Is iOS 4.2 the most anticipated mobile OS release in history? It could well be, given iOS 4.2 is promised not only to fix performance issues on older iPhone 3G and 3GS models, but also to bring the long-awaited multitasking feature to Apple's still amazing iPad.

While the delay between iOS versions is generally much, much shorter than most users have to wait for major Windows OS updates, iOS 4.2 brings over 100 new features to iPad users, from a unified email inbox to a 'find' capability in Safari to multitasking and more, and iPad owners are sick of the endless anticipation and waiting.

Sure, we'd all rather Apple got it right the first time, rather than making iPad users wait for a bug fixing iOS 4.2.1 to arrive, but with patience being a virtue and all good things coming to those who wait, it is our current fate to have to wait for iOS 4.2's fuzzy release date.

At least the iPhone hackers and jailbreakers seem ultra-organised, saying the current jailbreak only needs minor tweaking to worth with the final iOS 4.2 code, although it will come as no surprise if Apple has done something last minute to jab jailbreakers in the jugular - we'll just have to wait and see.

With iOS 4.x having been out for some time now, and with nicely competing UI experiences from Microsoft's WP7, Palm's Web OS 2.0, RIM's BlackBerry 6 OS and Android, especially with Gingerbread OS 2.3 due 'soon', some have started wondering just what iOS 5.0 will look like, let alone any of its successors.

Will iOS 5.0 break the familiar 'wall of apps' screens that Apple shows its users, or will there be some concession to Microsoft's Windows way of presenting a home screen and all that information?

With iOS 1.0 through to 4.0 looking mostly identical, iOS 5.0 could well be the time to introduce a swish new UI that takes the iPhone experience to the 'next level'.

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Alternatively, iOS 5.0 might be too soon for that kind of revolutionary change, and might only offer evolutionary changes and improvements instead, leaving the true 'next gen' experience to iOS 6.0.

But I'm not sure if Apple would want to wait that long to introduce something amazing and world-beating.

After all, Apple said in 2007 that it was five years ahead of the competition. In 2011, when we can expect iOS 5.0 to arrive (alive!), won't Steve Jobs want to say he's leapfrogged the competition, putting Apple another 5 years ahead?

Well, you'd imagine so, but Apple needs to have something that revolutionarily different first.

Still, if anyone is able to surprise us in this manner, you'd certainly expect Apple to be able to do it.

After all, if Microsoft can come up with a stunning new UI that handily competes with its' iCompetition, so much so that it doesn't even look like a Microsoft product, the world certainly expects Apple to do much, much better.

As we know, it's Apple that gives Microsoft the ideas for which the photocopiers get started up in Redmond, or at least, so Apple has claimed in the past.

So'¦ the wait for iOS 4.2 continues, with anytime between now, November 15, and November 30, the end of the month, the remaining timeframe within which iOS 4.2 can launch and stay true to the 'Coming Soon in November' timeframe.

If Apple misses it, then December will surely be the iOS 4.2 month to remember, but while that's a possibility, everyone is still expecting a November delivery.

So, c'mon Apple, please finishing polishing up your tasty new OS treat and please open up the iOS 4.2 floodgates ASAP!