Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Bullette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting in cross from me, as he always does, is
Speaker 1: senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Come get some Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where are you going with that Army of Darkness?
Speaker 1: Oh right, yeah, I've only seen parts of that movie.
Speaker 1: It's a good one. So we've had a lot of requests,
Speaker 1: and I mean a lot of requests for us to
Speaker 1: cover a couple of different topics. And uh, we already
Speaker 1: talked once about the iPhone four, So now we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the operating system that exists on top
Speaker 1: of the iPhone four I O S four. Actually it
Speaker 1: also works on some, but not all, of Apple's other
Speaker 1: devices as well, right, um, Actually, and it doesn't work
Speaker 1: the same way on all of Apple's other devices, which
Speaker 1: makes it kind of complicated. But let's let's start into that.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the iOS thing that's new, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: it used to be the iPhone OS right, But of
Speaker 1: course it also operated the i iPod Touch and um
Speaker 1: just recently of course, with the launch of the iPad UH,
Speaker 1: it is the operating system for that device as well,
Speaker 1: So I guess they decided that they should make it
Speaker 1: the iOS and UH, which is glad they haven't gone
Speaker 1: back to using the version of its old, old, old,
Speaker 1: pre Macintosh operating system Apple sauce. Yeah, it's also the
Speaker 1: fact that they've changed the name to iOS. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, to me, that just makes sense because,
Speaker 1: like you pointed out, it's running on it's it's powering
Speaker 1: multiple devices, not just the iPhone. Yes, so to call
Speaker 1: it the iPhone OS is not really that accurate. But
Speaker 1: it also has raised some room mers that perhaps this
Speaker 1: is the future of the Apple operating system and that
Speaker 1: they will slowly back away from the mac OS operating system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't see that really happening necessarily, at least not completely,
Speaker 1: because I think there's always going to be at least
Speaker 1: a little demand for a full fledged mac OS system
Speaker 1: unless the iOS gets so sophisticated that can do practically
Speaker 1: everything that mac OS can do already. UM, I just
Speaker 1: don't see that happening. Just from the the media editing
Speaker 1: uh industry alone would probably flip out. Well, they give
Speaker 1: it this way. The Google Chrome operating system that will
Speaker 1: be powering netbooks in the not too distant future is
Speaker 1: not really intended to be a main operating system either,
Speaker 1: And yet it is also more sophisticated than the Android
Speaker 1: operating system, which is what is operating on handheld devices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sorry, but I do think I do think that
Speaker 1: uh well uh, and it's in the same vein that
Speaker 1: Apple does not really intend this to be a full fledged,
Speaker 1: heavy duty, let's run sixty three programs on it at
Speaker 1: once type operating system. Right, so let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about IO S four and what what makes it special. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we we just kind of touched on one. Multitasking. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's actually a big one. Yes, limited multitasking. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is limited multitasking. It is not on you know, you
Speaker 1: can't run as many applications as you want in the background,
Speaker 1: all at the same time. And you can't even run
Speaker 1: every sort of application in the background. It's uh, I
Speaker 1: think there were like seven different main types of applications
Speaker 1: that Apple said you would be able to to run
Speaker 1: as background applications. Well, um, it's so it sort of depends. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Apple applications have always been a little
Speaker 1: bit more multitasking friendly, even even before uh, the advent
Speaker 1: of iOS four. Um, you could, for example, play a
Speaker 1: song on and you know, the iPod app and then
Speaker 1: change to something else and you'd still get to hear
Speaker 1: your music. But if you wanted to try that with say, Pandora,
Speaker 1: you know, as a third party application, as soon as
Speaker 1: you uh decided to go check your mail or use
Speaker 1: Safari or some other application, it would drop off. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So now they're allowing third party applications to take advantage
Speaker 1: of this as long as they fall within seven different
Speaker 1: apps services and I've actually got them up here. So
Speaker 1: it includes audio, VoIP Um, push notifications, local notifications, task completion,
Speaker 1: and fast apps switching. As long as it falls within
Speaker 1: one of those, uh, those categories, then it can run
Speaker 1: in the background. If it's outside of those, then it
Speaker 1: it's still will not run in the background. And uh,
Speaker 1: and you have a limit on how many you can
Speaker 1: run at one time, I believe as well, right, and UH,
Speaker 1: if you're hoping that you'll be able to have these
Speaker 1: applications work across uh, you know, as you're using the
Speaker 1: entire operating system. UM, they're not really going to be
Speaker 1: able to do that, nor will you be able to
Speaker 1: uh have one application receiving push notifications while you're running
Speaker 1: another application. Is just not going to get updates like that.
