iPhone OS 4.0 release delayed by Apple Tablet?

iPhone OS 4.0 release delayed by Apple Tablet?If the forthcoming Apple Tablet does indeed run on the iPhone operating system, which seems likely, it stands to reason that it’ll be a major evolution of the OS, with new multitouch gestures and features that will selectively trickle down to the smaller handsets, even as the app format is expanded to a sort-of “universal binary” system to allow one executable to run on two significantly different hardware conditions.

If that’s all true, then it’s no wonder that Apple is sitting on the release of the next update to the iPhone OS until after the Tablet is officially announced. A source speaking to iPodNN has now confirmed that that is indeed the case: while the iPhone 4.0 firmware is in deep internal testing, it hasn’t been released to developers because there are too many references in current builds to functionality of Apple’s upcoming tablet.

Other than that, iPodNN’s source is tight lipped, but goes on to describe the tablet as an “iPhone on steroids” with multi-touch gestures that are “out of control.” He also claims the internal model number of the Apple tablet is K48AP, running an extremely fast ARM CPU, designed by PA Semi.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple Tablet, News |

  • http://www.technovia.co.uk Ian Betteridge

    That iPodNN story looks like a complete rip of the Boy Genius Report story from earlier the same day:

    http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/01/13/apples-tablet-is-an-iphone-on-steroids/

  • http://www.twitter.com/egOriginal Kofi Asirifi

    I can’t wait for either of the two. Definite buy. I hope the new iPhone to come out has a dual core processor & kicks the boot with the AT&T exclusivity aggreement .

  • porkchop1234

    Can’t everyone just stop blogging and just WAIT until the thing is announced (if it actually is going to be announced). All these tablet rumor blogs are getting quite tiring considering its all based off conjecture.