Apple has announced today that iOS 4.2 is now available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, adding a number of new features.
Perhaps more notably is the fact that iPad users will finally get multitasking.
“iOS 4.2 makes the iPad a completely new product, just in time for the holiday season,” added CEO Steve Jobs. “Once again, the iPad with iOS 4.2 will define the target that other tablets will aspire to, but very few, if any, will ever be able to hit.”
All iOS device owners will now have multitasking, Folders, Unified Inbox, Game Center, AirPlay and AirPrint.
AirPlay allows for wireless streaming of music, videos and photos from any iOS device to the Apple TV.
AirPrint lets you wirelessly print photos, email, web pages, and documents from your iPad to any AirPrint-enabled printer.
Result for: web pages
This week, Google subtly noted that Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” is set for a Q4 2010 release.
The date was shown off inside the FAQ for the new WebM video format. Google’s latest update, 2.2 “Froyo” is expected to be launched today at the I/O conference, which is now in its second day.
WebM is Google’s new open source video codec, built on the VP8 codec that was originally developed by On2. Last year, Google purchased On2 for $124 million USD. For audio, the codec uses open source Ogg Vorbis.
The open source codec is Google’s answer to the current HTML5 video format war. HTML5 allows for native video embedding in web pages, removing the need for plug-ins like Adobe’s Flash or Microsoft’s Silverlight. The standard does not specify which format will be used, and that has led to Apple and Microsoft pushing the expensive H.264 format, while Google, Opera, and Mozilla among others are pushing for free, open source formats.
Widespread smartphone HTML5 support is not expected for some time, adds MobileBurn, but Android users will likely see the start of strong support with “Gingerbread.”
Result for: web pages
Research In Motion has shown off their upcoming BlackBerry OS 6 today, which improves on most of the past OS features, with much improved touch support.
Th new browser has tab switching, favorites, multi-touch, using WebKit. The tabs have transparent overlay.
There is an updated media player, one that looks much more like the cover-flow used by Apple in the iPhone.
BGR adds: “RIM has finally implemented system-wide kinetic scrolling with rubberbanding. This makes the experience a bit more fluid when scrolling through lists, web pages, emails, and the like. There is also multitouch system-wide, from the web browser to the photos application, and yes, pinch to zoom is in there.”
Overall, the OS looks more modern, with the messaging/email inbox’s looking much cleaner and updated. Thumbnails are larger and clearer so users can see where the messages they are receiving originated from (Twitter, email, text, Facebook, etc)
The Home screen is also now completely customizable, with different homescreens allowing for apps, pages, favorites. There does not appear to be widget support, however.
There is also now Gesture use, which BGR explains after testing the OS: “If you tap and hold (obviously a touchscreen device is required), you’ll get a 9 icon group centered on the screen which is basically a pretty context menu. For instance, you could be composing an email, and instead of pressing Menu + Send, you could tap and hold on the email, see the popup window, and hit the send icon there. Another use would be when emailing photos or videos from your device, just tap and hold on an item there, see the popup, and then just send the item.”
