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Apple iOS 4.2 Hands-On
adeelarshad82 writes "Apple's highly-anticipated iOS 4.2 update for iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch finally arrived this morning, along with an update for Apple TV. The update includes Airplay, which enables wireless streaming of video, photos, and music from your iOS device to Apple TV. AirPlay is an exciting new development for iOS device owners who also have Apple TVs. As long as the devices are on the same wireless network, they automatically detect each other. AirPlay also lets users multitask while streaming video to an Apple TV. Unfortunately though, AirPlay is a one-way street. Users cannot stream something they rented on Apple TV to their iOS device. The iOS 4.2 update also included the introduction of AirPrint, which is the wireless printing solution for the iPad. (The ability to print to a printer attached to a local PC or Mac was dropped from the release, however.) Other minor changes Apple squeezed into this update were: better Word document fidelity in iWork, multi-tasking, and Game Center."
The required files for CUPS in OS X and 10.1 for windows were dropped from the current release and printing can be enabled with third party software on the mac or by obtaining files from the earlier beta of 10.6.5.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The OP's priorities seem a little odd.
The big update of iOS 4.x is multitasking. Its far from being a "minor" update.
And since AirPlay requires the purchase of an additional device, I doubt its a high priority to the majority of ipad users.
It's been that way on the iPhone 4 and 3gs since iOS 4 came out.
Gone!
It's been there since iOS 4, and Apple says that you should normally not have to fully quit the apps anymore due to how multitasking works. They shouldn't consume much resources when not being in use. So that's probably why quitting stuff has been moved out of the way a bit.
I can confirm that Apple isn't bullshitting on all this, since until my pretty rare iPhone 3Gs resets, I often end up having 15 apps running at a time with no noticeable impact to battery life or sluggishness.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And AirPlay is basically UPNP Media. My GF's droid auto-detected my World Book Storage and Xbox Media Center and made available all our videos/pictures/music on her droidx. This stuff is becoming child's play. I can play HD movies on her phone through my old xbox to the TV. And control it from her phone.
I wish Apple hadn't made a whole new standard, but I guess that's their deal.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
A Mac is an additional device. :-)
Not quite. Unless said apps are made to multitask and recognized as such, they are effectively put to sleep and revived for instant-on to where you left it. Processes that need to run can register special threads that keep running. Eg, chrono apps, chat apps etc.
It's not totally obvious how to quit apps, but there's generally no need - because any app you quit is really more suspended than backgrounded, so it's using no system resources just sitting there (unless it's set to do some background task like playing music, and then you want it doing something of course).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
TFA is all about AirPlay, which to me is a niche feature. Maybe not minor, but I doubt most iPhone/iPad owners will ever use it. There are a lot of nice updates, as shown on Apple's site:
http://www.apple.com/ios/
AirPrint, Find My iPhone/Pad/Pod, on-demand remote wipe, respond to calendar invitations, SMS message tones, on-device TV show rental... Lots of features that I suspect will get more use than AirPlay.
i ran cydia's multi tasking on an iphone 3G when 4 first came out. it sucked was being nice. it literally runs the apps in the background which is completely useless if you're not using the app.
the people who coded apple's multi tasking used to work for Palm and did it in a way to to use as less resources as possible. this is why Android phones are generally more powerful hardware wise than same generation iphones but feel more laggy.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that 4.2 gives the iPhone/iPad native MIDI support. As a musician, this is huge.
As an Android and iOS developer your comments seem a bit misguided. As long as an Android device is properly responding to onPause() and onResume() there is ZERO reason an Android app should be eating resources in the background. There are no UI events passed to an application that is backgrounded on Android.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
My personal experience with older apps on iOS 4.2.1 is that they don't go to sleep nicely. They basically just close. Two examples I have of this are the Huffington Post and USA Today apps. If you leave them (say to change what you are listening to in Pandora) and come back via the quick app switching bar (double click home button) they will simply restart as if you just launched them. Other apps, like Twitter, deal with the switch beautifully. It is going to be a bit before iOS apps deal with multitasking properly.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
How?
This is the first anyone has mentioned this. Also, none of the people on the iOS developer forums seem to know how.
Are you sure you're not confusing AirPlay and AirPrint?
Childs play huh.... Please do an instant rewind with a UPnP media box. it SUCKS.
SMB share is the only way for it to work smoothly. WTF cant they simply do it that way?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What the GP means is multitasking for the iPad, which has so far been absent, thus this is a huge release for iPad owners while only a minor release for iPhone owners.
