Apple iPhone iOS4 upgrade live

In a slightly unusual move Apple have released the iPhone OS update before the new devices hit the stores. Normally it is the other way round.

iTunes is offering Apple's iOS 4 for upgrade.

iOS 4 contains over 100 improvements, but the headliners are MultiTasking, Application Folders, Improved Mail App, and iBooks. Apps taking advantage of these new features started appearing in the Apple AppStore over the last few days, and now they will be eligible for downloading and installing onto your updated iPhone.

Grab it here and enjoy speedier web access over GPRS and EDGE! Not only that but it also features various search features (eBay, Google, Amazon, Wikipedia), search for text on a page, copy/paste text, bookmarks, the now familiar Opera home page with multiple ‘favourite’ blocks and quick previews of the current tabs/pages you have open.

Having played with the 3G version of OS4 for a few days there are a few new features that are quite small but are really useful.

Firstly the Spotlight Search has been extended to include messages (previously only mail was searched). Also, at the end of the results list are two quick links to search in Google and in Wikipedia. This opens up the relevant search page in Safari.

The next new feature is the integrated spell-check. Unrecognised words are underlined in red and then when you tap on the word you are given a few suggestions as to what word you intended writing. This, along with the good old spelling corrections, makes typing in the iPhone even more fulfilling.

Searching in Safari has also been improved. The Google/Yahoo! search bar now offers suggested searches just like when you use the normal Google/Yahoo! websites.

Maps has a new view mode so you now have the option of map, satellite, hybrid or list. List simply shows a list of the directions for your route or just shows your search result(s) in text form.

Whenever the GPS (or other ‘My Location’ services) are running you now get an arrow showing in the status bar. I can only assume that this has been added as am aid to multitasking so you an easily see if there’s an app running that’s using the GPS.

Sending messages has become friendlier for the cheap-skates among us (or those who tweet by SMS) with the new option of a ‘character count’. After writing 3 lines of a message a count appears above the send button saying, for example, 89/160. At the moment it will also simply say 254/160 but you have to work out for yourself how many messages that will take up! Remember though, this is still beta so it may well be improved upon.

App folders work really well and have been covered by various blogs across the web. Simply drag an app on top of another one to create a folder and then rename it and add/arrange further apps. You can fit up to 12 apps into a folder and can also place them in the dock thereby giving you quick access to 48 apps regardless of which home screen you are currently on.

The Camera app now has 5x digital zoom, for what it’s worth. Simply tap the screen and a slider will appear. It’s digital zoom though so not completely wonderful, but still, it’s something new so worth a mention!

And, finally, the unified inbox! This is great! Changes mailboxes was such a hassle but now from your inbox it’s a single tap to get to the list of accounts where you can either view a single mailbox or everything together. You can still view all the other folders (Trash, Sent etc) easily too. Another enhancement to the Mail app is threaded email. If you have multiple emails with the same subject / recipient then you can view these in a single thread. Mail will show the number of messages and a double arrow to signify this.

UPDATES:

The Calendar app has had a little update too – but it’s very useful. You can now select which calendars you want to display for example if you have a few Mobile Me calendars as well as a GMail calendar. Also added is a Birthdays calendar – the data for this is pulled from your contacts list and is not editable (i.e. you can’t add an alert for them).

Something I missed earlier with the updates to the Mail app is the new option to resize image attachments. When you press ‘send’ you are asked if you want to resize the image or use the original size.

Over the air Notes syncing has also been added. The Notes app now has an accounts button where you can choose which notes are shown in the list – this includes ‘all notes’, Mobile Me notes’, ‘gmail notes’ and ‘notes on the iPhone’.

In the Settings there are a couple of new additions too. You can now turn off all cellular data and not just 3G like you could previously. Also, once you have given an app permission to use your location then you can manually turn on/off that permission in the Location Services settings.

I mentioned earlier about the spell-check feature when inputting text. Something I missed was the option to ‘Replace’. When you select text you now get the option to Cut, Copy, Paste or Replace. Replace simply gives you a selection of a few similar looking words to change to. This would be useful when you accidentally select the wrong word via the spell-checker!

And, finally, for this update the iPod’s ‘On-The-Go Playlists’ have been removed! Before you reel in horror I should explain that they have been replaced with just good, old fashioned, playlists. Tap on ‘Add Playlist’, give it a title and then pick the songs you want to add.

If we find any further forgotten features we’ll make sure we post them here at Wired4iPhone.com

On the website you can view all your previous tracks as well as historical data to see how (if?) you’ve improved and also see your friends logs. The maps can be easily shared via the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

The iPhone app is available for free here and allows friends to send ‘pep talk’ messages that are then read out using Text to Speech to the user for example “Come on Mickey, you’ve been sat in Starbucks for 30 minutes, now get moving”.