Speaker 1: It's just not intended to do that. And the reason
Speaker 1: that that Apple didn't want to use multitasking in the
Speaker 1: first place was because the company was concerned about battery
Speaker 1: life UM and just the idea of having all that
Speaker 1: stuff running at one time, UM, bogging down the system.
Speaker 1: They wanted it to be a nice, fast user experience.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, they've taken a lot of
Speaker 1: flak for where from a lot of people for not
Speaker 1: offering multitasking as an option. So this is sort of
Speaker 1: I guess this is sort of a compromise if you will,
Speaker 1: that the company is offering UM. And I also should
Speaker 1: say that a lot of my the information that when
Speaker 1: I was researching was came from Ours Technica, which did
Speaker 1: an excellent breakdown of the iOS uh in addition to
Speaker 1: you know, the Apple websites information, so um thanks and
Speaker 1: could to them. Yeah, Whereas I got a lot of
Speaker 1: my information from a c net full breakdown on the
Speaker 1: OS so again, uh, they did a lot of the
Speaker 1: work for us. We're just really kind of reporting on
Speaker 1: it and commenting on it um. But that's probably mostly
Speaker 1: because neither as far as I know, Chris, you don't.
Speaker 1: You aren't. You don't own anything currently running the OS four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's uh. Actually, if you want to get into the
Speaker 1: maybe a good segue for the devices that can and
Speaker 1: will run the iOS four. I own a first generation
Speaker 1: iPod Touch, which does not would the very first Chris,
Speaker 1: I'm curious how how long after you bought it did
Speaker 1: the second generation come out? That was about six weeks Jonathan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: six weeks. Uh. Yeah, Well I got it as a
Speaker 1: as part of the you know, every fall, Apple does
Speaker 1: the education deal where if you buy a Mac you
Speaker 1: can get a free iPod or what you really get
Speaker 1: as a credit, which is about the same amount. So
Speaker 1: I used it then and you know, when I went
Speaker 1: back to school a couple of years ago, and that's right,
Speaker 1: and then six weeks later, which is why I think
Speaker 1: it's actually a clearing house and let's get rid of
Speaker 1: the old stuff. We need to get rid of this
Speaker 1: old stock so we can make room for the new stuff.
Speaker 1: The other device I have that will run the iOS
Speaker 1: four doesn't have it yet, and when that's the iPad
Speaker 1: that will be getting it later this year, this year
Speaker 1: being in case you're from the future and listening to
Speaker 1: old podcasts, and we do get that sometimes, so yeah,
Speaker 1: hello to our future listeners. So we hope, we hope
Speaker 1: all our meals are in pill form and that we
Speaker 1: fly in cars, but it probably isn't going to happen,
Speaker 1: so anyway, Yeah, the second generation and third generation iPod
Speaker 1: Touch will run the iOS four and uh, any of
Speaker 1: the generations of iPad after, you know, starting this fall,
Speaker 1: we'll be able to do that. Um the iPhone, Um,
Speaker 1: that's a little trickier, I think. Uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: iPhone three G and three GS will run a version
Speaker 1: of iOS four. Of course, the iPhone four will without
Speaker 1: any problems for the iPhone, for it's the native operating
Speaker 1: system for the iPhone three G and iPhone three G S.
Speaker 1: You have to update your you have to upgrade your phone.
