iOS 4 Available June 21st, Free To All 3G, 3Gs and iPod Touch Users

John Brownlee ()

iOS 4 Available June 21st, Free To All 3G, 3Gs and iPod Touch Users

The new iPhone won’t be in people’s hands until June 24th, but existing iDevice owners who are looking forward to the incredible features of iOS 4 won’t have long to wait: it’ll be available for download to owners of the iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPod Touch on June 21st, just two weeks away.

The best part? It’ll be free to everyone. No longer will iPod Touch owners have to pay for an OS update. “We’ve finally found a way to get these upgrades for free to our iPod touch customers, and we couldn’t be happier.”

I’m sure iPod Touch owners, long screwed by update fees, agree. I know I do.

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[image via GDGT]

38 comments »

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 News, Software, Top stories |

  • zurick

    The Apple site does not list the Touch: “iOS 4 works with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G.” Am I missing something?

  • imajoebob

    iOS? Not crazy about that. OS i makes more sense, except if OS X is followed by OS XI, and Apple had a hard enough time to get people to stop saying Oh Ess Ex, so having OS i and Oh Ess Ex Eye could be a nightmare. But I still don’t like it.

  • IcyFog

    I didn’t have a problem paying for my iPod touch operating system upgrade. Just like I didn’t and don’t with my computer.
    It shouldn’t have been an issue.

  • http://danking.blogspot.com Dan

    Like zurick, I’m hoping for the free itouch updates and hope we won’t miss out … but I’d probably pay for them too.

  • John

    What is it with Apple stealing names from Cisco??
    First they took the iPhone name from a cisco phone, now they have taken the name of the operating firmware from their switches.
    How am I going to know now if I am downloading the IOS firmware or commands for a Cisco switch or an iOS update for my touch! I could get horribly confused over brand name choices like that! I mean switch, and touch both end in “ch” too!

    8)

  • SirSteven

    So, it’s free for 2nd-gen iPod Touch owners, but we WILL NOT get multi-tasking… Is that correct?

    It’s an annoying block, since the hardware is surely capable of it. presumably, I can get multi-tasking on my 2nd-gen iPT by jailbreaking it.

  • Adam

    iPhone OS > iOS
    Mac OS X > xOS?
    iTunes > iStore, incl iBooks, iTunes, Apps?

  • DMurdock

    When will the new OS be available for the
    iPad?

  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    @SirSteven – It probably can handle multi tasking, but it wont give you a pleasant user experience, which is what Apple devices are famed for. If it doesnt work very well, it doesnt work (Apples stance)

    @DMurdock – September is the release date so far. Itll probably be announced at the same time as the new ipod touch and software features announcement.

  • zurick

    My bad (see earlier post) – it’s official for the Touch – 2nd and 3rd generation. See this link: http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ios4-software-update.html

  • connor Irwin

    I cant wait for the update for my itouch

  • Ben

    So I mite sound dumb but I just got the 3gs Wednesday as I don’t wanna pay loads like the 4 will likely b. So apart from the camera and flash upgrades and HD recording and editing is there any “real” benefit if my m8s gloat about having a 4 over a 3gs as the software will b the same?

  • Harry

    I read up on d apple site and it said that multitasking, Home screen background and Bluetooth keyboard won’t work for iPod touch 2g which is a shame because I was specifically looking forward to those 3. If anyone knows how to fix this please post!

  • Stanb

    @Ben No “real” gain. They released it cuz now we have tons of phones with better cameras and more screen resolution, so they had to upgrade it. Oh, the processor is also much faster (1ghz). So, in the future, we may have some apps that runs only on iphone 4. Right now, I think 3GS is “good enought”.

  • http://rambledaily.com Adam

    I really think the people posting on this article need to think before they post anything, they come off as really ignorant people.

  • Martin

    @Adam, at least they don’t come off as arrogant.

  • Tom Tom

    My wife says I’m both.

  • Alex

    @Harry

    You can enable both the backgrounding and the changing of the Springboard’s (that’s the actual term for the homescreen) background by jailbreaking it. If you jailbreak with the newest version Redsnow, you can just check boxes for both of these features.

    I know I’ll be doing this as soon as I get iOS4! I already have redsnow downloaded and ready to go!

  • iPhone

    Will update be avalable at 12 tonight?

  • iModder95

    @iPhone

    I heard that it will be available at 10:20 PDT on June 21st. I’m staying up all night because I don’t want to wait until a few hours later when all the servers are jammed. I want to be first in line so I won’t have to deal with all their server BS…

  • iPhone

    I’m still waiting haha did you get it yet?

  • Austin Myers

    IOS4 IS OUT JUST GOT IN FOR MY IPHONE VERY GREAT SYSTEM!

  • schneider

    If not mistaken i can only be download via itunes isn’t it ??? i am still waiting but there are none… no update available as we speak…

  • schneider

    well still no update

  • Joda

    It WILL be available at 10:00 AM – California time. Now it’s only 00:15, so another 9 hours and 45 minutes.

  • Mickey

    Is it going to be some time soon? I`m quite..imapatient..

  • schneider

    owh man,, another 9 hour.. shit…

  • Mickey

    OMG..now back to sleep..:D..maybe the time will go faster..xD

  • BKumar

    I ready to download iOS4, but still i have to wait 9 hr more. Here Time is 11.07 AM (AST) – 1.08 AM ( California – PDT ).

  • ethan

    cant wait! i cant even get my ass back to bed. lol :))

  • yassin

    can anyone call support and ask for the exact time?

  • iPhone

    I can’t wait any longer!! When will it be avalable for Connecticut!

  • schneider

    shit… well actually when is the actual time to start down load.. i have plug it more then 10 times…but still the itunes say 3.1.3 is the current version… when does the 4.0 out…

  • JR

    East coasters still have 3 more hours. It’s only 10 til 7 out there on the West coast.

  • JR

    …meaning we all have 3 more hours. :)

  • http://aronrox@myspace.com Aron

    @schneider

    Yeah i have the same problem! mine is also 3.1.3. I have no idea whats going on…….it didnt download at all. nothing…hopefully something will happen. any exact times for the dowload in Eastern standard? cant wait for the new update!

  • JR

    Well it says 10am Pacific time so I’m assuming it will be 1pm for us. But that’s just other sites that have said that so I don’t know if they are 100% accurate or not. Try it again in another couple of minutes and if that doesn’t work go watch TV or something until 1….it can’t hurt right?

  • schneider

    now now now..