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Apr. 9, 2010

Late yesterday, Apple has unveiled its new iPhone ver. 4.0 operating system that the company is expected to include in an updated version of its popular smartphone sometime in mid-July.

The new OS includes what Apple calls “seven tent poles” that are enhancements over the current operating system.

In demonstrating its new capabilities, Apple used Skype’s VoIP application as an example with the application running in the background.

Once a call came in, a pop up on the screen informed the user of the incoming call.

The use of Skype was popular at Verizon Wireless, which in February announced an exclusive agreement with Skype to integrate the new service on devices being offered by the mobile carrier, including those running Google’s Android OS and Research In Motion’s Blackberry OS.

Apple’s iPhone is available exclusively in the U.S. via AT&T Mobility, which announced in 2009 that it would allow third-party VoIP applications to run over its 3G network sometime this year.

The multitasking functionality has been a sore point with the iPhone community, with many noting that other lesser operating systems did allow users to have multiple applications opened all at the same time.

Apple has finally reacted by providing such capabilities into the new operating system.

Two of the most significant updates included the injection of multitasking capabilities into the OS and Apple’s new iAd platform that will allow application developers to insert Apple-hosted advertisements into mobile apps.

Apple's announcement could have a greater impact on the industry as a whole as the mobile advertising market has so far struggled to develop an effective platform in which to provide compelling content to users.

Apple said it will provide a hosting service that will allow mobile apps developers to insert advertisements in their games that can take advantage of many of the device’s embedded capabilities to make those advertisements more compelling to users.

This could especially be useful to those developers that had some difficulty justifying a business model for free applications that have so far accounted for a vast majority of the apps downloaded through Apple’s iTunes store front.

In other news, Apple's new iPad has been breached already. Using a variation of the iPhone method and demonstrating just how much the two devices have in common, some hackers were able to exploit some rather serious security holes in the iPad.

Not only that, but the attacks were completed in less than 24 hours after the iPad was launched Saturday with much fanfare. Apple managed to sell 300,000 iPads on its launch date.

The security hole that was discovered enables the potential hacker to install everything from Wi-Fi scanners to porn (pornography is prohibited by Apple) although for the moment it just allows a remote terminal connection.

But some Internet security observers say it's rather simple to cause more damage if the hacker is more knowledgeable.

Worse, the iPad security hole that was discovered even allows Palm OS applications to run on it.

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Source: Apple.