Speaker 1: You have to sink it and upgrade the operating system,
Speaker 1: which in some cases reportedly has been a fairly painless
Speaker 1: process takes like fifteen minutes. But I've I've read of
Speaker 1: other cases where it's taken hours and hours to upgrade
Speaker 1: the operating system UM, and as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: there's no real uh defining factor that differentiates those. Although
Speaker 1: I did from why I understand a lot of the
Speaker 1: three GS owners had fewer problems than the three G owners.
Speaker 1: So it may just be that the older the your
Speaker 1: hardware is, the longer it's going to take for it
Speaker 1: to upgrade. UM. I don't know that for a fact,
Speaker 1: because I don't I am not currently running anything that's
Speaker 1: running iOS four. I do have one device that can
Speaker 1: run it, which is it's actually not mine, it's my
Speaker 1: wife's up ontouch UM. But I have not upgraded it yet.
Speaker 1: I just haven't sat down to do it. UM. But yes,
Speaker 1: so that's a good, good point that there are these
Speaker 1: various devices that can run the iOS four, not all
Speaker 1: of them are going to have the same UM experience,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that has to do with the
Speaker 1: the hardware that they actual uh uh abilities of that hardware,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of processors that they have and
Speaker 1: the batteries that they have. UM. Apple does not want
Speaker 1: the user experience to suffer, so certain devices have various
Speaker 1: features turned off, like not all of them can multitask,
Speaker 1: for example. Um, but there are other ones that we
Speaker 1: can talk about. Two. In fact, there's some that are
Speaker 1: only native to the iPhone four. It may eventually come
Speaker 1: out for other devices, but the current generation of devices
Speaker 1: uh cannot access those features. So let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other ones though. Uh. Some of the other
Speaker 1: features of iOS four other features. Yeah, okay, Um, actually
Speaker 1: a meal has uh some new features. UM. Maybe less
Speaker 1: exciting if you don't use the mail feature on your
Speaker 1: on your device very much. But there is threading now,
Speaker 1: which I think is a very useful feature. Also unified inbox. Um,
Speaker 1: so if you like, if you have several email accounts
Speaker 1: and you want to combine them all into one inbox, um,
Speaker 1: which sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Um, you
Speaker 1: know you can do that. And apparently it has a
Speaker 1: little more support for on for the exchange server. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can actually have multiple exchange accounts. Um. You can
Speaker 1: access multiple exchange accounts from one device now, which is
Speaker 1: is kind of cool if you if you're running let's
Speaker 1: say you're running a business and uh, because you know,
Speaker 1: some people ask why would you have multiple exchange accounts? Well,
Speaker 1: let's say I'm running my own small business, and I
Speaker 1: have one email address for say, sales orders, and another
Speaker 1: email address for product support, then I would want I
Speaker 1: might want to be able to access both in the
Speaker 1: same view, as opposed to having to check one closet,
Speaker 1: open up a set up a client to check the
Speaker 1: second one. That kind of thing. Um. Another thing, uh,
Speaker 1: probably more popular with iPad users is the Bluetooth keyboard support,
Speaker 1: which which is kind of the only way I can
Speaker 1: see myself buying an iPad. I still haven't done it.
Speaker 1: I don't as beautiful as Chris as iPad is and
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. It's within my my site right now. Um,
Speaker 1: I still have not felt the need to buy one. Ye, yep, um,
Speaker 1: let's see. Let's see what home screen customization customizing? But
Speaker 1: now you can, um, and not on all of the
Speaker 1: devices either, but on certain devices, Yes, you can customize
Speaker 1: the home screen. You can also create folders on the
Speaker 1: home screen. Yeah, you can group applications into folders, although
Speaker 1: you're limited into as to the number of applications you
Speaker 1: can do that. I think it's up to twelve of
Speaker 1: per folders. So let's say that you have a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of games, for example, and you don't want all
Speaker 1: those games cluttering up your home screen, or you don't
Speaker 1: want to have, like, you don't want to have to
Speaker 1: scroll through like five or six home screens in order
Speaker 1: to find a particular application. You could group all those
Speaker 1: games into one folder for games, and then you click
Speaker 1: on the folder, and then that would allow you to
Speaker 1: choose the individual game you're interested in without you know so.
