The update to the reader’s software — version 2.5.4 — had been anticipated since April, about the time Apple’s iPad launched.

It has now arrived, and with it, the capability for readers to post favored passages from e-books to user accounts on the social networking sites.

For authors, this capability is akin to free advertising for their work.

Getting fans of a book to post these passages is the social networking equivalent of a mini Oprah Book Club endorsement.

Only the endorser isn’t quite so famous or influential.

But this week’s release of OS4, the new operating system for Apple’s incredibly successful iPhone, might just be a lesson in humility for the company.

While the phone itself is still user-friendly and simple to operate, this latest software upgrade has added some sophisticated features that not every owner of the device will understand.

The upgrade’s also created a number of glitches in the phone that owners will have to work through. A quick trip through the Apple Discussion forums on the company’s website will show you just how many.

My own personal Waterloo: The upgrade caused the Bluetooth in my Mini Cooper to forget its close, personal relationship to my iPhone. My iPhone, as well, pretended not to know my car’s built-in speaker dashboard phone controls. In the past, this has happened occasionally, and switching off and back on the phone’s Bluetooth solved the problem.

Not this time.

After about a half hour of reading discussions, I determined that a divorce was the only solution. I removed the device from my car’s memory and told the phone (via its Bluetooth settings) to “forget” the Mini. Then, I got them back together by going through the pairing process again.

It worked. Car and phone are friends again.

My next problem was the multitasking feature. Initially, it didn’t work. So I shut down my phone, restarted and it did. Simple, but not exactly intuitive.

Then, I couldn’t figure out exactly how to shut down a running app. Again, no tutorial, no instructions on the Apple site for this new feature. But there was an Apple discussion on the topic.

Moral of the story: Support from fellow users is probably your best bet.

But it wouldn’t hurt if Apple created a tutorial for the new software. With 100 new features to play with, a guide would come in handy.

And with the company’s financial success these days, it wouldn’t hurt to spend a little of those profits on the customer service Apple’s become famous for in the past.

That’s when Microsoft will stop issuing security updates for systems running XP with Service Pack 2. Anyone who hasn’t installed SP3 by then could face some serious security issues if that happens.

According to surveys, about 36% of systems in business are running on the fumes of SP2, issued in 2004. A major overhaul to the popular XP operating system, SP2 won’t get security updates after July 13.

What to do? Get your systems updated to SP3 before that date. SP3, primarily a gaggle of already-released fixes and patches, is a much less radical upgrade to the OS than SP2 was and will be supported til 2014.

There are two ways to update: Download SP3 from the Microsoft site or via the Windows Update service on XP SP2 PCs.

For most IT shops, the service pack update will be a cheaper strategy than a Windows 7 migration — for now. But 2014 will be here faster than you think. Better starting saving up for that OS overhaul. It won’t be cheap.

The update will be able to detect if the activation is valid. If it’s not, that little tidbit of information will be transmitted to Microsoft.

And then the annoying reminders and altered Windows desktop begins.

According to a post on the “Genuine Windows Blog” by Joe Williams, once the update detects a known hack, “the desktop wallpaper will be switched to a plain desktop (all of the customer’s desktop icons, gadgets, or pinned applications stay in place). Periodic reminders and a persistent desktop watermark act as further alerts to the customer.”

In other words: Ugly desktop and persistent pop ups will annoy owners of hacked software into relenting and paying up for an authorized version of the operating system.

The update’s scheduled to post to the Microsoft download site on Feb. 17. You’ve been warned.

Take the new tool that helps Firefox users avoid potentially serious plug-in related security issues.

Until now, Firefox users got alerts to plug-in updates, but this new tool lets them go to a “Plugin Check” page which automatically checks all installed plug-ins and links to updates.

Why bother keeping your plug-ins up to date?

• Old Plugins can interrupt browsing and waste your time.
• Old Plugins increase your risk for attack by malware, viruses, and other security threats.
• Updated Plugins have improvements that make the web better and safer.

For IT pros, you may want to give your Firefox users the link to this page so they’ll have the most secure plug-in versions: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/

To use the site, click here.

It’s coming, says the unit’s exclusive U.S. carrier, AT&T. Just hang on …

Of course, iPhone owners outside the U.S. have had MMS since the June upgrade, but for some reason, AT&T just can’t seem to get it’s act into gear on this improvement.

For those unfamiliar with MMS, it’s Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), an upgraded version of the SMS (Short Messaging Service) through which you can send and receive multimedia messages like  texts, pictures, video clips, audio clips, etc., using a cell phone.

The iPhone currently has SMS capability, but users have been clamouring since Apple’s smartphone arrived on the scene several years ago for MMS, a more advanced messaging service that lets users send multiple media in one single message to one or more recipients.

I recently quizzed an employee at an AT&T phone kiosk in a local mall about the delay. He told me that his company hadn’t heard about the MMS capability promise until the rest of us did — at the Apple announcement three months ago.

Not sure I believe a low-level sales guy is privvy to the C-suite conversations between corporate execs, but if this is true, Apple may be laying the groundwork for abandoning its lone U.S. partner in the iPhone service industry.

What company wouldn’t tell its trusted partner about such a significant upgrade until after it had announced the feature to the entire world?

Apple had promised MMS capability to iPhone owners by “late summer,” and if the announcement that it will be offered on September 25 is true, then the original promise has been broken. According to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s official timetable, the 2009 Autumnal Equinox is set for September 22 at 5:18 p.m.

As an iPhone owner, I’m not pleased.