What iOS 4 does — and doesn’t do — for business

After all the hoopla since its April announcement, iOS 4 — the new name for the old iPhone OS — is now here for newer iPhone and iPod Touch models as a free download via iTunes, with iPad availability scheduled for “later this year.” So what does it actually do?

For business users and IT, not that much — yet.

The biggest new capability — multitasking — is for all intents and purposes not available, and it won’t be until individual apps are updated to take advantage of it. That’s because iOS 4 leaves the multitasking not as a general OS capability automatically implemented as Windows or Mac OS X does it, but as one that must be explicitly used by the application. Over time, the addition of multitasking should make using apps singly and in concert much easier on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. But right now, it’s just a promise.

The other big new capability for IT is the set of APIs that allow BlackBerry-like management of the iPhone, such as auditing of policies and apps, over-the-air provisioning of apps without iTunes, and over-the-air configuration and policy management. That set of capabilities too remains a promise, as the various mobile management tools that have been reworked to take advantage of the new iOS 4 capabilities won’t be available until July or later.

So what does that mean for users and IT today?

For IT, it means getting familiar with the upcoming mobile management tools (including an update to the iPhone Configuration Utility that should be available this week), learning the new user capabilities, and perhaps stepping up corporate iOS development in preparation for the iTunes-less distribution capability.

For users, it means mostly learning how the new email and related capabilities work, as well as understanding how a few of the UI changes may effect them.

For both, it means knowing how to handle a couple issues that have cropped up. First, iPhone 3G owners need to back up their devices, then restore them with iOS 4, rather than update their iPhone 3Gs, to get the new OS to work properly. Second, Gmail users whose domain is set via Google Apps and who set up Gmail to sync via Exchange ActiveSync may find that their iOS devices automatically lock up after 1 minute. This is due to the security settings used by Google for ActiveSync.

Email works more as it does on the desktop Business users will mainly like how iOS 4 handles email. If you use Exchange, you can now  set up multiple Exhange accounts. If you’re wondering why you would need multiple Exchange accounts, keep in mind that any application that uses the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol counts as an Exchange account. You could easily have a Microsoft Exchange mail account at work and an EAS-based Gmail personal account, for example.

Apple has made much of iOS 4’s unified inbox, which lets you see all your emails in one list, as well as switch to specific accounts to see just their emails. The unified inbox is fine, except for a big flaw: You can’t tell what account each message was sent to. If you reply to a message, it’ll be sent from the account where you received it, but that’s not the same as knowing upfront. And the unified inbox shows only what’s in your main inbox, not what’s in any subfolders, so its utility is really just to see what’s new.

You also get a list of your individual inboxes and of your individual email accounts. What’s the difference? The inboxes show just the contents of the main inbox folder for that account; if you want to see any folders, you need to go directly to the account. Frankly, Apple should junk the list of individual inboxes — they’re unnecessary. Going to your account by default shows you the contents of the inbox and the folders. I have five email accounts set up on my iPod Touch, so I now have to scroll to get to them, which wasn’t required before. A reveal/hide control for folders would have been more sensible an approach, so your accounts would be listed just once, and you could hide or show the folders as desired.

The iOS 4 email client also threads messages, but you can turn off the function. If there are related messages (based on the subject line), you’ll see a numeral to the right of the subject line indicating how many other messages are in the thread; tap it to see the related messages. This feaure can be quite useful when you need it, and it’s unobtrusive when you don’t.

Note that these email changes won’t affect Lotus Notes users, since IBM provides its own email client (Lotus Notes Traveler) to handle message management and display. Ditto for the Good for Enterprise mobile management tool, which also uses a separate email client with its iPhone app. The email changes in iOS 4 described here affect only email accessed through the iOS device’s built-in Mail app, not third-party mail apps.

Where iOS 4 Mail still falls short Although these email changes are largely welcome, iOS 4 continues to omit key mail features. You still can’t open Zipped file attachments, for example. You can open email attachments in other apps, but only if they use the Open In API originally developed for the iPad. To find out if your apps can open a particular kind of attachment, tap and hold on the attachment icon. A list of compatible apps will appear; note that if the sole option is Quick Look, you can view the attachment only in Mail’s preview capability.

Several basic email capabilities you’d expect in a more desktop-like Mail app remain missing, including the ability to mark all or multiple messages as read, the ability to create folders in Mail, the ability to create and use group lists (it doesn’t even see your synced Contacts app’s groups), and the ability to set separate signatures per email account. Those are the basics; I’d also welcome junk mail filtering, message rules, and message flagging. Here’s hoping for iOS 4.1.

Enhancements to security, calendar, notes, and Safari IT admins will be happy to know that iOS no longer restricts user passwords for unlocking the device to numerals. Instead, they can now use real passwords. Of course, if you use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies, you had the ability to require alphanumeric passwords in iPhone OS 3.x, but users could only opt for such passwords if an Exchange policy required it. Now, users can set up such a password themselves whether or not it’s required by IT.

