095 iOS 4.2 – App Special

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Video Transcript: 095 iOS 4.2 - App Special

Well, it’s been a long wait, but finally iOS 4.2 is here, much to the relief of every iPad owner in the land, each of whom has realised that without multitasking the iPad is… limited. So, what’s it got and why should you update? Multitasking has probably been the most anticipated feature, and it works just like on the iPhone - double tap the home key and you get a taskbar allowing you to switch between apps - brilliant if you’re working on a document and want to quickly check something in Safari. Or Twitter.

Speaking of Safari, there’s also the ability to find specific text within the web page. Just enter your search term in the Google search box at the top, and as well as pulling Google results in, it’ll find the number of instances of that word on the page.

If you heard weird moans of ecstasy on the release of the iOS, that was the sound of geeks across the world arranging their apps into perfect little folders. Anyone with pages upon pages of unorganised apps on thir iPad, will be thrilled to see folders making the leap from iPhone to iPad.

But it’s not all good news - love the fact that your iPad has a orientation lock switch on the side? Bad news - in the interest of standardisation, this is now a mute button, like on the iPhone. To lock the screen now you have to double tap and scroll to the right, which in my opinion is the worst decision Steve Jobs ever made.

Overall though, it’s good news for iPad owners and iPhone owners, although they don’t get much more than different ringtones for their contacts. All I need now is a wireless keyboard for my iPad and it’s practically a laptop. Happy days.