I don’t know exactly when I started to establish a trend of Apple-focused posts. The first post however, was done when the first iPhone came out in Summer 2007.

The newest kid on the block is iPhone OS 4.0

Like I always say (& do), everytime you are interested in a new announcement from Apple, don’t waste your time reading other people’s reviews. Just go to apple.com and watch the keynote.

So, what is iPhone OS? It’s not just a OS meant for iPhone, but Apple’s vision of an OS meant for its array of mobile computing devices. It’s in sorts like how Cisco designed Internet OS (IOS) to be central to almost all the networking products it developed. That is the closest analogy available and it is too early to say Apple vision is as comprehensive as Cisco’s.

Here’s what is going to happen: Apple will bundle all needs of a mobile user (as provided to them by Apps developers, end users, staff etc…) and have a constant stream of people working on its vision called the iPhone OS.

All product teams — iphone, ipod, ipad and whatever “i” gets added in the future — will be designed to adopt the iPhone OS and adapt it to the specific needs of the hardware. If you ask me, this is a slick idea and it allows for standardization, scalability and improved user-experience. Though at some point, Apple has to make way for mainline product users (iMac, Macbook etc..) to also advantage from App store.

So, what are the key take-aways from iPhone OS 4.0?

  • Multitasking is the key and most significant addition. The added possibilities are exponential, relative to what I had thought earlier.
  • There are a few more additions which seem cool, but way behind in terms of what competition is doing TODAY
  • Apple is launching the “Ads” war soon. (1) This will be direct parallel to Google’s Ad strategy, though the target markets are completely different, atleast at this point. (2) Apple does not want Apps developers to take away all their Ads money, so will provide the platform and take away 40% of the money which used to entirely go to the developers.
  • In any case, you will not advantage from the major changes in the OS, if your hardware is more than a few months old. Apple focuses software improvements to only suit products that are at the nth release level or (n-1)th release level. For example, if you have a iphone 3G, you will not benefit from key additions in 4.0. However, if you are a 3GS user, you will. Atleast, in this respect, Apple is not nearly as comprehensive as Cisco.

The audience for keynote speeches are boring — pro-Apple journalists, key employees, people with fanboy attitudes and people who applaud and give weird sounds even if Jobs does the most stupid thing on earth. But then, maybe that’s the idea.