Monday, April 05, 2010, 12:25 pm

Apple to introduce iPhone OS 4.0 on April 8

By AppleInsider Staff

Apple on Monday announced that it will formally introduce the next version of its mobile operating system, iPhone OS 4.0, at a special event scheduled for this week, April 8.

Apple sent out invitations on Monday for the event, scheduled for 10 a.m. Pacific, offering a "sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone software," according to Engadget. The event will be held at the company's Cupertino, Calif., campus.

Apple is expected to release iPhone OS 4.0, along with a new version of its iPhone, this summer at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

In March AppleInsider reported that Apple plans to add full multitasking support in the forthcoming release of the 4.0 software update. Sources said that the company has developed a "full-on solution" to allow multitasking of third-party applications on the App Store.

The existing iPhone 3.x software is a fully preemptive multitasking operating system, but it only allows Apple-developed applications to run in the background.

Released on Saturday, the iPad runs a new version of the iPhone OS, version 3.2, that is only compatible with the new device. In February, Apple released iPhone OS 3.1.3 with a battery reporting fix.


iPhone OS 2.0 granted the iPhone the ability to run third-party applications natively with the App Store. It was released in 2008, and in less than two years has resulted in 150,000 applications created for the platform.

In 2009, Apple released iPhone OS 3.0 adding cut, copy and paste, MMS, voice memos, and Spotlight search.