On April 8, Apple held a special keynote presentation in which they unveiled their new iPhone operating system and gave a handful of lucky developers a preview of what’s to come. I recently managed to get my hands on a device with the iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 1 firmware installed on it, so I’d like to give you an in-depth analysis of what to expect, along with some of the pros and cons of this new OS.

1.) Multitasking – To me, this is the most important and best feature Apple has added to their new firmware. This feature allows you to jump from one application to the next without losing your work. This is great if you’re in the middle of a game of Doodle Jump and get an important text or an email. All you have to do is double tap the Home button, and you can jump between any of your applications with ease. The video below demonstrates how simple yet effective multitasking is.

Don’t take my word for it, watch the demo video to see how revolutionary Apple’s multitasking feature is!

2.) Folders – You’ll now be able to organize all of your favorite applications into simple folders, giving you quick access to all of your favorite applications. You can now separate your apps into categories, such as “Games”, “Work”, etc. Plus, you’ll now be able to manage 2160 applications! That’s 1,980 applications more than the previous limit of a mere 180. It can also categorize applications based on how they were categorized when downloaded from the App Store and you can simply just change the name of the folder, so now you’re applications will already be organized with just a few simple commands.

Steve Jobs explains the functionality of the Folders feature in his Keynote.

3.) Mail – Although the Mail application won’t change dramatically, you’ll be able to view messages from multiple accounts in one large inbox, switch between accounts at a fairly quicker pace, and open business attachments in third-party applications, which can make doing things like simple revisions a breeze.

4.) iBooks – iBooks will now become a default application with the release of OS 4. If you have yet to try iBooks, it’s fantastic on the iPad. Though it’s a bit of an eye strainer to read a book on the screen of a smaller device like the iPhone and iPod touch, it’s still great to just enjoy a book and pass the time with a bit of reading. If you’re familiar with the Classics application, it’s merely an improvement of that application with a much larger selection of books, free and paid, which is fantastic for the avid and even casual reader.

5.) iAd – Here’s where I held my breath during the keynote, because Apple announced they’d be adding in interactive advertisements when opening certain applications. Although you have the option to close it and go back to what you’re doing without losing what you’re working on, I’m not fond of having advertisements appear on days where I just want to try out a handful of new applications I purchased or something similar to that.

I’ll be a bit fair and say I’ve come across some cool ads that have linked me to some interesting applications or have been interactive and fun to fool around with, but still, I’d rather have my iPhone be ad-free, though I can see where Apple is coming from on this and how it’s going to generate even more revenue and help make other products and developers a success.

6.) Developers & Business – Both the common business man and iPhone developer have the chance to use the new features of this iPhone OS to improve the functionality of their communication and applications.

If you use your iPhone regularly for business-related purposes, you’ll find that the new security features will help protect your data and information if your device is lost, stolen or compromised. Wireless App Management is great because larger enterprises can distribute in-house applications that can be acquired without even having to connect to their PC or Mac. Mobile Device Management is a great solution to make sure all devices are being used responsibly and comply with corporate guidelines, and these unique APIs are great to make sure a large network of devices can be easily managed. Finally, the improved Mail services allows your device to work with Exchange Server 2010, which is useful if you’re on a trip and need to read and file a report, send out a memo to certain office employees, or make sure your presentation was received properly. The other changes to Mail mentioned earlier make it easy to edit and review documents viewable in third-party applications, too.

Developers can benefit from the new iPhone SDK package, which features over 1500 new APIs that developers can use to enhance their graphics or make their applications more interactive and user-friendly. Although I’m not a commercial application developer, several have already begun experimenting with the SKD 4 beta, available for download from the iPhone Dev Center if you’re enrolled in the iPhone Developer Program(which costs $99 a year), have already been able to significantly improve their existing applications and create beautiful new ones with this fantastic tool kit.

7.) Other Features

- Over 100 new features have been added to iPhone OS 4, including the few majors updates listed above. Some other cool but less significant changes include being able to set a custom home screen background, download and gift applications straight from your phone, focus on a specific target in video instead of just photos on your iPhone 3GS, and several others.

If you’d like to see some of these features in action, click the link to the Keynote added at the beginning of the article (or simply click here). iPhone OS 4 will first debut this summer for iPhone and iPod touch, and for iPad in the fall. The firmware will be compatible with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 2nd Generation, and iPod touch Third Generation. However, certain devices won’t be able to use all of the features listed; i.e. the 2nd Gen. iPod and iPhone 3G do not have the ability to use multitasking because of their outdated hardware. The first iPod and iPhone models will not see any OS 4 support because of their inability to use most of these newer features due to outdated hardware and performance issues.

With that in mind, I can’t wait until the final version of iPhone OS 4 is released, and based on what I’ve seen in a somewhat buggy beta so far, you won’t be disappointed.

Over the past several years, social networking websites have grown from small communities to the most trafficked websites on the Web and are now a part of our daily lives. Whether it’s playing a game on Facebook, listening to new music posted by an artist on MySpace or informing the world how great your cup of coffee is on Twitter, two-thirds of the Internet population visit these kinds of websites, which accumulates for 10% of all time spent on the Internet. However, as smartphones are becoming cheaper and a lot more common among cellular device owners, more and more people are experiencing the Net in a whole new way, which means websites like Twitter and Facebook must begin improving mobile services.

More than 63% of U.S. Web traffic on mobile devices is to social networks, which means that networking through a mobile device is growing rapidly. Social networking through mobile devices experienced a 152% increase between November 2007 and November 2008 alone, and by the end of the year, that number has been expected by some to rise as high as 400% from 2008.

The three main networking giants, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, have all launched mobile versions of their websites and made them easy to use and navigate, which is good news for social junkies. However, many features available on the desktop version of the websites are not available on mobile versions, including Facebook and MySpace IM, editing profile information on Twitter, etc. However, all three websites are currently working on improving the desktop and mobile versions of their site to meet the needs of the future Web 3.0

For example, MySpace President & Co-Founder Tom Anderson is constantly working on reducing advertisements and improving the sections of the website that make it unique, such as MySpace Music. Tom also recently spoke about plans for an updated homepage, along with several new additions to the Music section, although nothing has been formally announced. Twitter recently launched a Spanish and Japanese version of their site, along with enabling SMS to the expanding Internet userbase in India. As for Facebook, no recent changes have been made aside from the homepage redesign that is still creating outrage among the community, which we reported on last week.

Many of these websites are taking steps to meet the future of Mobile Web users, but they all have a long way to go before the needs of every Web user will be satisfied.