Apple navigates tricky iOS4 iPhone, iPad waters
The teething problems associated with having a mobile operating system upon which two devices with very different missions need to run are making themselves obvious in Apple’s actions concerning iOS4.
Apple’s iOS4 is an operating system with a Dr. Jekyll/Dr. Jekyll dichotomy built right in, which is to say that it has to serve two very different masters, neither of which are evil. Instead, one is the most popular smartphone of all time, while the other is the only real tablet computer on the market with any real sales behind it. Both of the devices are good in almost all senses of the word, especially for the people who made them and the people that buy them.
That dichotomy does cause problems for the folks that need to write and maintain the operating systems, though. That shows up in some very obvious ways. iPhone owners are reaping the multitude of benefits available from iOS4, which is already working on its second iteration on the iPhone. The more expensive iPad is still running iOS3.x, a perfectly valid OS but one which lacks many of the features that one would expect in a high-end product, things as basic as multitasking. On the up side, at least iPads are not bothered by the iOS4 bug that causes problems with the iPhone’s proximity sensor.
Steve Jobs spent some considerable time talking about iOS4 at the Apple event the other day that was ostensibly about the company’s iPod line and Apple TV, according to an BBR.com article. He said that the latest version of the operating system, iOS4.1, will be released next week. That upgrade is supposed to take care of the proximity sensor problem, in which your face can hang up your phone, as well as other problems.
Jobs said “First of all, a lot of bugs have been fixed. Proximity sensor bugs, Bluetooth bugs, iPhone 3G performance bugs. All the bugs that we’ve been nailed on. We think we’ve nailed a lot of them,”
Of course, while they have been “nailing down” those bugs (a grim picture, actually) for the iPhone, they have not been working on the release of the upgraded operating system for the iPad. Those users are now being told they have to wait until November to get the “good” operating system for their beloved iPads.
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