Apple today previewed its upcoming iPhone 4.0 OS at its corporate campus in Cupertino. The update will add many new powerful and long-awaited features and will be available this summer for the iPhone 3GS and third-gen iPod touch, but only some features will be available for iPhone 3G users.

  • Bluetooth keyboards can connect to iPhone
  • Wallpaper for the home screen
  • Folders for apps
  • 5x digital zoom
  • Tap to focus video
  • Upload workouts to Nike+
  • Birthday calendars
  • iBooks (You can read your iPad books on the iPhone too, no need to buy twice)
  • Sync pages and bookmarks from iPad to iPhone.
  • iPhone 4.0 OS update coming to the iPad this fall

    • Multitasking

    Users can have apps run certain processes in the back simultaneously. Developers have access to 7 processes:

    • Background audio (Pandora and other radio apps can play in background)
    • VOIP (Skype can receive calls while you are using other apps)
    • Background locations (GPS apps can track your location as you use the iPhone for other things, can supply turn-by-turn directions too).
    • Push notifications (no real change)
    • Local notifications (TV Guide app can tell you your show is on, no need for Internet connection for these alerts — kind of like the iPhone’s calendar alerts)
    • Task Completion (Flickr app can finish uploading a picture in the background, many other uses for Task Completion)
    • Fast app switching (Freezes apps at the point you left off when switching to another app)

    Mail (email)

    • Unified email inbox, multiple email accounts combined on one screen.
    • Multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts
    • Threaded messages (includes replies, like Gmail)
    • Open email attachments in other apps

    Game Center

    • Apple is launching a social gaming network.
    • Challenge friends to game
    • Matchmaking (find random opponents)
    • Leaderboards
    • Achievements
    • Available “later this year”

    iAd

    • Want to add emotion and interactivity to ads
    • Tapping the ads won’t yank you away from app, you will be brought back exactly where you left off
    • Games in ads

    Enterprise features

    • Better data encryption
    • Wireless distribution of apps (companies can supply apps from their own servers)
    • Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 support, SSL & VPN support from Juniper and Cisco