this year. In an event at its Cupertino headquarters, CEO Steve Jobs outlined the upcoming update

to its iPhone operating system.

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple "So today, we are giving a developer preview

of OS4, iPhone OS4. The next major release of the iPhone operating system. We've been

working on this for a while, it's pretty great and we're going to ship it this summer."

The new operating system will bring to a wider variety of applications multi-tasking --

that's the ability to run more than one application at a time. Apple currently allows multitasking

for its own software but the new OS will expand this to third-party apps.

That means, for example, that it will be possible for Skype to continue running while you browse

the Web, or for a music app to keep playing while you check an online map.

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple "I can just double-click the home button and

the window raises up and it shows all the apps that a running. These are all the apps

that are running. And I want to go back to mail and I go right back to where I left it."

Mail will get upgraded with a unified inbox that pools all incoming messages in a single

place, and the iPad's Book Store will appear on the iPhone. For enterprise users a new

security function will allow all e-mail, including attachments, to be encrypted with a PIN code,

and there's a new social gaming center.

Iphone OS 4 will also give developers more tools for putting ads in iPhone apps. The

iAd platform system presents a big potential audience, according to Jobs.

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple "Average iPhone user spends over 30 minutes

a day running third-party apps. If you put an ad in every 3 minutes, you'd have 10 apps

(sic) running during that 10-minute period per user. We will soon have shipped 100 million

iPhones and iPod touches. That will happen sometime this summer. 100 million times 10

is a billion ads impressions per day from the iPhone and iPod Touch community."

Iphone OS 4 will be available from the middle of the year for the iPhone. The iPhone 3GS

and iPod Touch models sold from mid-2009 will support all features while older models will

have limited support. It should be available for the iPad later in the year.

With reporting by Stephen Lawson in Cupertino, this is Martyn Williams, IDG News Service