There is much rumour about what iPhone OS 4.0 will deliver to the iPhone user, and if you use the iPhone in a business environment or responsible for those employees that carry the iPhone, the iPhone OS preview delivers several hints at what to expect.

However they are simply hints and nothing concrete in the way of details and as Apple pushes out into ahead of the iPhone release those detail are sparse, so baring that in mind the guys over at macworld with what they think you can expect from iPhone OS 4.0 on the IT front.

They start off by saying that one of the major weaknesses with the iPhone is managing it in an IT environment, out of the box you have to use iTunes to set up your iPhone and on that you have no choice at all. After setup some of the bumps should go away with iPhone OS 4.0 due to business gaining the ability to distribute apps wirelessly.

Along with app distribution Apple will update the iPhone OS so it is more compatible with 3rd party management frameworks such as those from Sybase and for the larger company it is a hugely important capability.

On the security front the iPhone OS has taken its fair share of knocks; with iPhone OS 4.0 Apple changes the way it implements encryption slightly and it looks like Apple is giving the user the ability to use personal passphrases as an encryption key for such things as attachments and email. The implementation of new APIs also enables developers to encrypt their data but does it mean Apple is allowing the user to encrypt the entire iPhone, they say they don’t know yet as Apple isn’t telling.

As for iPhone OS 4.0 and apps, Apple has spoke of support for multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts along with support for Exchange 2010, but does it mean Exchange 2010 will work the same as in Exchange 07 of 03 server or support for Exchange 2010 specific features, and they say they don’t know.

iPhone OS 4.0 will support the new CardDAV standard but will iCal in iPhone OS 4.0 support shared calendars ala iCat on the desktop or set which shared calendars you want to see, or can you set delegation to your own calendars on your iPhone?

Furthermore will Apple update their own tools which run under Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac OS X 10.6 Server or do we need to wait until these changes come in Mac OS X 10.7, they say it is unclear,

They finalise by saying that although some questions remain unanswered the improvements in iPhone OS 4.0 are going to make life a tad easier which is a good thing.