Things to know about iPhone 4 and iOS 4
Written by Matthew JC Powell Thursday, 15 July 2010 01:52
It was fantastically convenient of Apple to announce two different products with a 4 in the name at the same time. And for bonus points, for one of them to have the name that the other one would have had if only it hadn’t changed the name. So it is that the iPhone 3GS is replaced by the iPhone 4, while the iPhone 3.x operating system is not replaced by iPhone 4, but rather by iOS 4. That way when people talk about “iPhone 4” there’s always just a few seconds of clarification necessary to ensure that both parties are talking about the same thing. It’s a coup de grace.
Let’s not actually bring the notion of an “iPhone 4G” into it, because that’s next year’s confusion. For now, understand that the hardware is iPhone 4 and the software is iOS 4, and the software will run on iPhone 3G and 3GS and any iPod touch other than the very first iteration — within certain limits.