Beware that the user agreement for iTunes gives Apple permissions you probably don't expect, like gathering data on how you use you machine. Expect that they see app log files. Many of the disc ripping and burning utilities, as well as video conversion utilities such as HandBrake log the files or disks processed. ClamX AV keeps a log of files scanned. Note the use of "verfiy compliance" below:
From the popup user agreement seen when updating iTunes:
"4. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the Apple Software and to verify compliance with the terms of this License.Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you."
In the past after crashes/force-quits etc., there was an option to opt-in to sending this additional information automatically and periodically. Later it acts without you seeing it, and you're not told how to reverse the opt-in.
There are settings in the prefs for the console app to turn off sending the "anonymous" info. I use the quotes, because besides you IP address, some of the log files contain things like your user name (that of home folder).
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/SubmitDiagInfo.8.html
Even if you don't mind Apple collecting the info, you might not wanting it sent over some net connections.
transmission is periodic, not just after a crash.
Some are using the utility Little Snitch to block outgoing connections to radarsubmissions.apple.com
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2141147&tstart=105
There's a utility that Xcode installs that can configure some reporting. /Developer/Applications/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa;jsessionid=57C8B4C60DD7F68968B6617155516075.node0?messageID=11555436�
Looking under "Diagnostic and Usage Info" in console shows a number of things that get sent.
With the current terms of the iTunes agreement, I have to wonder if this info-gathering behavior is now enabled without the crash opt-in user approval. Maybe there's not a problem, but this is worthy of examination. It seems a bit much for the iTunes license to affect things outside the use of iTunes.
Apple makes great hardware and is generally very responsive to issues. If there's a problem and users are vocal about it, they seem likely to do what they can to satisfy people.
A thing to be careful with: Turn by turn navigation software will typically keep navigating in the background unless you completely close it using the taskbar. I used my phone to get me somewhere in Boston last month (walking). I used to Home key to background the task and stuck the phone in my pocket when I got there. 30-45 Minutes later I pulled the phone out and again and realized that I was all but out of juice. The phone had been navigating the whole time I ate lunch,and GPS navigation *devours* battery life.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If you're going into the recent apps list (double clicking home) and remove every item, then what've you done is clear a recent app list, not close running applications. iOS will close applications running in the background if it's out of memory or the apps have been idle for a while. It's a common misconception that the list is a running apps list, leading some to think they have to close them. I think the only apps that will run continuously in the background no matter what is the media player app and some Apple apps. The whole point of the way iOS multitasking was design was that you shouldn't have to use a task manager. Task managing is something that is utterly pointless for a human being to do, and it's insanely stupid that we're actually still doing it in Windows/Mac OS/Linux.
It seems really pretty dumb to stream media (except when on travel or sharing a few recent photos) from the smallest device you own in terms of storage space, and battery life. I want to be able to stream from my Mac (PC whatever) TO the iOS devices. I'm perfectly fine with limiting the formats so I have to transcode on the sender. That would make the appleTV a perfect media center thin client. It would also give me all sorts of music when mowing the grass for instance with my phone. I could watch a movie in bed that I just downloaded from the net without adding media that might be a one-time viewing into my iTunes library and syncing.
Apple already does this with the airport express and DAAP (and friends: DMAP, DPAP), this should not be a big leap to treat my iPhone as an airport express of sorts.
Sheldon
Yup. go steve jobs.. Do as I say, not as I do?
Sorry but I'm really lazy. If you don't give me a stronger hint about what's behind the link, I'm not going to take the trouble to check it out.
Sigh, that isn't even close to what happened. Steve said something about how he didn't like task managers; then Apple releases iOS 4 which includes a task switcher thing. Haters gotta hate I guess, but pointing to the task switcher and screaming "haha you admitted you blew it" is really stupid. (For one thing the iOS multitasking implementation had already been written at the time of the quote, but I digress.)
Look guys, the task switcher isn't a task manager; it just lists recently used apps. Important point: it lists recently used apps *whether they are even running or not*. It's almost all interface. The only manager-ish thing it does is that when you remove items from the list, they are killed if they were even actually running. This is not very useful for improving battery life, since they aren't likely to be using any battery unless you see the "playing music" icon or "using GPS" icon (but go ahead and clear things out if you like voodoo). Mostly the app-killing feature is useful to reset apps that have gotten themselves suspended into a bad state.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Just make sure you look in the top right hand corner of the screen, just to the left of the battery indicator. If you have a navigation program running in the background it shows a little compass arrow. But yes, something to watch for as GPS does tend to suck the life from the battery quickly!
