
• 5x digital zoom in still camera
• Touch-focus in video capture (for video enabled iPhones)
• Keyboard layouts span over QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY
• Minor icon design facelifts
• Video call support (only in iPhone 4 and only over Wi-Fi)
• iBooks e-book and PDF reader

What’s still missing:

• No Flash support in the web browser
• No true multitasking for all applications
• iOS4 for iPhone 3G has limited new feature set
• Poor performance on iPhone 3G
• No quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or 3G
• No social networking integration
• No info widgets on lockscreen or homescreen
• SMS tones are still not customizable
• No mass mark emails as read
• No proper file browser or access to the file system
• No USB mass storage mode
• No vibration feedback when touching the screen
• No Bluetooth file transfers to other mobile phones
• Contacts lack a swipe-to-delete or mass delete feature
• No SMS/MMS delivery notifications
• No smart dialing (but Spotlight is a somewhat of a substitute)
• No DivX or XviD video support and no official third-party application to play that
• The whole iPhone is too dependent on iTunes - you cannot add the same type of content (video, photos, apps) to the phone from two computers, a regular file management interface would have been much better