Speaker 1: So it makes a one click into a two click.
Speaker 1: And Apple eats to add clicks to stuff if they
Speaker 1: can avoid it. But when it comes to organizing, it
Speaker 1: does make it easier. Yeah. Um, the camera for the
Speaker 1: devices that have cameras now have digital zoom, right, That's true,
Speaker 1: they do. UM. And as a matter of fact, speaking
Speaker 1: of that, UM, you can use the faces feature uh
Speaker 1: and I fellow if you have a Mac computer, UM,
Speaker 1: it will which basically helps you it has face recognition. UM.
Speaker 1: The iOS four will also allow you to you uh,
Speaker 1: identify people certain people in photos. So if I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of folders with pictures of Jonathan in different
Speaker 1: uh you know, different events. For example, I could say
Speaker 1: I want to see just pictures of Jonathan and it
Speaker 1: would bring them all together where I could actually do that. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can also do that on as far as
Speaker 1: geo tagging too, because if you've taken, if you have
Speaker 1: photos that have been tagged by location, UM, it will
Speaker 1: allow you to h to identify, say, you know, pictures
Speaker 1: of Detroit. Um, you would be able to uh be
Speaker 1: able to do you had to pick Detroit. I'm needling you,
Speaker 1: um So anyway, so that's that's sort of nice too
Speaker 1: because if you if you're somebody who has a lot
Speaker 1: of photos on the different devices. UM, and I'm not
Speaker 1: somebody who takes a lot of pictures with my phone,
Speaker 1: but I know lots and lots of people do. Um,
Speaker 1: those are some some nice features that might be useful
Speaker 1: to you in that regard. Yep, you can also search
Speaker 1: text messages now the same way you can search email before.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when you go into text messages, if you
Speaker 1: if you're one of those people who have issued talking
Speaker 1: on the phone for texting, UM, seems to be happening
Speaker 1: more and more often. Yeah, I'm doing it more often. Actually,
Speaker 1: I found that the thing that the deciding factor for
Speaker 1: me was adopting a phone that had a keyboard as
Speaker 1: opposed to having you know, the numeric pad, because with
Speaker 1: the numeric pad, texting is a bit of a chore
Speaker 1: when there's a keyboard, whether it's on screen or it's
Speaker 1: a physical keyboard. In my case, it's a physical keyboard
Speaker 1: because I don't have an iPhone. I've got the Android phone.
Speaker 1: But either way, it just makes texting easier. And so
Speaker 1: that's what you know, I'm old, I don't. I didn't
Speaker 1: adopt texting like the like the kids do, get off
Speaker 1: my lawn. Um, but now you can. You can search
Speaker 1: those texts, which is great because if you remember, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, so and so texted me, like the other day,
Speaker 1: what time the movie was, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to search through thirty or forty text to find it.
Speaker 1: It's a good way of of zeroing in on that information.
Speaker 1: They also have a universal search feature, oh yeah, which
Speaker 1: allows you to search the Web or Wikipedia in fact
Speaker 1: for information about specific topics. It's just a little universal search. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's that makes uh, finding specific information a lot
Speaker 1: faster than it used to be. You don't have to
Speaker 1: you know, go into Safari or whatever to be able
Speaker 1: to activate it. And a little bit related to the
Speaker 1: the folders situation is you can now use create your
Speaker 1: own playlists, which you kind of could before with the
Speaker 1: on the go but um, I think they've revamped the
Speaker 1: ability to do that a little bit and refined it
Speaker 1: so that you have more control over the playlist. Well,
Speaker 1: you also don't have to go through iTunes anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: you could create an on the go thing with it
Speaker 1: with an old iPod because you know my my four
Speaker 1: g iPod, which by the way still works black and
Speaker 1: white screen scrorell wheel, you could create a playlist with that,
Speaker 1: but you basically, you know, it would call it on
Speaker 1: the go playlist, and you didn't you know, it was
Speaker 1: pretty limited to what you could do. But you could
Speaker 1: add stuff on on the you know, on the fly.