For me the best new feature will be Find My iPhone - a service that used to required the $99 mobile me subscription, but is now simply included free. Works for Iphone 4.0 w/ iOS 4.2 Allows you to locate, show a message, play a sound, or remotely lock/wipe device.
Really-- I think they have a sense of humor like those IBM guys...
One of my favorite clauses in the Apple iTunes Terms and Conditions:
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SERVICE
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.
I know Apple products are great and all, but they do have their limits of use.
The ability to print to any Mac via AirPrint was supposed to show up in 10.6.5 but for unknown reasons this feature was pulled. Though there are 3rd party apps like Printopia and Fingerprint that will enable add the missing functionality. You can also download the missing files from earlier 10.6.5 seeds to re-enable AirPrinting.
Sorry, my previous reply is a bit off. Apparently the task bar method does send a message to the app to quit, I wasn't aware that it also did that. Here's the two methods to get an app to quit:
iPhone 101: Quitting apps in iOS 4
Sapere aude!
Unfortunately Apple still is behind the curve on making PDFs readable. Many new PDFs use jpeg 2000 for images which leave portions of my PDFs blank. It's the same on the iPhone. I can read them fine on my PowerBook G4 and MacBook Pro and even my Windows 7 box, but not on the iPad.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I'm considering buying the iPad, have been. I want two for my house. I'll likely purchase an iPad before I purchase any other Apple computing device aside from the two iPhones my wife and I carry.
You were saying?
Oh that's right, YOU'RE A TROLL! Begone forthwith
2^3 * 31 * 647
Double-tap home, find it in the list, tap-hold, click the minus sign.
I would agree with everything you said, but....my experience with the HTC Evo was that in Eclair, having a task manager was a must. Before the Froyo update, I had to regularly kill applications by hand because the phone would become sluggish to the point of being almost unusable and battery life would plummet. Killing apps that I didn't want/need made an immediate and noticeable difference. After the update though, I disabled auto-kill on my task manager and found that everything was pretty much fine.
Is it possible that there was some other change that happened around the time of Froyo that would account for this? I suppose so, but my feeling is that Eclair just didn't manage resources anywhere near as well as Froyo does.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
You "don't care" enough to post multiple messages in threads pertaining to devices you don't own.
Got it.
Beware that the user agreement for iTunes gives Apple permissions you probably don't expect, like gathering data on how you use you machine. Expect that they see app log files. Many of the disc ripping and burning utilities, as well as video conversion utilities such as HandBrake log the files or disks processed. ClamX AV keeps a log of files scanned. Note the use of "verfiy compliance" below:
It's absolutely absurd to think Apple is reading your Handbrake or ClamAV logs. This sort of wording is about how iTunes tells Apple what kind of iPhone you have and what apps you have so it can tell you what updates are available.
Apple is very keen on privacy. I'd be extremely surprised if they did anything even remotely as far-reaching as you are implying.
Welcome to Slashdot, where Apple collecting technical specs on your device is something to beware, but don't you dare criticize Google for driving WiFi-snooping vans around your neighborhood to gather emails and passwords.
Why do you prefer the memory to be free? Does it make you feel better knowing it's unused? The OS will automatically terminate processes and clear RAM as needed, so doing it manually doesn't have any technical advantages.
Unless there's some point I'm missing?
You are missing the point that some people take their iPads with them to work, to meetings and other places. Other people keep their iPad next to their bed.
Now consider how difficult it is to "mute" a device with an audible alert going off.
First you, you have to press the home button to wake the screen, then swipe right to unlock the screen, which might trigger an unlock sound and then press the volume rocker.
If you are in a meeting, the last thing you want to do is pull out the iPad, enable the screen, swipe to open which might trigger another sound.
If you are in bed and you try to silence your iPad, you will assault your pupils and anyone sleeping beside you with a blinding light of the screen turning on and then possibly trigger an unlock sound before you can press the rocker.
With a mute switch, you can just flick the switch without turning on the screen and you can do it even if the iPad is in a messenger bag.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The apps listed on the taskbar don't mean that they are on memory, just that they have been recently executed. Sadly, there is no visible way to know if the app is still on memory. iOS will automatically close programs when a new one request more memory than currently is available.
When hitting the home button twice and choosing a program, if it doesn't resume where you left it, it means that iOS closed it (or that the program doesn't support the multitasting API)
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication