[Ben]

Time this one got it's own thread in an appropriate place!

I'm on 4.2 GM (b) for iPad. I got impatient; the iPad should never have been released without iOS 4, though the somewhat sturdy 3.2 doesn't appear to have done Apple any harm.

The highlights:
- Multitasking. Just like on the iPhone, really. There's the Airplay icon (as appears elsewhere) for directing output to Apple TV 2 and the rotation lock option. The old rotation lock button is now a silencer as on the iPhone - a little annoying but I'll soon get used to it and continuity is important. Clearly the lack of multitasking tray in 3.2 was the reason for the hard switch.

- Safari. Seems more stable so far but usage has been limited. The spell checking is nice to have, I don't remember that being present before. The number of open windows is now shown on the windows icon, and the interface has been shuffled about to good effect. However, new windows now open showing your recent searches - so anyone you give your iPad to will immediately see what you've been looking for. Hate that. Can't find a way to turn it off.

- Unified Inbox. What a relief this is. I hadn't been using Mail much on the iPad because switching between my personal and work accounts was so infuriating. As my iPad usage has increased recently, so has my frustration. All fixed now; works just like it has on the iPhone for ages.

- Dock. Not sure if this was the case before but I've added Remote to my dock, meaning I now have 5 icons down there, not 4.

- App Switching. Ok, so this sort-of comes under multi-tasking, but it's so much more useful on the iPad. The states of some apps are now also preserved (can start writing a message in Twitter, switch out, switch back and it remains. It used to be lost). I suppose it'll take time before updates to give true support for this come out.

Totally loving 4.2. Time will tell if the small amount of RAM in the iPad continue to be a hindrance. Roll on iPad 2.

[DBMandrake]

The 3GS has the same amount of RAM (256MB) as the iPad and it runs 4.x pretty well. It's not quite as silky smooth as 3.1.3 was (due to less free memory with background apps suspended in RAM) but it's a small sacrifice to get improved functionality.

By the way, the plot thickens with the 4.2 delays:

http://www.tipb.com/2010/11/18/ios-421-gm-seed-iphone-ipad-released-developers/

Apple has just seeded a 4.2.1 Gold Master for all devices! Build number has increased from 8C134 to 8C138 for all devices.

Does this mean Apple will skip 4.2 entirely ? It's clearly labelled as a 4.2.1 GM, not a 4.2.1 beta, so I think they will. Wonder what's going on ?

Edit: Download links for those without developer accounts: (not all device images available just yet)

http://gumballtech.com/2010/11/18/ios-4-2-1-gm-download-for-all-devices/

[DBMandrake]

Well that's me gone and updated my 3GS to 4.2.1, 8C148, so I'll report anything that I notice that may have changed. :)

I probably won't notice any changes because about the only "issue" I really noticed was intermittent lip sync problems when streaming audio only of a video podcast to an airport express. From what I've read the possible reason for them incrementing the version number is a change to the application facing API/ABI to fix a VoIP bug. (Thus it would be messy to rejigger already released tools like Xcode which expect a certain API for 4.2 to be present, instead they will be aware of the API changes in 4.2.1)

Hopefully they don't now go and release 4.2 to the public as I won't be able to downgrade to it and will have to wait for an actual 4.2.1! ;)

[Ben]

Wow, that's so bizarre! They really can't get this one right, can they?

My net is awful at the moment, I think Avanti must've done something under their FUP :/ But maybe I'll try and get 4.2.1 over the weekend so I can see what has changed on the iPad.

[DBMandrake]

Yeah it is odd isn't it. I've noticed one change from 4.2 GM to the 4.2.1 GM right away - the problem with lip sync that I mentioned seems to be fixed, hoorahh :)

Previously lip sync with video played locally on the device but sound played remotely (to an Airport Express, at least) was about 1/4 of a second out at best, and sometimes after pausing and resuming or switching apps and back it would get up to a second out.

Now it always seems to be spot on no matter what. I notice when you resume playing video there is a longer time period from when the video starts until the sound starts, of almost 2 seconds, but when it does start it's in exact sync.

Somehow I don't think this was the show stopper bug that halted release though, but it's nice for it to be fixed. One bug I have found (which I think was probably there in 4.2, but I didn't notice it) is that if I play audio to an Airplay device, stop the audio / quit out of that app, there are no dial tones when dialling a number on the phone - unless I manually change the sound output device back to local.

Certain system sounds including dialling tones, keyboard clicks, and so on, are NOT sent to the remote Airplay device, which I think is a sensible decision, (who wants touch tones or keyboard clicks that are delayed by 2 seconds ??) but instead of routing them to the internal speaker they are just absent. Not sure if this is a bug or design decision though.

Edit: a bit more testing - with an Airplay audio device selected, incoming calls still ring on the phones built in speaker only, however incoming SMS messages play the alert sound only through the Airplay device ?? Not sure of the reasoning behind that one! (Or maybe it's another bug...)

Haven't encountered any non-Airplay related bugs in either 4.2GM or 4.2.1GM though - both seem very stable, which is just as well, since I put it on my main phone ;)

[DBMandrake]

iOS 4.2 released. Go get it!

Will be interesting to see whether my 4.2.1 GM is an earlier or later build than the official version ;) Another interesting question is that one of the claimed new features in the readme (which I've seen screenshots of on engadget a few weeks ago as well) was a whole load of new text alert sounds, but neither the 4.2 or 4.2.1 GM contained the extra alert sounds, at least not on my phone...

[Ben]

Fingers crossed my satellite connection has resurrected itself so I can set this download going when I get in!

Suppose I should really try and sort the iPad out so it's on official firmware.

[Hands0n]

I am at this very moment grabbing 4.2 for my iPhone. Once that is installed I'll go update the iPad. I must admit to being a bit nervous about the iPad, what with the stuff I've read about its small RAM area and such. A typical first generation device ;)

[DBMandrake]

Ok, the plot thickens! So I updated the iPhone 3G to 4.2 official last night, and it updated to 4.2.1 build 8C148 - the same build number as the 4.2.1 GM I was running on the 3GS.

Great thinks I, the official update is the same build as the most recent GM, but just to be 100% sure I decided to do a restore of the 3GS this morning to go from GM to official. (Sometimes there are differences even if the build number is the same, like 4.0 official left out the game center that was in 4.0 GM)

I plugged my phone in expecting to have to do a full restore (as iTunes would think I was already up to date due to the same version and build numbers) but it immediately popped up and said a new update was available to 4.2.1 - even though I already had 4.2.1. Puzzled I let it download and update (saves me having to do a time consuming full restore) and checked the version after updating.

My 3GS is now running 4.2.1 build 8C148a - yes, they have brought out an a revision for the 3GS, so there has been a slight change since the GM. The latest version for the 3G is 8C148, so I wonder if they found a 3GS specific bug at the last minute ??

Did you iPhone 4 and iPad guys get 8C148 or 8C148a ?

[miffed]

8C148 on both the iPad and the iPhone 4

I am loving the Airprint - not so much for me , but for the Kids and Wife it will save a lot of messing around ! and will save ME from having my iPhoto library clogged up with pointless photos. The thing I don't understand , it why I had to hack this into operation ? I was just getting "no printers found" until I used the "AirPrintHackitvation" app to sort the 3 files out which enable this - weird ?
But now it's done - Brilliant ! so cool to get a mail on my iPhone and print it out with a quick tap !

I have not got an Apple TV yet , quite simply that I haven't been anywhere that has one on sale , but I think I will make the effort and get one sorted now , the idea that we can come home and watch or print videos we have just taken with zero faffing around sounds pretty cool !

[DBMandrake]

The thing I don't understand , it why I had to hack this into operation ? I was just getting "no printers found" until I used the "AirPrintHackitvation" app to sort the 3 files out which enable this - weird ?

Not weird - the "3 files" required for Airprint to work on a Mac were included in beta versions of the 10.6.5 update, but were later pulled by Apple before the final release of 10.6.5. (On the Windows side iTunes 10.1 beta 2 contained the Airprint drivers, while the final iTunes 10.1 did not)

Either there were licensing issues with HP, or there were bugs or Apple was in some way unhappy with the performance so they pulled it. If you look on the Apple website, all traces of references to printing to printers shared by Mac's or PC's were removed.

The Hacktivator you're talking about simply installs the 3 files which were included in the 10.6.5 beta but never officially released, and could contain bugs or other issues.

There are also a couple of 3rd party apps that provide the same functionality.

I'm sure Apple will release it officially "when it's ready"...

[DBMandrake]

For those of you on Windows, tipb.com has published an article showing how to re-enable AirPrint support on Windows:

http://www.tipb.com/2010/11/23/ninja-tip-reenable-network-airprint-windows/

Although it says Windows 7, I tested it on Windows XP and it seems to work :) I don't actually have a working printer at the moment, however I added a dummy printer driver and shared it in Windows, and I can browse to that printer from my 3GS. When I print from the phone a print job appears in the print queue on Windows (sitting on error since there is no actual printer) and when I delete the queued job from the iPhone it deletes it from the print queue window on Windows.

The only trouble I had was that the sc.exe command requires a space after each equals sign, and whilst the commands the article presents include those spaces, it wasn't obvious to me at first...

[DBMandrake]

Another new feature in iOS 4.2 is apparently support for "Network Controlled Fast Dormancy":

http://blogs.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news/2010/11/30/new-iphone-os-supports-our-network-technology-to-boost-smartphone-performance/

Fast Dormancy was one of the key things that the iPhone was fingered for early on for causing network congestion due to excessive "signalling" traffic (particularly on O2 and AT&T) - basically, when the iPhone wanted data it would set up a data connection, (which is expensive in terms of the amount of signalling to the operators core network, and can cause end user delays of a few seconds) use the data, then very quickly (within seconds) completely tear down that connection and go into a fully dormant state to save power, with the connection tear down also causing a lot of signalling traffic for the network operator.

This was apparently causing overloading on many networks - they weren't necessarily bandwidth constrained, but the amount of signalling traffic (which goes through special signalling channels in UMTS) was exceeding what the signalling channels could cope with, resulting in things like failed data connection setup, failed calls, calls unable to come through despite a good signal, delayed text messages etc.

The alternative at the time was to disable Fast Dormancy - in this case the phone does not quickly tear down the data connection and go dormant every time it's not in use for a couple of seconds, and I notice that enabling or disabling Fast Dormancy was something added to the carrier settings bundles, from memory, in 4.0 - thus allowing operators to decide (by way of their carrier bundles) whether Fast Dormancy was disabled when using their network. (I believe O2 took this option)

The problem with this is that disabling Fast Dormancy, whilst reducing network signalling (thus reducing congestion in the network, and actually improving user responsiveness) could dramatically reduce standby battery life.

Now Nokia Siemens has implemented a standard called "Network Controlled Fast Dormancy" which is a hybrid of the two, and effectively gives a low signalling overhead whilst still allowing the phone to go into a low power idle state very quickly. In theory the result is much reduced network signalling, more responsive data session initiation, and lower battery consumption.

The iPhone since iOS 4.2 is only the second device to support this new standard, behind Nokia's own recent handsets.

The question is, which if any UK networks support this new feature ? (Possibly none right at the moment if it's a new standard)

Has anyone noticed significantly improved standby time since iOS 4.2 ?