iOS 4.0 Quick Review

Hey now, hey now, the bugs are back (#)

I’ve been using iOS 4,0 for two weeks now, and I realize I forgot how much I dislike iPhone OS iOS x.0 releases. I’m especially disappointed that a bug from the 2.0 version of the OS is back.

Issues with Mail Part I

First issue is that iOS (since 3.0) doesn’t play well with POP3 accounts. iOS does not close its POP3 connection to the server, leaving it open and letting the server timeout the connection after a minimum of 10 minutes (per the RFC that governs POP3 mail servers). How do I know this? I run my own mail server and look at the logs myself – iOS on the iPhone or iPad does not close its POP3 connection when you close the Mail app on the phone. It just leaves it open and lets it timeout. On the other device (or the desktop) the system will report an error about being unable to log into the POP3 account.

This is an issue when you have multiple devices checking a POP3 account every 15 minutes – an iPad, an iPhone, a desktop PC and a laptop – and half of them don’t play nice with each other. For the uninitiated, you can only have one client open a POP3 mailbox at once – so until that 10 minute timeout passes you cant log in with a different email client.

Issues with Mail Part II – Electric Boogaloo

The “I’m not checking mail automatically” bug from iOS 2.0 has returned with a vengeance. It only took about 12 hours after the initial install of iOS 4.0 before I noticed that my iPad was getting new emails but the iPhone wasn’t. I played around with the phone and realized, yup, the same problem that I had with iOS 2.0 has returned and there isn’t much I can do about it other that spend a weekend switching from POP3 to IMAP (not what I was looking forward to) and hope that it solves my issues (it should since IMAP allows multiple simultaneous connections).

For reference, if anyone at Apple ever reads this and cares enough to fix it – I have 4 POP3 accounts and an Exchange (Google) account on both an iPad an iPhone set to 15 minute intervals. Switching to IMAP fixed the POP3 issues.

Still no useful AVRCP support

AVRCP is a remote control protocol over Bluetooth. The iPhone supports a very limited set of commands – play/pause/stop. However other devices, specifically my Ford Sync system in my car, support more advanced AVRCP implementations that support next/previous, searching, etc.

Whats that noise in my pocket?

Twice in three days, when I’ve disconnected my iPhone from the USB port in my car (Ford Sync system), the iPhone continues to play music out of its speaker instead of stopping (which is what it used to do, and what it should do). If I don’t notice it immediately I’ll put the phone in my pocket and then hear this background noise…

Battery Life

When the iPhone was checking mail regularly, it ate through battery life quicker than with OS 3.0. Nothing streaming or going on in the background, just treating my phone like I did before. I turned on the battery percentage indicator to get a better feel for it, but around that same time the mail app stopped checking mail automatically.

Multitasking

Not much multitasking to speak of – the apps that support it haven’t been released to the App Store yet. There is a neat animation to illustrate when you’re switching between apps so you know the app is still running in the background.