Udpated: iOS 4.3: what you need to know

Roll on Friday: it's the iOS 4.3 release date, and once again it'll bring some new goodies to your iPad, iPad 2, iPhone and iPod touch.

But not the old ones, because the iOS 4.3 specs only support the iPhone 3GS and third-gen iPod touch onwards.

So what iOS 4.3 features should you be getting excited about?

iOS 4.3 release date

Mr Jobs has spoken: iOS 4.3 release date is Friday 11 March.

UPDATE: Rumours that surfaced on 8 March suggest that iOS 4.3 release date could actually be 8 March. We'll know whether that's true in the next few hours.

The iOS 4.3 specs include a much faster Safari

Mobile Safari now benefits from the same Nitro JavaScript engine that powers the desktop version, which should make browsing the web much faster.

iOS 4.3 brings AirPlay to your iPhone videos

The new release fixes the strange omission in AirPlay where you couldn't send videos from your iPhone camera roll to your Apple TV. AirPlay has been dramatically improved in iOS 4.3: third-party apps will be able to take advantage of it, so you won't be limited to Apple's own apps when you want to chuck songs, movies or photos at an Apple TV. iOS 4.3 features also include AirPrint wireless printing.

AIRPLAY: AirPlay gets much more useful in iOS 4.3, with third-party apps able to stream content to an Apple TV

iOS 4.3 features include iTunes Home Sharing

Good news for homebodies with huge iTunes libraries: instead of trying to cram a subset of your media collection onto your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, simply enable iTunes Home Sharing and stream your music, photos, podcasts or videos from your Mac or PC. Voila: every iOS device has unlimited storage until you leave the house.

iOS 4.3 brings Personal Hotspots to your iPhone 4

As widely predicted, iOS 4.3 brings a nifty new feature to iPhone 4 users: personal hotspots, which turn your iPhone (iPhone 4s only) into a Wi-Fi access point for any Wi-Fi devices.

Unless there's a last-minute surge of generosity from the network operators you'll need tethering enabled to take advantage of it, so for example on O2 that'll set you back �7.66 for 500MB.

Personal Hotspots will only support three devices

While personal hotspots can connect five devices in total, Apple's iOS page says that iOS 4.3's Wi-Fi sharing can only handle "up to three of those connections using Wi-Fi". The others would need to be via Bluetooth or USB.

The iPad orientation lock is back

You know how the iPad switch became a mute button instead of a rotation lock? With iOS 4.3, you can keep it as-is or make it a rotation lock again.

iOS 4.3 has special video effects

This one's for the FaceTime fans: iOS 4.3's features include special effects for your iOS device's camera, allowing you to pretend it's an X-Ray or a thermal camera.

iOS 4.3 supports app subscriptions

The Guardian leaked this one in December: support for recurring app subscriptions.

iOS 4.3 won't work on the iPhone 3G (or second generation iPod touch)

The first iPhone and the iPhone 3G don't meet the iOS 4.3 specs, and second-generation iPod touches are excluded from the 4.3 party too. That's not a huge surprise: sticking 4.0 on the iPhone 3G made it do a brilliant impression of a brick.

iOS 5.0 is coming in the summer

Some sites predicted an iOS 5.0 unveiling would happen at the iPad 2 event, and of course that didn't happen - but we'd expect at least a big hint at the annual iPhone unveiling this summer, when Apple unveils the iPhone 5.

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