New iphone/itouch operating system

[Sliced Bread]

Two of the main features are:

Multi-tasking -> Speaks for itself
iAd -> Allows advertising in applications

Personally I don't see the benefit of multi-tasking out weighing the annoyance of being bombarded with adverts whenever you use an application.

The slick applications are the iPhones main draw, now it sounds like they're about to be ruined by excessive advertisements.

I understand the commercial need for advertising, but I feel that Apple are shooting themselves in the foot with this one. All of the publicity around the new operating system seems to be aimed at potential advertisers and not and the consumer.

I think that this will be the first update for the iTouch that I will not take.

 

[Anonymous]

This is a tricky one. To me the biggest downfall of the portable Apple products is the lack of multi-tasking (iPhone would especially benefit). I'm really looking forward to this improvement and I'll refrain from commenting on the ads until I've lived with it for a bit. I'd like to see some lower level functionality such as access to a shell without jail-breaking but I can't see this coming!

 

[Clare Newsome]

Ads will allow content providers to balance cost of app vs advertising revenue. Like Spotify is now - free with ads, or paid for without. (Or even this website, which we wouldn't be able to bring you free without ads!)

So you could have both free iPhone applications backed by revenue and 'premium' ad-free apps. Or a mix of the two - an app that would have been higher priced being subsidised by some ads. That's already happening with sponsorship of some apps anyway.

 

[Anonymous]

Does anybody know if they are actually releasing any new hardware, or just upgrading the OS?

 

[Anonymous]

It's not actual proper multitasking!