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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.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that 4.2 gives the iPhone/iPad native MIDI support. As a musician, this is huge.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Double-tap home, find it in the list, tap-hold, click the minus sign.
You "don't care" enough to post multiple messages in threads pertaining to devices you don't own.
Got it.