As I'm sure you've heard by now, Apple has a special event scheduled on Wednesday this week. As usual they are very cryptic on what they are announcing. Speculation seems to focus on the much rumored tablet computer and a major update to the iPhone OS.
We know one thing about the tablet, and that is that we don't know anything for sure about the tablet. Apple will only enter the market if they can do things that no one else has thought of. So come Wednesday I'm pretty sure we will see some interesting things from them.
But I want to focus on the update to the iPhone OS. I first started talking about OS 4 on my Twitter stream in November. One of the key indications of an impending major OS update is Apple not releasing new versions of the iPhone OS for a while. We haven't seen an update to 3.1 in many months, and now seems like a good time -- along with the tablet that is rumored to also run the iPhone OS.
Let me say that I use my iPhone a lot. My battery runs down to 10% just about every day, and that's even with it sitting connected to my computer for a couple hours every day in addition to a full charge at night. Here are the things that I'm most looking for in the OS update.
New App Launcher
First and foremost is a new application launcher. The current launcher, called Springboard, is too dated and too hard to use once you have more than a few apps installed. Have 180 apps installed on your phone -- trying to find a single one can be impossible. Apple made a stop-gap change by adding spotlight search in 3.0, but who wants to search for each app they launch?
We're expecting a new way to navigate apps -- something very original. Something that will work on both the tablet and the iPhone. Perhaps voice control will be expanded to launch apps, but then again, I can't see people walking down the street saying "Launch Fart Machine" - or maybe I can.