Speaker 1: I use on the go again, but now you have
Speaker 1: a lot more control over you can you can name them,
Speaker 1: you can edit the playlists right there on the device,
Speaker 1: and you have a lot more freedom with with regard
Speaker 1: to what you can do there. Um iBooks also as
Speaker 1: coming to these smaller devices, not just the iPad. Um
Speaker 1: I could say using it on the iPad is is
Speaker 1: nice because it's it's got a larger screen. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that I would be using e books much were
Speaker 1: I able to do that on my iPod Touch just
Speaker 1: because the screen is so small. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: like to do more reading on the screen real estate.
Speaker 1: I do know people who use their I who have
Speaker 1: been using their iPhones and iPods with the Kindle app
Speaker 1: stuff and Stanza too, which is an excellent uh freewhere app.
Speaker 1: So for people like that, it would you know, I
Speaker 1: Books is probably a welcome feature. Then there's there's I Movies,
Speaker 1: which is really for the iPhone for but it's part
Speaker 1: of iOS four right, yeah, but I Movies allows you
Speaker 1: to actually do some minor media editing on your iPhone.
Speaker 1: So when you're capturing video from your iPhone, you can
Speaker 1: actually after after you've captured it, you can you can
Speaker 1: snip off the beginning or end or insert even transitions
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, um, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly a much more skilled down version of
Speaker 1: media editing software than you would find on a full desktop.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you wouldn't expect to find anything really
Speaker 1: sophisticated on it, but it allows you to, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna make a quick video and uploaded to YouTube,
Speaker 1: it allows you to cut the dead space out of it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. Yeah, that's actually yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually I movie singular. Sorry but my bad. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: somebody will right in, so that's true. But they still
Speaker 1: will because they paused it. Yeah I'm sure they probably did,
Speaker 1: but thank you. But yeah, it's a it's a version basically,
Speaker 1: a really scaled down version of the one that you
Speaker 1: would see for the Mac. That's part of the I
Speaker 1: Life Suite. Um, let's see what else? Oh, spell checking? Yes,
Speaker 1: I know you're saying spell checking. You gotta be kidding me, know, Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to be off the automated suggestions so
Speaker 1: that you don't send people nonsense messages that can can
Speaker 1: sometimes be really really embarrassing, spell check is a great feature, yes,
Speaker 1: because I've seen some messages from people who use their
Speaker 1: iPhone and they had the automated uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: suggestion thing going, because you know, you're using that touchscreen keyboard,
Speaker 1: so sometimes you know, you fat finger a couple of
Speaker 1: buttons and then the iPhone or iPod touch or whatever
Speaker 1: suggests the spelling for whatever word you're trying to spell,
Speaker 1: and you accidentally selected and it turns out it wasn't
Speaker 1: the word at all, or even better, what happens more
Speaker 1: often with me. Is I type in a word and UM,
Speaker 1: I the the iPhone OS, which is what I'm still running.
Speaker 1: UM will suggest another word that has the same you know,
Speaker 1: it has essentially the same letters as the beginning, and
Speaker 1: we'll go ahead and auto complete it for you. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't the word I meant to do at all. Now.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the way it's done now, if
Speaker 1: you want to type i'm and you want to skip
Speaker 1: the apostrophe, you can just type I am and it
Speaker 1: will go ahead and do that. Of course, you wanted
Speaker 1: to type i'll I am you later, then you have
Speaker 1: to go back. You either have to click the or
Speaker 1: tap the X thing no, I don't want to use that,
Speaker 1: or go back and manually enter the apostrophe yourself. Um.
Speaker 1: The new version of spell check doesn't do that. Uh.
Speaker 1: It does what Microsoft Word and so many other word
Speaker 1: processors do now and underlines it and read basically saying,
Speaker 1: are you sure this is the word the word you mean?
