Users managed to get a glimpse of the iOS 5 at the World Developers Conference in San Francisco. There were plenty of predictions made and now it is time to see what has come to pass. Overall, it has been indicated that there will be more than 200 features in the new iOS, which will be available this fall. Most of the additions were incremental changes but nevertheless, very useful.
Newsstand
This particular app allows you to centralize all your magazine subscriptions. If you subscribe to a particular magazine, new issues will be automatically delivered, removing the need to manually update yourself.
Notifications
One of the most relieving features of the new iOS is the integrated notifications systems that combine messages, app updates, missed calls, weather updates and a stock ticker, all in one place.
Twitter
Thankfully, Apple seems to have paid a lot of attention to the Tweet mania going around. Now you can post pictures directly from the image gallery or camera app and sync Twitter with your contacts. In addition, you can Tweet while on YouTube, Safari or Maps.
Safari
The Web browser will get a reader option. Some of the interesting features include the ability to e-mail an entire text selection to a contact and bookmarking WebPages on a reading list for future reference.
Reminders
Now you can create and store multiple to-do lists with additional information such as dates and locations.
Camera
The camera gets a lot of attention in this update. For instance, a shortcut will allow you to access the camera instantly. Other features will include a new zoom interface, autofocus and picture quality settings.
Mail
Mail will now include features such as rich text formatting, ability to drag address between to, cc, and bcc lines, and the ability to search within the body of a message.
PC Free
Now you can gain access to over-the-air software updates and device activations.
Game Center
Improvements include new gaming profiles, point systems and access to new games.
iMessage
This app will allow you to exchange a limitless amount of messages amongst all iOS 5 devices at no extra-cost.
Hardcore Apple fans have hailed the iOS 5 yet another testament to the innovative skills of Apple. However, it is time to take a critical perspective here. The fact is that numerous features of the “new” iOS system include features that already exist on Android devices, something conveniently overlooked by many Apple fans. It is important to give credit where credit is due and we hope to do this in a constructive manner, because blindly praising Apple for every gadget and update without critically analyzing it the context of its major competitors will only lead to its customers accepting and even tacitly encouraging second-rate performance from Apple.
The following are some of the features that are already well established in all Android devices.
Over-the-air-updates: Android users had access to over-the air updates for a long time now and it is amazing how this simple feature, which is already a major part of Apple’s competitors, has been labeled as major update. The truth is Apple is just playing catch-up. Thankfully, we would no longer have to plug in our phones our computers to update our iOS devices.
Cloud Synchronization: Over at Google, cloud synchronization has been used for so long that it is now taken for granted. The sync feature allows users to integrate all their apps, information and personal settings amongst a variety of different devices. Apple has finally stepped up its game and by the looks of it, going to make a major effort to compete with Google.
Notification Center: Google laid the path to the integrated notification center and it is surprising that Apple has taken so long to do the same, especially considering the fact that this was one of the most annoying features about iOS devices.
Twitter: the new iOS will features integrated Twitter features which will allow users to tweet while on the image gallery or camera app. In addition, they can also directly access Twitter while on YouTube and Safari. However, while this may seem pretty cool, Android users have been enjoying this feature for a long time now.
Overall, we are glad Apple is finally introducing these improvements. Perhaps, it will be able to work its magic and really improve on them later on.
Around the world, at this very moment, there around 200 million iOS devices and this is just the sales figure for the past 14 months. Now as Apple unveils the iCloud, it is about to make itself a more potent force in the world of technology as we know it. The iCloud will allow synchronization across all iOS 5 devices, which will bring about a new era of technological integration for Apple customers. Therefore, it is fitting that we look at this latest addition to the Apple arsenal more closely.
Apple is on a mission and Steve Jobs has a vision: radically change our computing experience. With the latest iOS 5 update and the unveiling of the iCloud system, Apple is targeting the PC world itself. The tremendous surge in technology via the iPhone and iPad will reduce the value of personal computing unit. This is one reason Apple recently spent $1 billion on a new data center in North Carolina, which will be the main iCloud hub.