As a user of an iOS 4 device, you may notice flight departure times and other appointments showing up in your calendar. Apple has created an API to let app developers access the iOS Calendar app, so if you book a flight, it shows up in your calendar automatically. Of course, this functionality has to be enabled in each app. (Again, Lotus Notes users won’t see this because IBM’s Lotus Notes Traveler uses its own calendar app, not the built-in one from Apple.)

Any notes you create in the Notes app now sync to IMAP-based email accounts, not just Exchange and MobileMe ones, via a Notes folder. Keep in mind that these notes may not be editable in other email clients; it depends on the client’s specific capabilities.

One of my personal favorite iOS capabilities is the updated Safari browser, which supports more HTML5 functions, including the contenteditable tag that lets the TinyMCE module work on Web site input forms. For me, that’s a huge deal, because InfoWorld’s Drupal-based content management system uses TinyMCE to apply formatting to text in WYSIWYG mode rather than wade through lots of HTML code. I can actually write and edit InfoWorld copy on my iPod Touch — though the small screen discourages this course of action — and when iOS 4 comes to the iPad, I’ll finally be able to leave my laptop at home.

The little things, good and bad iOS4 seems to connect to known Wi-Fi networks a lot faster — a welcome development. Plus, you can now set Airplane Mode in iPod Touches and turn Wi-Fi on and off quickly. Also impressive is the new support for Bluetooth keyboards on the iPhone and iPod Touch, in addition to the earlier compatibility with Bluetooth headsets.

Hidden in the Accessibility settings is a new Large Text control, which lets you choose the default text size for text-oriented apps like Mail and Contacts; this is great for those of us who struggle to read the tiny text in many apps. Not all apps will respect these defaults, but they apply to Apple’s built-in programs.

iOS 4 also offers finer-grained controls over notifications and location usage, letting you set on a per-app basis your permissions for each. With a catch: The apps have to enable these controls. Fortunately for me, the one app I have that annoyed me with too-frequent notifications, the Le Monde newspaper app, is one of those apps updated for iOS 4 to allow user control over its alerts. Merci à tous!

However, iOS 4 has some annoyances. For example, it adds a wallpaper capability to your home screen. Long a staple of cell phones, this gewgaw trend has finally nabbed Apple. I wish you could have no wallpaper or use a solid color as in Mac OS X, but no such luck. A tip: Choose a darker wallpaper, as the application icons’ text is hard to read on the lighter backgrounds, including the bubbles pattern that iOS sets as the default. Even better: Create a black or very dark monochrome image on your computer and sync it to the iOS device as a photo, then use that as your wallpaper.

Although I like the concept of folders, I find them awkward to use. To create a folder, tap and hold any app icon to get the shaking icons that indicates home screen edit mode. Drag one icon on to another. A bar opens up with the two app icons, as well as with a space to edit the default folder name. Press the Home button to save the folder — so far, so good. You can start a folder with two and only two apps. To add more apps to the folder, get back to edit mode, then drag each app you want into the folders you want; an app can be in just one folder.

That’s acceptable, but where I have an issue with folders is that they are dark-gray, rounded squares containing tiny — and I mean tiny — app icons; it’s hard to know what’s in each. Fortunately, you can tap open a folder to get an expanded view of its contents, à la the Mac OS X Dock, though doing so causes iOS 4 to gray out your other application icons (they’re still accessible, though). In addition, the tiny labels are hard to read, and their size can’t be changed. For me, it’s easier to use the various home screen windows as folder surrogates so that I can at least see what is there.

Not a wholesale new OS Don’t get me wrong: iOS 4 is a good update. But if you were expecting a big bang change, you’ll be disappointed. The Mail app and the wallpaper are in-your-face changes, but the rest of iOS 4’s additions and changes are either more subtle or remain as potential as yet untapped by applications. We won’t really experience the full force of iOS 4 until a notable number of apps are rewritten to take advantage of it.

The good news for IT: This change over time should help both you and users adjust more easily.

Related articles For more details on how to manage iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads in business, see InfoWorld’s series of in-depth, hands-on articles:

• iPhone management tools step it up with iOS 4
• Apple stages corporate mobile takeover with iPhone OS 4.0
• What Exchange ActiveSync policies does your smartphone support?
• Can you manage your iPhone like a BlackBerry?: a review of the iPhone Configuration Utility’s capabilities
• How to say yes to (almost) any smartphone: a survey of smartphone management and security capabilities
• Who should own your smartphone?: the pros and cons of employee-provided versus company-provided devices
• Scare of iPhone 3G overages? Here’s what to do
• iPad goes to Europe, Japan — so do 3G roaming ripoffs

This article, “What iOS 4 does — and doesn’t do — for business,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Gruman et al.’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile computing at InfoWorld.com.