SPOILER ALERT: Here’s What’s Coming From Apple Today

Posted by Jay Yarow

Apple will be unveiling the latest updates to its iPhone operating system today in San Francisco at 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern.

We'll provide coverage of the event as it goes along, but if you can't wait until then we've assembled all this things that we think will be announced today.

Click through for all the spoilers on iPhone OS 4>

1.Background processing for third party applications

This one seems like a lock. AppleInsider went into extensive detail about how it will work last week.

Here's their description: "Those familiar with the design of iPhone 4.0 said that the user interface will resemble Apple's desktop Expose feature, in that a key combination — reportedly hitting the Home button twice — will trigger an expose-like interface that brings up a series of icons representing the currently running apps, allowing users to quickly select the one they want to switch to directly. When a selection is made, the iPhone OS zooms out of the Expose task manager and transitions to that app."

2.A fancy mobile ad program

This is another near certainty. Both Peter Kafka of All Things D and Joe Mandese at MediaPost report Apple will be unveiling a mobile ad product. This will be result of Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless. On Apple's earnings call, COO Tim Cook said Apple wanted to make it easier for developers to make money on their apps.

3.Apple might give developers access to more APIs

Marco Arment, the Instapaper developer, complained that Apple has certain private APIs built into iBooks that he wants, like a brightness control. It wouldn't surprise us if Apple gave out more tools for developers like that.

4.A Universal inbox should be coming

Apple will probably roll out a univeral inbox feature, allowing users to read all their emails in one inbox like they can now in Mac Mail. A fan emailed Steve Jobs asking if a universal inbox was coming, and Steve wrote back, saying "Yep."

5.Support for printing from the iPhone and iPad

AppleInsider noticed that the Pages for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers apps say "printing directly from iPad is not currently available," instead of just flat out saying they can't do it. AppleInsider thinks printing support could be coming for the iPhone OS.

While it seems sort of unnecessary, when we handed our Mom an iPad, she checked her email. There was a coupon from Michael's in it. She wanted to print it out, but couldn't. If the iPad is for an older generation, as some believe, then it should have printer support.

6.Some sort of iTunes in the cloud would be nice…

We're not expecting this one today, but some better iTunes in the cloud system would be great. Apple bought Lala in early December, and hasn't done much with it, yet. We love Lala and wish we could use it on the iPhone or iPad. Since today's announcement is mostly about the iPhone OS, we don't expect to hear anything about iTunes in the cloud.