Apple's iOS 4.1: New and Updated Features

Apple's much anticipated iOS 4.1 update has arrived much in parallel with the new school year. The operating system that has been promising to deliver many fixes to the recent and major iOS 4 release, also arrives with a bunch of new and notable features.

The iOS is the official operating system for Apple's popular wave of mobile devices. Once stated as simply the iPhone OS, the mobile operating system name now also relates to iPads and iPods as well. iOS 4, which was announced in April of 2010, was eventually released a few months later in late June. The operating system's availability was notably only a few days before the iPhone 4 hit retail shelves.

iOS 4 brought next generation features to Apple devices, such as, business features, multi-threading, and more. This newest operating system also arrived in the midst of the iPhone antenna reception issues. With many stories, reasons, and complaints around the reception issues; an update, iOS 4.01, was soon released to address antenna issues. A subsequent release, 4.02 arrived shortly thereafter to solve security vulnerability issues.

Now, only a short month after the last minor update to the OS that arrives just 4 months after its initial release, a new major update has been made available to Apple device owners. The new release, 4.1, offers tweaks for existing issues, new features, and is also being introduced as the OS that powers the new iPod Touch. Notably, the iPhone 3G's reported performance issues, Bluetooth connectivity problems, and proximity sensor "misfires", have apparently now been resolved.

New features make up the majority of iOS 4's strength. At apple's recent special music event Steve Jobs outlined iOS 4's new features as including a new Game Center, TV rentals, iTunes Ping, HDR photography, and HD video uploads for YouTube.

Apple's Game Center and iTunes Ping are two new social networking centers. By using the App Store, users can browse and play games, network with other players, view leader-boards, perform status updates, and more. Ping is Apple's new method for sharing, discussing, and rating music with friends. TV rentals through the iTunes store is now available, and shows are accessible from ABC and FOX (currently) for 99 cents.

A handful of settings rounds out the list of notable iOS 4.1 changes. Multiplayer gaming can be turned off for privacy reasons, spell check can now be overall disabled in the OS, HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is supported with the internal camera, videos can be sent directly to YouTube in HD, and the ability to save other iPhone 4 contacts as numbers or FaceTime contacts is now supported.

Apple's iOS 4.1 is free for iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Sources/Resources:

Apple iOS on Wikipedia
Tipb: iOS 4.1 walkthrough