Speaker 1: And we'll give you if you tap it, it will
Speaker 1: give you other options, so it will not automatically complete
Speaker 1: things for you and and try to respell things UM
Speaker 1: a different way. There's also a dedicated birthday calendar. Really
Speaker 1: you haven't anyway. Yeah, there's a dedicate you can keep
Speaker 1: track of upcoming This is from c that you can
Speaker 1: keep track of upcoming birthdays with a designated calendar. It's
Speaker 1: accessible directly from the main calendar option, so you can
Speaker 1: have a separate birthday. So I said it comes directly
Speaker 1: from sen That's why I quoted it. Um, But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the the that's kind of a useful feature if
Speaker 1: you want to have one calendar just for things like
Speaker 1: appointments and that kind of stuff your schedule, and you
Speaker 1: don't want it to be filled with stuff like you know,
Speaker 1: as well as stuff is like Bob's birthday. I can
Speaker 1: see the usefulness of having a separate birthday calendar. That's
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Um. One of the things I thought
Speaker 1: was neat with iOS four is that you can send
Speaker 1: apps as gifts to other Apple customers. Yes, so you can.
Speaker 1: You can purchase it. Let's say that you absolutely love
Speaker 1: this one app and you want to send it like
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's maybe it's uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: plants versus Zombies or a how Stuff Works app. You think, Hey,
Speaker 1: my buddy Bob would love this. There's there's Bob again
Speaker 1: talking about Bob a lot. Um. We was such an
Speaker 1: important part of Microsoft's history, and yet now he's using
Speaker 1: Apple products for some reason. But Bob would love this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy this app and send it to him
Speaker 1: as a president. You can do that now, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yep, that's a very very nice within iowas four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as opposed to telling Bob's that it's an awesome thing
Speaker 1: and then giving Bob and iTunes you know, gift card
Speaker 1: or something so that Bob can give it for himself.
Speaker 1: Because we know that Bob's lazy and he's never going
Speaker 1: to get around to it, so it's much better to
Speaker 1: do it this way. Oh, Jonathan Loo, Bob did not
Speaker 1: come to my birthday party, so and I have all
Speaker 1: right he and I. Things are cold between me and
Speaker 1: Bob right now. I understand. I understand how that works.
Speaker 1: All right. Wow, there's gonna be later this year, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a game center really yeah, as part of
Speaker 1: ioas four. Yeah, it's a it's gonna have social gaming
Speaker 1: network type features and um, it's gonna give you the
Speaker 1: ability to invite people to play games with you. What's
Speaker 1: gonna have leaderboards, um, that kind of stuff, A lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff that you see in in things like
Speaker 1: Xbox Live. The whole idea about leaderboards and achievements things
Speaker 1: like that, that's gonna come to the iPhone, which our
Speaker 1: iOS four rather, which is phenomenal because I could tell
Speaker 1: you as a as someone who now has an Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty, achievements are like crack cocaine. If you get
Speaker 1: an achievement in a game and then you're thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool, and you get rewarded by points um,
Speaker 1: which really just kind of become bragging rights, but it
Speaker 1: gives you the incentive to try and hunt out the
Speaker 1: other achievements and earn them. It's it's like earning badges.