The iCloud system also allows Apple to more confidently target Android and Amazon, both of which have their own cloud-based services. Google’s Android devices already account for 36% of smartphone sales, which is double that of the iPhone. In addition, Amazon continues to wield tremendous influence on the e-books market, the very target of the iPad. Apple is actually a late comer in this regard, but Apple is counting on innovation to bridge the gap and dazzle its hardcore fans. In addition, Apple will have the advantage of an already mature market stock full of iOS devices. The ability to seamlessly transfer data amongst different iOS devices, will undoubtedly give Apple a strong edge.
The future of Apple’s strategy is yet to become clear and we cannot assume that its rivals will simply standby and watch as Apple seeks to dominate the market. Instead, we will see Google consolidating and expanding its position against Apple. It has already built strong partnerships with companies like LG, Samsung and HTC, which are very powerful tech firms. Even though their gadgets maybe lagging behind the iPhone and iPad, they have recently developed very powerful smartphones and any tech expert will confidently tell you that Apple’s table dominance is not a guaranteed thing. Through Android, it the only thing Apple’s rivals will have to focus on is the hardware.
Either way, the latest Apple releases seems more like a counter-offensive rather than a first-move. Now let us see if Apple can keep up the momentum.
Fresh off the back of today’s WWDC announcements, Apple has released a set of betas and developer previews for some of its big new features. If you have access to the dev channel, you’ll be able to grab an early download of iOS 5, Lion Developer Preview 4, and iTunes 10.5. You can bet that the next couple of days will see people take them apart, and find all sorts of interesting new features we didn’t know about before.
Apple tonight sent out an email to MobileMe customers informing them of the impending transition to iCloud. MobileMe service officially ends on June 30th, 2012. The full context of the email is as follows:
Dear MobileMe member,
We’d like to share some exciting news with you about iCloud — Apple’s upcoming cloud service, which stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to your devices. iCloud integrates seamlessly with your apps, so everything happens automatically. Available this fall, iCloud is free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users.
What does this mean for you as a MobileMe member?
When you sign up for iCloud, you’ll be able to keep your MobileMe email address and move your mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.
Your MobileMe subscription will be automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge. After that date, MobileMe will no longer be available.
When iCloud becomes available this fall, we will provide more details and instructions on how to make the move. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more about iCloud.
Join your hosts Marianne Schultz and myself for The Show: 25 – “Surprise, Surprise”. Our apologies for posting this a bit late. Listen in to see if our pre-WWDC predictions come true. You can subscribe to our show on iTunes, grab our RSS feed, listen now or download directly. We broadcast live each week. If you missed the live show, we hope you’ll join us next week for live chat and more. The good news about posting this podcast so late, is that our next podcast is right around the corner. Our next show will be recorded live tomorrow night, June 7th at 7pm EST. Stop by www.everythingicafe.com/live to listen to our thoughts on all the WWDC announcements. If you’d like to be included on a future broadcast, please call 646-820-3431 and leave your name along with your question. If you’d like to provide us with feedback, we’ve set up a topic in our forums.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Even though everyone who is allowed access to iOS 5 technically signed an NDA and shouldn’t be talking about any of this, the tech blogs are all afire as everyone with a dev account starts nosing around iOS 5, and glomming what they can glom.
For a broad overview, I’d suggest nosing through Engadget’s long look at all the major new features. It’s a great introduction to all the new killer features that we’re super excited about — including what settings they have, what works, what doesn’t, and what’s going to be fixed. BGR has a pretty good look, too.
There are a couple of new features that are being heavily discussed, but were barely mentioned yesterday. There’s now an option to have your iPhone’s LED flash when you get a message, you can set custom vibration patterns, custom abbreviations can save you typing time, and you can even create custom gestures. The implementation for the latter is pretty limited, but it’s there.
AppleInsider did a pretty good takedown of the new postPC iPhone setup (and where we got the lead image from).
One of the awesome new features on iOS 5 is iMessage, a service pegged as many as a text killer. A systemwide free IM program for all iOS users which syncs across all your devices. If you have any friends on iOS (and I bet there are a couple), you’ll never have to pay for a text message again — which has probably left the carriers apoplectic, as they make a huge amount on text messages. Even more interesting, it seems that they had no idea this was coming. John Gruber mentioned in a blog post:
A well-informed little birdie tells me that Apple’s phone carrier partners around the world found out about iMessages when we did: during today’s keynote.
