Apple Releases iOS 4.2 Update, Find My iPhone Is Now Free

By Matthew Chung on 11/22/2010, filed in Home > Apple

You’ve been waiting for it, and now it’s finally here. We’re talking about the iOS 4.2 update for the iPad, iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G and iPod touch, giving all those devices the latest version of Apple’s iOS software. iPad users will particularly be happy about this news as they will finally be able to enjoy multitasking on the iPad. iPhone 3G users should also have cause to celebrate as the update will bring about some performance improvements that should pacify many dissatisfied owners. Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that the Find My iPhone service is now free for all users, allowing GPS-enabled iOS devices to be located from a web interface for free, instead of having to shell out money for Apple’s MobileMe service.

Apple Inc: Apple Inc was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne as a computer company wich is often credited to have initiated personal computing. After a meteoric rise in the 80s, Apple had lost the personal computing battle against Microsoft and others in the 90s. But in the late 90s and early 2000s, the company came back to profitability by focusing on less products and started using industry-standard components. Apple's largest business is now in the smartphone space, with the iPhone representing more than half of the revenues and an even larger part of the profits. Read our Apple product reviews to see what the company has been up to: iPhone 5 Review, Macbook Pro with Retina display review

iOS: was once upon a time called iPhone OS, or "operating system", which is the software that provides all the basic device functionality and is the interface between the hardware and applications. iOS was introduced with the iPhone on January 9 2007, and it was originally not intended to be programmable by third parties. Steve Jobs had envisioned that developers could create Web Apps that would run in the browser. This changed less than one year after when the iPhone SDK (software development kit) was introduced in October 2007. Today, hundreds of thousands of apps have been created for this platform. iPhone OS became iOS on June 2010. Interestingly, both iPhone and iOS were former trademarks of Cisco, that Apple now uses under a license.

iPad: the iPad is Apple's tablet computer. While not "invented" by Apple (the newton was arguably a PDA), the iPad has re-ignited the tablet format as it appeared at the right time, with the right hardware and apps. the first iPad was launched on April 2010. It was followed by the iPad 2 in March 2011 and a new iPad (gen 3) in 2012.

iPhone: iPhone: The iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones. That was also the original name of the first iPhone, which was announced on January 9th 2007 by Steve Jobs during the Macworld Keynote. The iPhone was released to the public in June of the same year. The development of the iPhone started in 2004, was internally called "project purple" and was the fruit of a collaboration between Apple and AT&T. Since then, Apple has released new iPhone models every year, with the iPhone 3G in July 2008, the iPhone 3GS in June 2009, the iPhone 4 in June 2010, the iPhone 4S in October 2011 and the iPhone 5 in September 2012. The iPhone represented more than half of Apple's revenues in 2012.

Join a great community!