In the wake of yesterday’s iPhone OS 4.0 preview event, the internets are buzzing with reactions ranging from “Yay, multitasking!” to “That’s all? Android is going to BURY the iPhone now!” As usual, the reality lies somewhere in-between the two extremes. Here is my initial take on the seven “tentpole” features announced, specifically from the perspective of someone who uses their iPhone as a business device.

Tentpole #1 – Multitasking

For many folks, this was “the big Kahuna.” Push notifications were a small concession for users who expected their devices to be able to handle things like Twitter and IM while busily engaging in a Words with Friends battle. The hallmark example for the new multitasking feature (which I hesitate to call “multitasking” at all, as it’s more about background services than true multitasking) is Pandora Radio. To be honest, when I first switched from my BlackBerry to the iPhone, the lack of ability to have Pandora running while doing other things was an annoyance. I solved this problem by not using Pandora anymore, which was a fine solution for me…although the Pandora folks might disagree. Regardless, opening up other music apps to have the same background playback that the iPod software enjoys is a definite “win”. Will I use Pandora more now? It remains to be seen.

The portion of this tentpole that really makes me happy is the manner in which apps will preserve state. This is especially useful when playing a game (I know, I know…I said I was going to speak for “business users”, but to be honest, what “business user” doesn’t at least play the odd game of Peggle every now and again?). It can be REALLY obnoxious to be racking up a great run in Bejeweled, only to receive an incoming phone call which kicks you out of your game and then loses your progress. This is exacerbated with games like Civilization or The Sims, which don’t auto-save your progress, but involve a fair amount of time investment to play. Prior to this “save state” feature, the best advice was to put your iPhone into “airplane mode” while playing these games. Obviously, the iPod Touch or iPad don’t suffer from these issues.

Tentpole #2 – Folders

I currently have nine pages of apps on my iPhone. I’ve attempted various strategies for organizing them (for example, put all games on one page, all photo apps on another page, etc). This has really proven to be cumbersome and not a sustainable strategy, especially when a “category” contains more apps than will fit on one page. Organization into folders is a feature that seemed natural after the App Store opened for business.

One question that came up when we were watching the liveblog at work yesterday was “Why folders? Why not tags?” Frankly, it seems to me that tagging might make even more sense for organizing (using the Gmail solution of “labels”, as an example). An item can only live in one folder, but it can belong to multiple tags. It would be pretty cool for me to have a tag for TYPE of app…but then also a set of tags for use case (“Work”, “Home”, “Play”, etc) for even more amazing organizational kung-fu.

Tentpole #3 – Mail

It should come as no surprise to TiP readers that this was my favorite feature announcement. The “unified inbox” resolves one of my 5 reasons iPhone email needs help. Another major “win” here was the ability to connect to more than one Microsoft Exchange mailbox. Using Gmail via Exchange (aka “ActiveSync”) instead of IMAP is a major difference, and since I already have my corporate mail using up my one allotted Exchange account on my iPhone, it makes my Gmail experience pretty cruddy. I love that this has been lifted.

It remains to be seen if Apple provides any other improvements for Mail that I am desperate for, including multiple signatures and custom alerts based upon sender or content, but if this is all I get in the Mail arena, I’ll be placated. For now.

Tentpole #4 – iBooks

As a big fan of e-books, I’m kind of jazzed about this one. I currently use both Stanza and Kindle on my iPhone, and have been hankering to give iBooks a spin (but not hankering enough to get an iPad…yet). The main thing that puzzles me about the iBooks tentpole is the question of…why is this an OS update feature? Shouldn’t it just be an app? Maybe it’s my impatience speaking, but something just doesn’t quite add up for me. I’m sure the iPhone dev team could rattle off a bunch of technical reasons why there are OS updates required to use an e-book reader…but from my point of view, I don’t see it.

Tentpole #5 – Enterprise Features

From the perspective of a business user (especially an IT Operations guy), this tentpole was chock-full of good news. One major gap in the iPhone’s adoption in the enterprise is the lack of management tools. Pretty much the only thing that an IT department can do to regulate these mobile devices is to have the ability to fire off a remote data wipe via ActiveSync (if the device is lost or stolen, for example…or when the employee leaves the company if it is a personal device). However, this is fairly unreliable, and it doesn’t really count as “mobile device management”.

In addition to being able to track and manage iPhones, IT departments can now deploy applications over-the-air (OTA) to company devices. OS 4.0 will also support encryption of email and attachments, and I assume that an IT department will be able to enforce certain configurations on the device via policy (such as requiring a passcode lock and/or requiring email encryption).

Tentpole #6 – Game Center

I’ve found that some of the most engaging gaming experiences are those with a social component. I’m not talking about social networking games like Farmville, but rather games that allow me to compete with other people, either directly (like Words with Friends) or via score tracking (such as Bejeweled). Creating a standard network and service for game developers to consume for this type of interactivity should result in MORE games with competitive features, which I see as a win.

Tentpole #7 – iAd

When the iAd slide first came up in the presentation, everyone in the conference room I was in groaned and said “Oh, goody…more advertising.” I made a joking comment that “somehow Apple is going to make us all decide that we LOVE ads, and will wonder how we got by without this necessary feature in the past.” Truth is, this is not terribly far off the mark. I’m not saying I want to see MORE ads on my device, but we all know that ads already exist in many apps. My thought is that if developers are going to include ads anyway, I prefer them to use a good system (specifically one that doesn’t kick me out of my app for clicking on an ad) rather than whatever “roll your own” solution is in place now. I don’t know that I am going to be more inclined to click through on ads delivered via iAd, but I know that there’s no way I click on them now…so from a developer perspective, this should be a big benefit.

Overall, this preview announcement was lacking in several areas I had hoped to see the OS grow, but bearing in mind that it was not a complete presentation of all the features in OS 4.0, I’m willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt. Is it everything I wanted? Of course not. Do I think that it’s a step in the right direction? Absolutely.