The app and website are completely free at the moment. Premium features will be made available in the future (such as personalised training regimes) but the app and site, as they are now, will remain free – it will simply be additional features that will be paid for.

Zombies is a turn-based game where your aim is to, rather unsurprisingly, kill the zombies. This is not, however, the usual gore-laden shooter commonly associated with zombie games but, rather, an amusing little gem that is so addictive in it’s simplicity. How many other zombie-based games have the lead character saying in their best British accent ‘oh dear’ when devoured by the living dead?!

It is, apparently, based on a daleks turn-based game and the aim is to destroy the zombies by making them collide. When they do collide they burst into flames with a groan. To keep things interesting there are ‘banish’ spells dotted about on some levels and also the ‘flee’ button. Banish spells destroy any zombies one ‘square’ away from you so it’s handy to pick them up and save them for some of the later levels. The flee button sends you to a random point on the screen accompanied by a python-esque ‘run away’ which does, sometimes, result in another ‘oh dear’ situation…

As you progress to the third set of levels you find yourself surrounded by a random number of zombies and banish spells. It keeps things interesting to say the least!

Zombies has a catchy theme tune as well as some amusing character voices but does lack some features. The ability to edit or remove players from the roster would be appreciated and I, personally, would like to see a level editor allowing you to create your own levels with, perhaps, the ability to share these with other users.

All in all for a (currently) 59p game it is fun and addictive – the randomly generated levels keep it fresh every time. Zombies is one of those games you can just pick up and play for 5 minutes while standing in the queue at Morrisons!

A good start and I’m looking forward to the updates!

This special offer pricing applies to both the iPhone app in the Apple AppStore and the Android app from Android Market. Happy Holidays!!!

The CoPilot Promotion PR:

Thanksgiving is always one of the busiest times on the roads and 2009 will be no exception. In fact AAA are forecasting an increase on 2009, with almost 40 million Americans travelling more than 50 miles over the weekend.

Travel easier this Thanksgiving – and beyond with CoPilot Live.

Tesco is to sell iphone

Hot off the press is news that Tesco have joined in on the iPhone war here in the UK. On the Tesco Direct website confirmation of their move has already been made. It is suggested they will do both the 3G and the 3GS but nothing as yet on pricings.

It is also to be noted that this is a joint partnership with O2 so we could speculate that the rates will stay the same but if tesco history of price slashing is anything to go by we may see them set a president for Orange and Vodaphone to follow.

Let the wars begin?

Should be in before Christmas.

Be warned – new SSH worm loose

After the two relatively harmless SSH worms to hit the iPhone it was only a matter of time before someone would use the security hole for malicious intent. We must point out that this worm can only infect Jailbroken iPhones with the OpenSSH app installed, and the advise is to ensure you change the default password immediately or uninstall the app if you don’t use it.

The previous worms were just a stunt to warn users of OpenSSH, that their phones were unsecure by harmlessly changing the wallpaper. The second worm specifically changed it to the portrait of the singer Rick Roll which has now become an internet gag for being caught out or punk’d.

This new infection is far more dangerous, with the ability to steal important information from the iphone, possibly from a banking app, but also has botnet functionality to recruit other infected iphones for botnet attack. This new worm is only the tip of the iceberg where the harm is only limited by the imagination of the attacker.

The simplest of fixes it to remove the OpenSSh app as mentioned before or to change the SSH default password of  ’alpine’ to something new. Details on how to do this can be found HERE.

Remember that these worms can only affect Jailbroken iPhones with OpenSSH with the default password set!

Magellan Raodmate for the iPhone

A second item on the same Press Release mentions a Premium Car Kit. This is an Active cradle for the iPhone with its own GPS receiver, internal amplifier and bluetooth hands-free. This is an adjustable design to allow the iPhone to be used with skins and cases in place. It is also compatible with the iPhone classic and iPod Touch enabling these devices to be used for navigation. At $129.99 it is slightly more expensive than the TomTom cradle ($119) and is expected to be shipping in December.

The initial mapping offered through the Apple AppStore includes USA, Canada and Puerto rico. In the future Western US, Eastern US and Europe will also be available.

Click here for the Magellan iPhone information page.

Magellan Roadmate for iPhone Screen

The Magellan Press Release follows:

MAGELLAN® COMPLETE TURN-BY-TURN NAVIGATION APP NOW AVAILABLE ON THE APP STORE

The Magellan RoadMate App (U.S. & Canada maps) is available for an introductory price of $79.99 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch devices or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/. The MSRP for the car kit will be $129.99.

Available on Orange from November 10th, the published prices are strikingly similar to the current O2 offering. Take a look at Orange’s prices here and feel free to compare them to O2′s here.

With any luck, Vodafone will be a little more daring in their prices when they launch in the new year and bring the price down on the iPhone 3G and 3GS – both of which are often regarded as over-priced devices!