iOS 4

Today's the day — the iPhone 4 officially arrives! Good news is, newly-minted iPhone 4 owners aren't the only ones that can enjoy some of iOS 4's features — iPhone 3G and 3GS users, as well as second- and third-generation iPod Touch owners, are also eligible for an update. Unfortunately, not all of the latest and greatest additions will be available to everyone, but don't fret — there's plenty to love! First thing's first: update your iPhone. There have been a few hiccups to be aware of, but after you get everything on the up and up, take a minute to check out some of these basic functions you'll be using in your new iPhone 4, or updated iOS 4 device.

• App Switching
  Open up two different apps. For example, open Pandora, hit the home button once, then open Safari. In order to switch between the two apps, hit the home button twice to open the app drawer. You can then quickly switch between the two (or more) apps. Scroll left and right in the app drawer to find the open app you want.
• Close a running app
  Hit the home button twice to pull up the app drawer. Hold down on the app to bring up the minus icon and close.

To learn how to populate your folders, add playlists, add a custom home screen, and more after the break.

Although the iOS 4 software update hasn't gone as smoothly as we would have hoped, there are some solutions to some of your biggest problems — including blurry images and missing tunes. While the iPhone 4 may be getting an early welcome into a few lucky homes, we're taking a look at what iPhone 3G and 3GS users were left without during the iOS 4 update.
This handy chart should help you decipher it. iPhone 3G and 3GS users are reaping the benefits of threaded emails, home screen folders, as well as Internet tethering (with an appropriate AT&T data plan, that is), while 3GS users get more features like multitasking, keyboard support, and fancy homescreen wallpapers.

A quick tip to all that are thinking of upgrading to iOS 4 — be sure to back up your iPhone and restore when prompted to during the update process. Find out why after the jump.

After yesterday's iOS 4 upgrade was made available to the masses, there were some reports of strange bugs, slowness, even blurry images after installing. Hopefully, you've solved the blurry photo situation with my last how-to, and now I'll help you get your music, podcasts, and iPod back in order.

If you're having trouble launching your iPod, find that your music, podcasts, and playlists have gone MIA, and are frustrated because your iPod crashes after a few seconds, help is on the way! Find out how to solve this iOS 4 problem after the break.

Although there have been some reports of errors, bugs, and general lag after updating to Apple's new iOS 4, the most-talked about bug so far today is blurry photos and grainy background images. Thankfully, after trolling the Apple Support forums, there seems to be an easy solution to fix this blurry image problem.

First, you'll want to plug in your iPhone to your computer. In iTunes, unsync your photos and resync them in order to optimize them for the new OS. Seems to work like a charm!

Come across any other bugs, issues, or problems after updating your iPhone or iPod Touch to the new iOS 4? Leave them in the comments, and I'll hunt down some solutions!

Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone OS back in April, and it got a new name recently at the WWDC conference. Called iOS 4, this update brings lots of changes to the iPhone you know and love. Available to download for free on your iPhone 3G, 3GS, and iPhone 4 this Summer, iOS4 comes with a staggering number of new features — over 100. iPhone fans should be especially pleased with all the new organizational and productivity enhancements that come along with the update, and iPad users can look forward to diving in this Fall.

We covered a few of the new updates during the initial OS announcement earlier this Spring, but here, a few other notables that you may find surprising.

• 5X digital zoom — Get closer to the action with the iOS 4's 5X digital zoom.
• Multitasking —Ahh, multitasking. Run more than one app at a time with this new feature! Play Pandora while you text, or keep up on your Words With Friends game while you surf your reader.

To see even more features of the iOS 4, just keep reading.

We took a tour of some of the new features that iOS 4 has to offer recently, and you'll get to discover even more soon — Apple is releasing iOS 4 for iPhone 3G, 3GS, as well as second-, and third-generation iPod Touch users today!

What will you need to do before getting into all the new, free OS action? First, update to iTunes 9.2 to get your Mac or PC ready for all the new features, then sync up your iPhone, and download as soon as it's available (by connecting your device to iTunes, and clicking "Check For Updates"). We'll be rounding up some of the new features once we update our iPhones, so stay tuned!

Update: It's here and ready to download!

If you have your computer set to automatically alert you for updates (and if you don't, why not!?), you may already know that the latest iTunes update is out, and ready to get all up in your Mac's business. Thankfully, a majority of you knows that it's best to perform all of your machine's updates when they're available to make sure performance and security features are up to snuff. So if you haven't yet downloaded the iTunes 9.2 update (that gets your gadgets ready to rock iOS4), find out what you're missing after the break.