While I’m eagerly waiting for the recently-launched HTC Desire to be in stock somewhere, anywhere, unlocked and at a sensible price — and waiting for my bank account to look a bit healthier so I can actually afford the thing — Apple have announced the next version of the iPhone operating system.

Having thoroughly lost faith in Apple, I had absolutely no expectation of OS 4.0 bringing the iPhone up to speed with other smartphones. And that doubt appears to have been well-founded.

Highlights of the new OS:

  • Multitasking for third-party apps. Just like other smartphones have had for ages. Except those phones have proper multitasking, while the iPhone will have a tightly-controlled cut-down version, nobly intended to prolong battery life and ignobly intended to hide the iPhone’s lack of processor grunt.
  • Advertising. As if screen space isn’t already at a premium on phones, Apple will now provide a ready-rolled advertising system for app developers. Most modern smartphones have 3.7-inch screens with 800 x 480 resolution. The iPhone has a 3.5-inch screen with 480 x 320 resolution. So it’s not exactly customer-centric for Apple to encourage app developers to use those precious pixels for advertising. Apple will take 40% of revenue.
  • What about support for modern media-rich web sites? Embedded web apps?  Of course not! Still no Flash. Still no Java.
  • Any chance of running apps that haven’t been dragged through the App Store approval process? No. Why? Because according to Apple boss Steve Jobs, that sort of customer choice exposes children to pornography.

So hurrah! Around July sometime we’ll be able to update our iPhones with a new operating system that will still leave Apple’s phone as one of the weakest, most under-featured, most intentionally crippled smartphones on the market.

And by the way it’s now sixteen days and counting since Opera Mini was submitted to the App Store and Apple is still keeping customers waiting.