Given the occasionally rocky relationship between Apple and its carriers, especially AT&T, I can’t imagine this went over well.
iPhone Dev-Team frontman MuscleNerd has taken to Twitter to show his dominion over iOS 5. Across twotweets he showed a jailbroken copy of iOS 5 beta 1, with Cydia installed and functioning. The jailbreak machine is unstoppable! Sure, it’s a tethered jailbreak right now, but it’s early days.
Despite the majority of yesterday’s keynote showing a push to bring desktop functionality to mobile devices, there was some push in the other direction. iTunes 10.3 brings a previously iOS only service to the Mac — iBookstore. Last night, Apple updated their iTunes website saying that version 10.3 was available for download, though we could only see 10.2.2. This morning, the download link for 10.3 is now in place, but it’s not appearing through System Update.
Regardless, once you have iTunes 10.3 installed, you can buy books through the iTunes store, not just through your iOS device. Apple has also updated the online iTunes preview engine to support the new format.
Apparently, if you download a sample of the book, it’ll sync directly across to your iOS device. Yay, iCloud!
There was plenty of speculation regarding iCloud. Apple was going to deliver a Cloud service done right and music was going to be at the forefront. With deals completed with Sony, EMI and others, everything was in place for Monday’s announcement at WWDC. Both Amazon and Google had already launched their services. Google’s Music Beta is as the title suggests is an invite only beta. Amazon offers no clear method of listening to music in your “cloud drive” from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Both of those services have gaps and certainly aren’t geared for iDevice owners. Surely Apple would rise to the occasion and deliver the world class streaming music service?
I have roughly 42 GB of music in my iTunes library. I’ve been putting off uploading to Google Music Beta due the sheer size of my library. Google does have a Mac compatible app that will help you with the process. It runs in the background and will resume if you turn your computer off mid-upload. Same goes for Amazon, but the 50GB I’d need to upload my music would cost $50 per year. With no iOS client in place, there’s no reason I’d commit to Amazon. Their upload client isn’t very easy to use. To be honest, despite being a regular customer of Amazon for MP3’s, I’ve never been a fan of their download app. To expect their upload client for Mac to be fantastic would be unrealistic.
Google's Music Manager for Mac
Apple realized that customers do not want to spend hours upon hours uploading music to the cloud, any cloud, regardless of the benefit. iTunes in the Cloud gets this right. Software scans your music and all of your iTunes purchases are automatically available to sync to other iDevices, direct from the iCloud. There is no need to upload these purchases to iCloud. Easy, as you’d expect from Apple. What about the that rare live Ozzy song sitting in my iTunes library that was never released? How about music that you’ve ripped from your personal CD’s? Apple has got you covered. Steve Jobs used his “one more thing” to announce iTunes Match, a service that allows you to transfer all of your music to the iCloud for $24.99 per year.
Your music is then subsequently synced to all of your iDevices. If for some reason a song is not on a particular device, you can easily select an option to download it to your device. iCloud is the ultimate syncing and backup option. So far, so good.
Here’s where Apple misses the mark. To listen to music on your iPhone, you need to open Music and the physical music file needs to be on your iPhone. If it’s not there, you need to download it first from the iCloud, before you can listen. There is no option to stream from the cloud. From a music perspective, this limits functionality of the iTunes in the Cloud service to a backup and sync solution. The final piece of the puzzle in today’s iCloud announcement should have been the ability to listen to your library from any device or web browser. From Apple’s perspective, the trouble with that equation is that it removes reliance on your iDevice. Open access to iCloud data could open the door for a wide array of network streaming devices to utilize your media in the cloud. Having used both Logitech’s Squeezebox and Sonos, I had high hopes that Apple would permit third party access. It would eradicate the need for an NAS (network attached storage) server. Both products allow you to listen to music from your iTunes, but it requires that your computer be turned on. Removing servers and the need to have your computers on would be an extremely powerful and attractive solution.
