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I just joined the Apple iPhone Dev network and as a result got a chance to play with the new iPhone OS 4.0 beta. Apple suggest you only install it for the purposes of testing your apps for OS 4.0 compatibility but if you’re like me where you only have one iPhone 3GS, then you also need to use the new beta as your main OS when you leave the office.

So, if you’ve been considering installing the new iPhone OS, a few things to note:

• Upgrading is painless




• Not all your apps will work 100% as they did before




• iBooks… what iBooks? (I guess they’re waiting for the official release before including this one)




• Multitasking is there but very few of the apps are ready to support it (obviously)




• The new folders are fantastic but they are limited to 12 apps per folder




• Folders also have “badges” to show an item inside it has a “badge”. Instead of a numerical representation however, they just use an exclamation mark




• There’s a new icon in the top bar near the battery which indicates when an app is “location aware”




• The OS isn’t without it’s visual quirks but this is forgiven as there is also a much greater animated feel to the OS now (subtle but effective)




• Spotlight now has a “search the web” and “search wikipedia” option at the bottom of the list




• There is spell check but I can’t work out how to select an Australian dictionary…

If your not a developer, I would suggest that aside from folders, spell check and the background wallpapers, there aren’t a lot of reasons at this stage to upgrade. What’s great about the iPhone is the way the apps are able to make use of the iPhone OS. Given this, the benefits of wireless distribution, iAds, multitasking, etc just aren’t there at this stage. If you are a developer however and need to use the new OS as your primary OS whilst you are writing your new app, I’ve found it stable and reliable (so far) and have found that most of my important apps still work. With that said, of the 100 odd apps I do have, I’ve found iPhone OS 4.0 beta compatibility issues with the following apps:

• Evernote: Can’t sync… or open your existing notes.




• Wolfram Alpha: Secondary keyboard floats up too high on the screen




• Google: seems to black out the search window – EDIT: now fixed




• IM+: Crashed upon location awareness and wasn’t really ever the same afterwards..!




• Skype: brings up a warning message about the iPhone OS version but seems ok afterwards




• Tap Tap Revenge 3 (Free): Crash and burn

Some of the more popular apps that I can confirm do “seem ” to work (although it’s still early days) are:

• Tweetdeck




• Facebook




• Buzzie




• eBay




• Stanza




• Kindle




• Air Sharing




• Oz Weather




• 1Password




• Things

I’ll update this list as I spend a bit more time with the new OS.