iPhone iOS 4 – Productivity Quick Look

by Craig

It’s no secret that I am a big Apple fan. I use the iPhone for most of my productivty needs, and the iPad has replaced my laptop.

Yesterday was a big day for the iPhone. No, the new iPhone is not out yet. That is later this week. However, the new operating system, iOS 4, was released for all current iPhone 3G and 3GS phones.

This is a huge update with literally over 100 new features packed into it.

I installed it last night on my iPhone 3GS. While I haven’t had much time to put it through its paces, here is a quick look at the big new features…

Multi-tasking

Apple has finally brought multi-tasking to the iPhone. You can now quickly switch between your current app and apps in the background. The interface is slick. You simply double-click the home button and you get a row of running apps across the bottom of the screen. (See screenshot above, I am in Evernote and have brought up the background apps at the bottom of the screen.)

It makes for a nice workflow switching between tasks. It finally allows you to stream music in the background from apps other than the iPod app.

Note: Apps have to be upgraded to the new iOS standards to allow this multi-tasking feature. Many have already been upgraded like Evernote and Pandora.

Folders

The new Folders feature seems elementary, but I like it because it allows you to reduce the clutter on your iPhone home screen.

Again, Apple has a winner with the interface. To create a folder, you simply drag an app on top of another app. A new folder is created and the iPhone even gives it a name that it thinks is appropriate, like “News” or “Games.” You can then rename the folder whatever you would like.

See the screen shot above, I have a folder created called “TMNinja” that has all my blog tools in one place. I even put it on the home row.

Mail

The mail app has received the biggest upgrades since the iPhone first came out. There are some great new tools.

Unified Inbox – If you like all your email in one place, you will like this feature. You can now have a unified email inbox for all your accounts. (Like the Mail application on Mac works.) I am mixed on this. Not sure that I need to see all my work email and personal email intermixed.

Threads – This is cool. Mail now autogroups email conversations by thread. This lets you deal with all the mail messages in a conversation at once. Very effective for dealing with those long back-and-forth email trails.

iBooks

Apple is still playing catchup with Amazon with selection in the iBookstore. But, their app has now leapfrogged the Kindle app in terms of functionality.

iBooks is a free download for iOS 4. It allows you to sync your materials with your iPad app. (The Kindle app already did this.)

But more interesting, is that you can now open PDFs inside iBooks. In fact, they get their own bookshelf. (See pic above). This is a very nice feature for documents you need to keep and read.