When Apple launched iOS 4, the company took a sort of tiered approach. If you had an iPhone 4, it shipped with the new operating system and all its new features. If you had an iPhone 3GS or third generation iPod touch, you could install an update to get all the nifty new features. If you had a first generation iPhone or iPod touch, you were out of luck. No update for you.

Then there was the middle ground: iPhone 3G and second generation iPod touch users. We got to install iOS, but we didn’t get all the features. This crippled version doesn’t let you multitask or install custom wallpapers, among other things. Apple officials said that’s because these earlier devices simply don’t have the processor power to handle those features. That seems fair.

What doesn’t seem fair is the fact that these devices also don’t seem to have the processor power to handle other elements of iOS 4. Users have been reporting since day one that installing iOS 4 on an iPhone 3G or second generation iPod touch causes the device to slow down considerably. It takes longer to launch apps, switch between apps, or adjust settings.

Apparently Apple is aware of the issue, and according to an email Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent to a customer, a software update is on the way that could address the problem. Smart money is that he’s referring to iOS 4.1. Unfortunately there’s still no word on when it will be available or how much it will help. Jobs was also specifically referring to performance on the iPhone 3G. He didn’t mention the iPod touch at all, but I’m holding out hope that the update will improve performance on that model as well.

Of course, since iOS 4 doesn’t actually offer a whole lot of new features to iPhone 3 and iPod touch 2g users, you can also simply downgrade from ioS 4 to iPhone OS 3.1.

Update: There’s now an easier method for installing Flash on a jailbroken iDevice. See below.

There’s good news and bad news for iPhone users who have been hoping to get Adobe Flash up and running on their phones. The good news is you can do it now. The bad news is that it only works on iOS 4 and you need to jailbreak your device.

Oh yeah, more bad news:

• Flash for the iPhone isn’t supported by Apple or Adobe.
• There’s no support for video streaming yet.
• It’s not even called Flash at this point, but rather “Frash.”
• Installation is kind of a pain at this point, even if your phone is already jailbroken.
• Frash for iOS 4 is only available as an alpha right now, so it might not be all that stable/
• Since the iPhone wasn’t designed with Flash in mind (or vice versa), this will probably wreak havoc on your battery life.

But if you really, really want to play Farmville on your phone or view Flash-based ads on web sites, you can do it now. It looks like the hacker who ported Flash to run on iOS has made a sort of Flash-on-demand feature, which means your web browser will tell you when it encounters Flash content and you have to tap the screen to see Flash. This should allow web sites to load much more quickly than if you left Flash enabled all the time.

Blogger Grant Pannell has posted detailed instructions for installing Frash on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3G, or iPad. And if you want to see Frash in action on an iPhone 4, check out the video after the break, courtesy of Redmond Pie.

Update: OK, it looks like there’s an easier way to install Flash/Frash on an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, Ipod touch 3G, and iPad. You simply need to:

1. Open the Cydia app on your jailbroken device
2. Click the Manage button, and then select Sources
3. Tap the Edit button and then select Add
4. Add “http://repo.benm.at” (without the quotation marks
5. Search for Frash and click the Install button.

via Engadget, Comex, and Gizmodo

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Apple iOS 4 is designed to run on the iPhone 4, but it also works with older devices including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3, and second and third generation iPod touch models. But if you have an older device like the iPhone 3 or iPod touch 2nd generation, you’re stuck with a limited version of the OS that lacks some key features such as the ability to multitask or change desktop wallpapers.

Now it turns out that Apple’s leaving older device users in the dust in another way too. The latest beta version of Game Center no longer supports the iPhone 3G or second generation iPod touch.

I suppose this all makes sense, since older devices have slower processors that can’t keep up with all the new features in iOS 4. Many users have noticed that their devices feel a lot slower after upgrading the operating system. I had kind of been hoping that iOS 4.1 might offer a bit of a speed boost once it’s available for download, but the fact that Apple is removing Game Center support doesn’t give me much reason for optimisim there.

Still, if you’ve already upgraded to iOS 4 and don’t mind the slightly sluggish performance, there are unofficial apps that let you enable wallpapers and multitasking. Maybe we’ll see a Game Center hack too?

via TUAW and 9 to 5 Mac

A few weeks ago Apple launched iOS 4, which allows you to run certain third party apps and functions in the background. From the get go, developers started pumping out apps that could play music in the background or which stored some data in the background to enable faster app switching. But it wasn’t until today that one of the apps most in need of a multitasking makeover got its update.

