Wherein I use more gadgets than needed for a simple blog post

iPhone OS 4.0 (errr, make that iOS 4.0) hit the streets for the general populace today (nice Ars Technica review), and I decided to give everything a field test and write an entire blog post with it on my 3GS. As a registered iPhone developer (yeah, I’m dabbling), I’ve been running the GM since last week, but it never occurred to me to try out the bluetooth keyboard tethering until now. It’s nice, but considering that even the Apple keyboard is 5 times the size of the phone, I don’t see myself carrying this around on a day to day basis. I’m using the dock to hold the phone, and the angle isn’t the best. On the iPad, it reclines back further, and the overall size of the iPad means I don’t have to look down too far and risk a neck strain.

The WordPress iPhone app updated today as well to support fast app switching, which I’m going to use right… NOW to grab some URLs for this post… OK, I’m back and it worked, although I’ve already discovered a bug. Being connected via a bluetooth keyboard seems to reserve room for the actual keyboard in the lower half of the screen, even though it doesn’t pop up with an external keyboard connected.

A few apps started to update late last week for 4.0, but Pandora really kicked things off this morning for a lot of people. Not only does it support ‘fast app switching’, like some of the recent apps, but it truly plays in the background now and might be the biggest contributing factor towards many people on the old unlimited AT&T plan reconsidering switching to a $5 or $15 cheaper one. Between this and Rdio (anyone need invites?), I’m back in one of my music discovery cycles.

Does 4.0 deliver full blown multitasking goodness? Well, no. Craig Hockenberry has a good summary (don’t worry, he uses lowercase letters) of what it really offers in order to peacefully co-exist within the realities of memory and power restrictions of a mobile device, and earlier this week, Instapaper author Marco Arment already talked about the false expectations that the freely banded about term ‘multitasking’ is going to generate for app developers. He has a great proposal for a periodic, background HTTP downloading service that I can see come in handy for a lot of apps. For now, it’s in the hands of the developer community to adopt ‘multitasking’ features to the extent that iOS 4.0 allows for. Things I’d like to see:

• Background uploading of images to Flickr.
• Synching of Instapaper & Reeder after I’ve launched it and switched to another app.
• Fouresquare/Yelp reminding me when I’m in the vicinity of a location that I’ve previously checked into (anything else would be too spammy).
• OmniFocus notifying me that new tasks are due.
• Twit Live app background streaming (you can actually already use the live feed in the background with Mobile Safari even before 4.0, but you can’t open another browser tab or it stops streaming)

Another thought: How wild would it be if Command-Tab actually popped open the recently used apps list at the bottom and allowed me to switch between apps? Even on the iPad, when an external keyboard is connected, you still have to touch the screen for certain things. I’d love to be able to simulate a home button click or switch pages and navigate to other apps with the keyboard. Or activate my bookmarks in Mobile Safari.

OK, bored with iOS 4.0 now. When is 5.0 due out again?