Both Amazon and Google miss the mark when it comes to making it easy to get your music into the cloud. That would seem to be the biggest hurdle in making any cloud service successful. With iTunes vast library, the ability to scan your hard drive for purchased music and making it available, allows Apple to easily clear that hurdle. They were so close to the finish line, but stopped running at the key point of the race. Why go through all the trouble to get folks using iCloud and then fail to offer what seems like a logical feature? It couldn’t be the record companies or else Google and Amazon wouldn’t be offering these services. Bandwidth couldn’t be the issue. Android devices can stream music today from Google Music Beta. When I finally get around to uploading my music to Google Music Beta, I’ll be able to listen to any of my 42GB library with my Nexus One and it’s paltry 8GB of storage. I can also use any computer, which makes it tremendously accessible. In fact, I don’t need a phone to listen my music.
Music uploaded to Google's service is accessible from any web browser or Android device
With Apple’s iCloud, you need an iPhone or iDevice to listen to music. Due to the size of my library, there is no way I can carry all my music with me. If and when Apple releases a 64GB model, that will be the model I’ll buy. Before Apple outlined how iCloud would work, I wasn’t so sure. If Apple would have delivered a streaming service via iCloud, the case for a more expensive phone becomes less compelling. 16GB or even 32GB would be more than enough to carry my Apps, Photos and my most recently downloaded music. The latter would have me covered should I find myself outside of wireless coverage. That’s not an option with today’s iCloud service.
Apple iTunes in the Cloud comparison vs Google and Amazon services
For some reason, Apple failed to address the most attractive feature associated with a cloud music service. With iCloud syncing, backup and iTunes Match, Apple got so much right. The missing piece is the ability to enjoy your media from any device, anywhere. So much of iTunes in the Cloud was done right, but it’s sorely missing that one more thing, the ability to listen to music stored in the iCloud.
Yesterday, many of iOS developers left the WWDC keynote with their heads hanging due to Apple replicating their apps functionality in iOS. As wounded as they are, I have a gut feeling that they’re incidental casualties in a much bigger battle.
In the Apple developer word, there’s the term “Sherlocked” — it’s when you create an app, and the Apple rocks up and provides the same functionality baked in essentially destroying your version. It’s named after an event that happened with Mac OS 10.2, which shipped with Sherlock 3, killing off Karelia Watson, amidst claims that Apple copied the indie developer’s application.
The funny thing? My gut tells me that most of these devs were caught in the crossfire, not specific targets of Apple’s ire or thievery. I think Apple’s chasing giants, and these guys are getting caught in the middle. In my mind, many of the new iOS features are clearly taken from and attacking the other major smartphone platforms out there. Apple is doing what they often do, taking existing technology and improving it in order to steal customers away from other platforms.
Lets start with the smallest fish in the smartphone sea, Windows Phone 7. WP7 has some incredible features, and has arguably the best and most unified UI of any smartphone platform — but has been plagued by software and hardware issues throughout its short life. Apple has managed to pick up two prominent features from the platform, despite its small size. WP7 was built with deep, deep social networking integration, and Facebook feeds directly into your address book, and you can easily send media directly to the services. While the Facebook integration isn’t quite there, the new Twitter-heavy base of iOS looks mighty similar in concept. Your Twitter contacts can head to your address book, and now tweeting from your phone is easy as anything.
You know how you can now take photos from the lock screen with iOS 5, and use the volume control to grab an image? Another feature that Windows Phone 7 has had for some time — except they have a dedicated camera button. Microsoft even prominently demoed the feature in an early keynote. Check out how they do it at around 25 seconds into the video above.
Pic via Android Central
Even though Android is clearly Apple’s biggest competitor, they weren’t the major target of Apple’s ire with iOS 5. Most of what I spotted yesterday was Apple taking notes on things Android had done well, and hopefully improving them. Swipe up to see a list of notifications? Oh yeah, that’s definitely an Android trick. It’s a useful one doubtless, but saying they didn’t look to Android for how to implement seems to be blind. Cloud based syncing has also been a reality for Android for a long time using Google’s services.