The Skype app for iOS now supports multitasking. That means it can run in the background while you do other things with your phone. You can make a call and then look up a location in the iPhone map application without disconnecting the call. Or you can receive an incoming Skype call when you’re reading a web site using Safari.

You can use the app to make free voice calls to other Skype users over WiFi or 3G connections. You can also make calls or send text messages to phone numbers at Skype subscription or pay as you go rates.

Skype for iOS is available as a free download from the App Store.

Image credit: Ars Technica

When Google introduced Android 2.2, the company announced that one of the biggest changes was a new Just In Time (JIT) compiler which dramatically sped up Javascript performance. That means that most third party apps run faster on Android 2.2 than Android 2.1, and many web sites with Javascript elements render more quickly.

But how does Google’s latest mobile operating system stack up against Apple’s? The folks at Ars Technica ran a set of benchmarks on a Google Nexus One running Android 2.2 Froyo and an iPhone 4 running iOS 4. The results? The Nexus One won… by a wide margin.

In fact, the Nexus One performed almost twice as well using the SunSpider benchmark, and more than 3 times better in the V8 test.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the differences aren’t just due to the software. While the Nexus One and iPhone 4 both have ARM-based processors, they each use very different chips, with the Nexus One powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and the iPhone 4 using an Apple A4 processor. And of course, Javascript isn’t the only performance measure that matters. But it looks like if you visit a lot of Javascript-heavy web sites in your mobile browser, Android 2.2 might be a better bet than iOS 4.

Update: Chippy at CarryPad ran the SunSpider test on an Aava prototype phone running MeeGo Linux. His socre came in at 4,215.2ms, trouncing both the Nexus One and the iPhone 4. Of course, the Aava also has a 1.5GHz dual core Atom processor. While Javascript doesn’t take advantage of multicore processors, it’s tough to say whether it was the fast CPU or the fact that the device was running MeeGo that gave the Aava prototype the edge.

Oh, and just for kicks, I ran SunSpider on my 2nd generation iPod touch running iOS. It scored 30,708 — almost three times slower than the iPhone 4. Clearly the CPU is at least as important as the operating system.

One of the coolest new apps in the iTunes App Store is iMovie. You can use this $5 app to edit movies you shoot with your iPhone camera, add music, transitions, and other effects, and export complete videos which you can upload to YouTube and other sites. The only catch is that it’s only available for the iPhone 4… officially.

Redmond Pie has figured out how to get the iMovie app to work on a jailbroken iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.

Technically the iPhone 4 has a faster CPU than the iPhone 3GS, which is one of the reasons iMovie isn’t available for download on the 3GS. But as you can see in the video below, while iMovie on the 3GS may not be up to Apple’s standards, it does appear to be reasonably fast and responsive. While the same trick should work on the iPhone 3G and iPod touch, iMovie will likely run slower on older devices.

You can find instructions for altering the app to run on earlier iPhone models (and maybe even earlier iPhone OS models) at Redmond Pie.

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Apple hasn’t officially announced a release date for iOS 4 for the iPad. While you can multitask to your heart’s content (with specially coded apps) on the iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3rd generation iPod touch, if you’re using Apple’s recently launched 10 inch tablet you’re stuck to running one app at a time (or running a handful of apps from Apple in the background).

But Apple clearly does plan to offer iOS 4 for the iPad. The company just hasn’t been very specific about when… until now. Apple is apparently telling marketers that the new iAd platform will be available on the iPad in November… and since iAd is bundled with iOS 4, it looks like that means that iOS 4 will be available for the iPad in November.

That might seem like a long time to wait… but what else are you going to do? Jailbreak your iPad? Yeah, I guess you could do that.

via Mobility Site

The iPhone 4 ships standard with some of the features that led many people to jailbreak earlier iPhone models. You can change the home screen wallpaper. You can run some activities, like streaming music or VoIP phone calls in the background while using other apps. But if you want full control of your operating system, including the ability to install third party apps that aren’t available in the App Store, you’re going to want to at least consider jailbreaking.

And now just a few days after the hardware became widely available, at least a few people have figured out how to gain root access to all of their phones’ settings.

It will probably be a little while before we see the latest jailbreak tools released to the public. They currently include some proprietary code from Apple. And the current jailbreak method won’t give you the ability to use your iPhone 4 with a wireless carrier other than AT&T, because the software controlling that functionality has been completely rewritten in the latest iPhone. But I suspect we’ll eventually see hackers figure out a way around that restriction.