Speaker 1: It's cool. It's a cool little uh incentive. So what's
Speaker 1: sort of like a social network then, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: another way for for people to kind of interact within
Speaker 1: within using games. So before in order for that to work, um,
Speaker 1: they actually have to have that baked into the software. Right,
Speaker 1: so like an existing app will not instantly be able
Speaker 1: to connect. Now you would have to you have to
Speaker 1: get like maybe an update to the existing apps, and
Speaker 1: you'd have to update your your applications or to implement
Speaker 1: that new feature. UM. So a lot of developers are
Speaker 1: already looking at the applications they've already developed that are
Speaker 1: already in the Itune store. It's saying, well, how can
Speaker 1: I adjust these to incorporate these new features uh, because
Speaker 1: you know it'll it's just one of those things where
Speaker 1: um uh you know, you could just not touch them
Speaker 1: and the apps will still work just fine. It's just
Speaker 1: they won't be as robust as some of the new
Speaker 1: stuff that's taking advantage of these these new capabilities, right right, Well,
Speaker 1: they That's one of the big stories that's probably not
Speaker 1: as interesting to the mainstream consumer is that Apple has
Speaker 1: released a number of new A p I s UM,
Speaker 1: which are programming interfaces for the UH for developers to use,
Speaker 1: and it basically gives them a lot of UH technology
Speaker 1: they can use to access functionality and the operating system
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't have before. One that is going to
Speaker 1: matter more I think to the to the consumer is
Speaker 1: i ads UM, which is their advertising platform UM. And
Speaker 1: what that's gonna do is probably for most people, going
Speaker 1: to reduce the cost of some of the software some
Speaker 1: of the applications, maybe offered now for free or for
Speaker 1: less than they would have beforehand, because it's going to
Speaker 1: be um, it's going to offer the developer a source
Speaker 1: of incremental revenue. It's kind of given them an opportunity
Speaker 1: to make a little bit more money than they would
Speaker 1: have otherwise because they're gonna have advertising along with the
Speaker 1: game or the other application that they're running. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of people are going to find that
Speaker 1: irritating to have advertising mixed in with that. And I've
Speaker 1: seen on some of the discussion boards about it. I've
Speaker 1: seen Android fans uh laughing about it, and I'm thinking
Speaker 1: they shouldn't laugh too hard because Google is all about advertising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I think once this becomes the mainstream thing and Google,
Speaker 1: we know the Google is interested in that too, because
Speaker 1: Google snapped up a few mobile advertising companies already. So
Speaker 1: it's from have from under Apple's nose. Yeah. So I mean,
Speaker 1: and I'm an Android fan, don't get me wrong, but
Speaker 1: I have no I have no illusions about where we're headed.
Speaker 1: Oh I And I don't think it's limited either to
Speaker 1: those two platforms. I think that's it's going to become
Speaker 1: more common, although it will also give people an opportunity
Speaker 1: to access more applications then they would they might necessarily
Speaker 1: have been willing to pay for. You know, now that
Speaker 1: it's going to be subsidized, at least partially with advertising,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it'll just sort of open the
Speaker 1: doors a little bit more, and we'll also foster more
Speaker 1: development if developers feel like they can make some more well.
Speaker 1: And and it's also opening up new problems for Apple
Speaker 1: and that in the sense that this is this specifically
Speaker 1: relates back to the iPhone four, but uh, the whole
Speaker 1: geolocation aspect where you can target ads based on someone's location.
Speaker 1: So let's say that that our friend Bob over there
Speaker 1: who likes that app so much. Let's say he also
Speaker 1: happens to have a particular shoe store and he wants
Speaker 1: to advertise to iPhone users who are living in the
Speaker 1: general area of where his store is. Um, because the
Speaker 1: way iOS four works and the way the iPhone four works,
Speaker 1: and the fact that Apple is constantly keeping track of
Speaker 1: where you are, that's a pretty big deal. You could
Speaker 1: theoretically purchase targeted ads to people within that area who
Speaker 1: are Apple customers, which sounds great for business owners, but
Speaker 1: for iPhone users It's kind of scary because now you're thinking,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what do you mean that Apple is
Speaker 1: tracking me wherever I go? There's no way to turn
Speaker 1: this stuff off so that Apple doesn't know where I am.
Speaker 1: And that's actually become a pretty big uh issue within
Speaker 1: the whole technology sector right now. Is the fact that
Speaker 1: is Apple is what Apple is that policy even legal
Speaker 1: for Apple to to follow it where they are essentially
Speaker 1: keeping track of you through geolocation data on your iPhone device,
Speaker 1: your iPhone four, let's be specific. UM. But you know
Speaker 1: that's that's unfolding as we record this. In fact, by
Speaker 1: the time this podcast goes live, I'm sure there'll be
Speaker 1: more information about it, and we may end up doing
Speaker 1: a more thorough podcast, not just about the iPhone four,
Speaker 1: because Apple is not the only company that's looking into this. Again,
Speaker 1: Google has very similar issues. UM. We might actually have
Speaker 1: to do another, yet another privacy podcast, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about privacy and geolocation, which is a much more
Speaker 1: specific topic than say Facebook privacy. UM and UH. I've
Speaker 1: I've seen some seeing some basic reviews of iOS four
Speaker 1: UM and some more through ones like the harsh Technico.
