Multitasking and mobile advertising

09/04/10 posted by Liz Niland

If the iPad wasn’t enough to get your white headphones in a twist, the launch of the newest iPhone operating system should be. Finally including the long-awaited multitasking feature (having more than one app open at a time - currently it’s really only iPod and Mail that can do this) as well as a raft of other bits and bobs, iPhone OS 4 will be compatible with 3G, 3GS, and recent iPod touch devices. It might be time to update your handset though if you’ve still got a 3G or a 2nd generation iPod touch - these aren’t compatible with all features, and will miss out on multitasking.

Other features we’re a little bit excited for are the updates to Mail, the arrival of iBooks and the offering of a folders feature that allows you better organisation of your apps. Home-screen wallpapers have also made the cut, along with support for bluetooth keyboards. There’s also a handful of new enterprise features aimed at improving the iPhone’s business-use capabilities. Rolling out to iPhones in the (Northern American) summer this year, the update is currently available for developers seeking a preview.

Flying around as a rumour for a little while, iAd - Apple’s mobile advertising platform - is now an official reality. While Google copped a slight beating from Jobs in the launch proceedings, they’ll surely be a little pleased that someone else is dipping a toe into mobile advertising along with them - it’ll certainly help with their FTC issues anyway.

According to the coverage by TechCrunch, “Apple will sell and host the ads, giving 60% of ad revenue back to developers, and Jobs says that developers can add ads to their apps ‘in an afternoon’.” Advertisements shown during the demonstration were fully interactive pieces - rendered in HTML5, naturally - and were able to function within an app.

To watch all the festivities as they happened, head to Apple’s Events section.