Earlier today, Apple made the iOS 4.3 available to its customers via iTunes, two days ahead of its previously announced March 11th release date.

The new iOS revision, which will also come installed on the iPad 2 when it begins shipping this Friday, is a modest update to the mature iOS 4 operating system. It drops support for some older devices and speeds up some newer ones, but I don't think there's any one feature here that will fundamentally change the experience for the iOS userbase. Read on for details!

iPhone 3G users have been unhappy, and rightfully so. When iOS 4.0 debuted, we talked about new features like multitasking for the iPhone 3GS and how much faster the camera application felt compared to iOS 3.1.3. iPhone 3G customers, however, gained little in terms of new features from the update except newfound slowness.

Discontent has been growing, with a number of users pointing fingers at Apple and citing planned obsolesnce as a possible motive. Steve Jobs later promised that iPhone 3G performance would improve, and that an update was coming to address speed on the aging platform.

Fast forward to September 1st, and the iPhone 3G slowdown is an official bug which will be be 'fixed' with iOS 4.1. We’ve gone hands on with the iOS 4.1 gold master and tested speed and general responsiveness thoroughly. What can iPhone 3G users expect? Read on for the full story.

In case you haven’t noticed, the iPhone 4’s antenna design has come under considerable scrutiny. In our iPhone 4 review, we investigated the iPhone 4 antenna and came to two conclusions. First, that iOS 4 was displaying signal bars in an overly optimistic manner, compressing the dynamic range of possible signal bars users can see. Second, we identified a worst case signal drop of around 24 dBm when the iPhone 4 is cupped tightly in the left hand, covering the black strip and possibly detuning the antennas and adding additional attenuation from the presence of the hand.

Since those initial measurements, we’ve been working tirelessly to both characterize the problem, fully understand the mechanisms behind it, and report on a number of possible solutions.

Update: We just confirmed that our analysis based on iOS 4.1 beta applies to iOS 4.0.1 that was just released.

Just two days before the official iPhone 4 release Apple delivered its promised iOS 4 update to all iPhone 3G and 3GS owners. The new OS release enables Apple's own variant of multitasking, organizational folders and lays the foundation for much of what we should expect to see from Apple over the coming years.

The smartphone OS space is maturing very quickly and iOS 4 is an example of that. Read on as we dive in to the new OS.