Apple iPad iOS4.2 review

Apple iPad iOS4.2 review

Richard Goodwin

We review iOS4.2 to see if Apple’s latest iPad-centric software update was worth the wait

Published on Nov 23, 2010

The iPad is famous for two things: popularising the idea of tablet devices and not having multitasking – something Apple took a lot of flack for. Nevertheless, this “multitasking” issue, along with iOS3.2’s other glaring omissions, have now supposedly been taken care of by iOS4.2.

We got the new iteration of iOS for iPad last night and have been playing with it pretty much ever since. Here’s what we uncovered in the time since then.

Installing iOS4.2

Installing iOS4.2 wasn’t a nice experience. For starters, we had to download and install iTunes on our new PC, which took the best part of half an hour, then sync the iPad to it before we could do anything.

This wouldn’t normally have been an issue but we’d recently bought a new PC and hadn’t yet installed iTunes on it. Either way, once we had iTunes installed it took us about three attempts to get iOS4.2 actually onto the iPad, and then it didn’t even work – we got an error message!

So, after about an hour of messing around with both the iPad and our brand new PC, we decided to reset the device and start afresh, losing all of our apps and data that’s accumulated on the device.

The upside to this approach was that it took less than five minutes to completely reset the device and install the new operating system. The downside is that you have to go and re-download all your applications all over again.

Multitasking
Say what you want about the iPad, but Apple should have released it with multitasking for the get-go. It was stupid of them not too, and once you use iOS4.2 you’ll know exactly what we mean – the iPad feels like a different device altogether.

Multitasking on the iPad is brilliant. It’s fast, you can run a serious amount of data-hungry applications at the same time and even, according to Engadget, port HD video and play a game at the same time – although, we didn’t try this.

All of this wondrous multitasking is also achieved with less RAM than the iPhone 4 as well – impressive stuff indeed.

The multitasking on the iPad that iOS4.2 introduces is great. You’re free to load up as many apps as you like and the device will remain functional and snappy. In this instance, Apple has really outdone itself.

Folders
Like on the iPhone 4, you can now organise you applications into Folders on your iPad’s homescreens. We loved this addition to the iPhone 4’ functionality and, predictably, we feel pretty much the same way about it on the iPad – it’s great.

Not only does it free up a serious amount of room on your device’s homescreens but it also makes everything appear a lot tidier and more organised, which is always a good thing.

The ability to group different types of apps together means you always knows exactly where your apps are. For instance, you can group games in one folder and social networking apps in another. But you’re free to add whatever you like to it and rename the folder, so it is completely customisable – just like on the iPhone 4.

Game Center

Apple’s Game Center is something that has divided opinion across the board with some users absolutely loving it and others, well, not so much.

Game Center is well integrated into the iPad, though, and as a service it works perfectly well. Logging in is simple enough, it just requires your Apple ID. Once you’ve done this you’re free to go and play games and begin following and finding friends.

There’s a whole host of games that are now supported by Game Center and there even seems to be quite a few people actually using the service now, so if you don’t already have a Game Center account maybe it’s time you had a look? It’s free after all…