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Why the iOS 4.2 took so long?

L

lozpop

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 6, 2006
487
0
Ok, now that we know that iOS 4 for iPad will not have anything exclusive or a different way to multitask on that big screen — sigh — why the hell the update took so long?

Seven months to develop a giant copy of the iPhone and iPod touch iOS 4?
I'm eager to read you're ideas, because this is very stupid.

.. maybe we'll se some extra surprises by November?
 
Remember they have to combine the iPhone/iPod branch with the iPad branch. That kind of merging takes time.
 
lozpop said:
...Seven months to develop a giant copy of the iPhone and iPod touch iOS 4? I'm eager to read you're ideas, because this is very stupid.r?
Click to expand...

Obviously you have never developed a major operating system for more than one device, with three different screen resolutions.
 
Yeah, keep in mind, all the screen widget libraries have to be converted to support all the screen resolutions, all the apps have to be changed to be "Universal" and that's not as simple as you would think (for instance just the flow of the mail app TOTALLY is different between the iPhone and iPad.)

It always amazes me how people don't understand just how much effort and work goes into writing software, in particular graphical software!
 
Seven months since the iPad launch but >seven months for iOS4.x development for the iPad. SO still no excuse. Unless the tea lady is the only one on the job!
 
The real answer is because a new model of iPad will be released with the iOS 4.2 release in November. It will have a camera, facetime and increased RAM. :eek:

Don't expect it to be iPad 2. Just a model update to quell the competition that will flood the market this coming holiday season. Then again it could well be the rumored 7" iPad. But I doubt it.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112958
 
hsotnicam8002 said:
Seven months since the iPad launch but >seven months for iOS4.x development for the iPad. SO still no excuse. Unless the tea lady is the only one on the job!
Click to expand...

WRONG....

The iPad was developed in secret by a team completely isolated away from the iPhone team. That's why they had to use the 3.x codebase as the starting point. 4.x wasn't ready, and they couldn't tell the 4.x team what they were working on.

So, resources that were spent working on iPad were building 3.2, when iPad came out, some of those went over to finishing up iOS4 for iPhone, and the rest stayed to fixed bugs on 3.2.1 and 3.2.2.

You can bet that they didn't even START porting iOS over for the iPad until they had 4.0 out the door and 4.1 was decently far along.

You have to understand, they only have so many resources of people who know the internals of the OS and know how to do the ports and those people had to also work on the fixes to 4.0.

Just chill. Nov is only 7 weeks away...
 
Intell said:
Remember they have to combine the iPhone/iPod branch with the iPad branch. That kind of merging takes time.
Click to expand...

2002cbr600f4i said:
WRONG....

The iPad was developed in secret by a team completely isolated away from the iPhone team. That's why they had to use the 3.x codebase as the starting point. 4.x wasn't ready, and they couldn't tell the 4.x team what they were working on.
Click to expand...

That's not true. Gruber started that rumor earlier this year then took it back at WWDC months later.

From Daring Fireball:

"Another correction I gleaned at WWDC is that the iPad’s OS 3.2 was not, as I suggested in a footnote here, developed by a team working in secret, apart from the main iPhone OS 4 team. The iPad’s OS 3.2 is indeed a separate fork — 3.2 was never meant for use on iPhones or iPod Touches, and 4.0 will not be available on the iPad. But the team wasn’t separate — those working on 4.0 knew what was going on with the iPad and those working on the iPad knew what was going on with 4.0."

http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/marble_mystery_solved

The changes and features included with 3.2 have already been included in iOS 4.0.
 
darngooddesign said:
Obviously you have never developed a major operating system for more than one device, with three different screen resolutions.
Click to expand...
Agree. I'm not a developer, but I am a black belt/project manager and first rule is that things look wonderful until you start to scale them and then your small issues all of a sudden become huge gaps. I can only imagine that software, especially OS, development follows the same principles.
 
~7 months is a long time now for a new operating system (~9 when it comes out)... Jeez I guess when upgrading to new operating systems for FREE people complain of release dates that are less than a year; I bet these are the same people that complain of softwares like Parallels giving them a newer full version in less than a year, but since they have to pay for it, they get mad and don't want to pay for it... :apple:
 
lozpop said:
Ok, now that we know that iOS 4 for iPad will not have anything exclusive
Click to expand...

False...We know that it at least has printing, and I guarantee there are other minor changes to various things.

In any case, as others have pointed out, anyone complaining that a piece of software like this is taking a few extra months to perfect has never done any serious software development, if at all.
 
admanimal said:
False...We know that it at least has printing, and I guarantee there are other minor changes to various things.

In any case, as others have pointed out, anyone complaining that a piece of software like this is taking a few extra months to perfect has never done any serious software development, if at all.
Click to expand...

Or gone through the Leopard release which did the Apple reputation for software quality no good at all.
 
lozpop said:
Ok, now that we know that iOS 4 for iPad will not have anything exclusive or a different way to multitask on that big screen — sigh — why the hell the update took so long?

Seven months to develop a giant copy of the iPhone and iPod touch iOS 4?
I'm eager to read you're ideas, because this is very stupid.

.. maybe we'll se some extra surprises by November?
Click to expand...

Why do people start new repetitive threads over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over instead of using the search function.
 
2002cbr600f4i said:
WRONG....

The iPad was developed in secret by a team completely isolated away from the iPhone team. That's why they had to use the 3.x codebase as the starting point. 4.x wasn't ready, and they couldn't tell the 4.x team what they were working on.

So, resources that were spent working on iPad were building 3.2, when iPad came out, some of those went over to finishing up iOS4 for iPhone, and the rest stayed to fixed bugs on 3.2.1 and 3.2.2.

You can bet that they didn't even START porting iOS over for the iPad until they had 4.0 out the door and 4.1 was decently far along.

You have to understand, they only have so many resources of people who know the internals of the OS and know how to do the ports and those people had to also work on the fixes to 4.0.

Just chill. Nov is only 7 weeks away...
Click to expand...
Well put.
One of the interesting features of buying Apple products is an update is never far away to make it better. consequently, that's why we don't get bored with our Apple stuff easily I suspect
 
But the iPad was released in April, well before the iPhone 4 and yet has an inferior iOS.

Mind you, who actually likes those awful folders? A full screen of them looks like a view through a telescope turned the wrong way around and a screen with one or two makes them look even worse when they surrounded by nice icons. Also, the (so-called) multitasking means clickety-click on that horrible button even more than now. And who cares a fluke about combining email accounts - just redirect your accounts to ONE other! Thank god the updates are free!
:p:D
 
hsotnicam8002 said:
But the iPad was released in April, well before the iPhone 4 and yet has an inferior iOS.

Mind you, who actually likes those awful folders? A full screen of them looks like a view through a telescope turned the wrong way around and a screen with one or two makes them look even worse when they surrounded by nice icons. Also, the (so-called) multitasking means clickety-click on that horrible button even more than now. And who cares a fluke about combining email accounts - just redirect your accounts to ONE other! Thank god the updates are free!
:p:D
Click to expand...

Wait, so the iPad has an "inferior" OS at 3.2, but iOS4 totally sucks?

You're also griping that iPad was released first and "yet" has an inferior OS to a device that came out nearly 3 months later?

I like folders, I like multi-tasking, I like unified inbox, and so do 10 million other iOS users, I reckon. :)
 
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