Another round of rumors, and this time it’s not Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 platform that’s being talked about, but rather Cupertino’s iPhone 4.0 software upgrade is said to be debuting at the Apple event later this month. According to the leaks to BGR, the new iPhone 4.0 software will be available as an upgrade to iPhone 3G and 3GS users and brings a number of new features that is said to “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers.”

Among the rumored features, the new software update will bring multitouch to the entire OS, some form of multitasking, and some UI changes.

Whether or not multitouch is needed for the entire OS is debatable–pinch and zoom are already implemented where it’s needed, particularly in photo management, the Mail app, and Safari; flick scroll, otherwise known as kinetic scrolling, has appeared in a number of apps.

The second feature, running multiple apps in the background, would be a first for Apple; the company has resisted multitasking as it would greatly tax the battery. Instead, in the past, Apple has worked to bring the framework for push notifications for developers of IM applications and Facebook, which I find a worthy compromise to get important notifications and preserve battery life.

The last feature–changes to the UI–may prove to be the most interesting. Thus far, competing platforms such as Windows Mobile (in 6.5), webOS, and Android have ways of alerting users of important notifications without being too obtrusive. On the other hand, iPhone 3.0 interrupts users in the middle of their workflow with pop-up notifications. Additionally, if there are multiple notifications appearing sequentially or simultaneously, only the latest notification gets the pop-up, and that may mean users may not get the alert for earlier notifications.

It’d be interesting to see how iPhone 4.0 will appear in the iPhone and how it may differ from the slate tablet that Apple is working on–also said to debut alongside the platform on the 27th of the month. That tablet, previously rumored to be called iSlate, may come out as the iTablet.

(via: BGR)