Speaker 1: When I mentioned earlier, UM and for the most part,
Speaker 1: people seem to be pretty pleased. I would say that
Speaker 1: most people say that it's been a very very good
Speaker 1: evolutionary step. It's not necessarily revolutionary, and that some of
Speaker 1: the advancements like multitasking probably don't go quite as far
Speaker 1: as some would like them to go. But you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to remember that Apple's balancing out not just
Speaker 1: the functions, but the experience and especially battery life. They
Speaker 1: want to make sure that, you know, they don't sacrifice
Speaker 1: battery life just so that you can run more applications
Speaker 1: in the background. Um well, that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that people, uh, you know, to cry about Apple
Speaker 1: is how it's a closed system and Apple does keep
Speaker 1: quite a bit of control over the advices, but they
Speaker 1: can also, um use that to improve their the experiences
Speaker 1: that their customers. They may not always use that to
Speaker 1: improve my experiences. They might be using it for other reasons,
Speaker 1: but right, but in this in this case at least,
Speaker 1: Apple has said that its intention is to maximize battery
Speaker 1: life and to keep it from being a problem for people.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, well, speaking as someone who owns
Speaker 1: a phone, that the battery does rarely less longer than
Speaker 1: a full day's use. In fact, usually I have to
Speaker 1: charge it at least once throughout the day in order
Speaker 1: to maintain that use through for the whole day. I
Speaker 1: can certainly appreciate the notion that they want to extend
Speaker 1: battery life as long as possible. To be fair, though,
Speaker 1: how long have you had that? That HTCG one coming
Speaker 1: up on two years? So, yeah, which is about when,
Speaker 1: in my experience, the lifetime of a phone battery starts
Speaker 1: to go down to even on day one. So so
Speaker 1: the thing about it is that the more features you
Speaker 1: turn on, the faster and drains the battery. No surprise,
Speaker 1: there SOPs turned on. Yeah, GPS and WiFi and three
Speaker 1: G and all that kind of stuff. That's exactly why
Speaker 1: Apple wants to be able to control that experience to
Speaker 1: all a certain lope level. Good lord, I need I
Speaker 1: almost got all the way through without completely stumbling over myself. Well,
Speaker 1: one problem that our tech Stuff listeners have had with
Speaker 1: iOS forum on certain devices, on certain devices is a
Speaker 1: likelihood that you won't be able to listen to tech stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah that actually, or any health Stuff Works podcast for
Speaker 1: that matter. And it's not It's not limited to just
Speaker 1: the how stuff works podcasts either I've seen from the
Speaker 1: research I have done online. It's not all podcasts from
Speaker 1: the iTunes store. It looks like certain podcasts, and apparently
Speaker 1: it clears up if you actually download the podcast to
Speaker 1: your computer and then sink them. It looks like it's
Speaker 1: a sinking issue. Like if you're trying to get the
Speaker 1: podcast directly to your device without sinking your your device
Speaker 1: to your computer, then you run into the problem. But
Speaker 1: if you download it to the computer first and then
Speaker 1: sink it seems to work fine. Yeah. Um, and by
Speaker 1: the time this podcast goes live, that may not even
Speaker 1: be an issue anymore. Yeah, but it's it's pretty strange
Speaker 1: and I don't know why. Um, somebody thought we actually
Speaker 1: changed the format and nope, it's an MP three yea,
Speaker 1: the same as so same as it ever was, same
Speaker 1: as everyone. I wonder why it's only unsumming on on
Speaker 1: others one of those things. We're still taking a look
Speaker 1: at it. Well. That wraps up our discussion on iOS four.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed this companion podcast to the iPhone for
Speaker 1: podcast And if you have any questions, whether it's Apple
Speaker 1: related or not, me not, you can write us are
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and Chris and I will talk you again really soon
Speaker 1: if you're a tech stuff and be sure to check
Speaker 1: us out on Twitter text stuff hs ws R handle,
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash tech stuff h s W for more
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