One place Apple looked at Android and is going to massively surpass them is through over-the-air updates. OTA updates are how many Android users get the newest version of their OS — except they’re huge files, and only released after both the handset manufacturer and the carrier have added their own layer of filth on top of the original. This has lead to some recent handsets stuck on old versions of Android, despite newer ones being available. Apple still has complete control of the OS update schedule, and with the advent of delta updates — just downloading the changed files instead of the whole thing — installing the newest version of iOS should be instant and painless.
BlackBerry is an ailing operating system, there’s no doubt about it — and Apple may just have landed a death blow with iMessage. For non-enterprise users still using their BB, the killer feature that keeps many of them there is BBM: BlackBerry Messenger. A free, universal IM system that allows you to instantly contact any other BlackBerry user anywhere. Sound familiar? At the height of BlackBerry’s popularity, it was a major feature, and meant that you could contact your friends without dropping cash on text messaging. There was even a rumor of BlackBerry porting the app to other platforms in order to retain some users. The only thing that BBM has right now that iMessage doesn’t is the ability to generate QR codes for trading contact details.
I’m willing to bet a bunch of BlackBerry users who stayed on the platform because there was nothing as widespread as BBM anywhere else are now looking at iOS pretty damn closely. Free text, video and picture messaging to any user around the world? That’s a big draw, and when the world’s most popular mobile OS offers it too, it’s probably time to jump ship.
Apple has clearly been keeping an eye on the competition, and is cribbing good ideas in order to remove in feature shortfalls that may prevent users from coming over to Apple. There are still plenty of things they could pick up — better Facebook integration, free turn-by-turn navigation, widgets and the like — but if nothing else, yesterday’s announcement shows that Apple is willing to see what the competition is doing better, and adapt. Like Steve Jobs famously quoted, “good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Apple has posted a video of today’s keynote at WWDC 2011 on Apple.com. This is where Apple announced iOS 5 and iCloud. So grab some popcorn, get your geek on, and tell us what you think!
Updated! The keynote is now also available for download via iTunes as well.
•When you are unable to locate a device because it is is offline, you will receive an email if the device comes online and is located. • Ability to remove an offline device from the list using the app.
iBooks 1.3 adds several new features and improvements: • Help your children learn to read with the new read-aloud feature included in select children’s books from the iBookstore. The read-aloud feature uses a real narrator to read the book to you, and in some books, it will even highlight the words as you read along. • Enhanced books can now automatically play audio or video included with the book. • Makes iBooks more responsive when opening very long books. • Addresses an issue where some books may display the same page twice.
David Ashman is a well known jailbreak app writer with his Lockinfo package from Cydia. Almost everyone who jailbreaks has, or has heard of, Lockinfo. He attended the WWDC keynote today, and to say the least, he feels ripped off.
He goes on to say that Apple did make it look pretty, but it’s still lacking some of the major conveniences that he, himself, has implemented into his own jailbreak package, such as quick previews, direct replies, and drop down lists.
These are just a few of the things he has posted in his latest blog. He says he will continue to develop for Lockinfo and keep pushing out updates. To read his entire blog post, hit the link at the bottom of the post.
What do you think of Ashman’s comments? Do you think he is valid in stating this? Do you feel as though Apple ripped off his idea? Let us know in the comments.
As promised during the WWDC 2011 Keynote today, Apple has posted betas of iOS 5, iTunes 10.5 (required to install iOS 5), the iOS 5 SDK, Xcode 4.2, and Apple TV OS.
There are versions for both Verizon and GSM/AT&T iPhone 4, as well as iPhone 3GS.
Developer.apple.com is getting slammed, of course, so whether you can get in or not is a different story, but once in it’s all there for your developer testing pleasure.
If you grab it, let us know how it works for you, and how you enjoy all the features Apple showed off today!
If you take a look at your App Store settings, you’ll find some new options for Automatic Downloads. This new feature allows you have new purchases made on other devices automatically download to the device you’re accessing the settings from.
For example, let’s say I purchase 1Password Pro, a universal application for iPhone and iPad, on my iPhone. If I have Automatic Downloads for apps enabled on my iPad, 1Password Pro will automatically download to my iPad over the air. This feature is available for music, apps, and book purchases.
For those of you who may be concerned about how much data this may be using, turn the “Cellular” setting to OFF so that purchases are only automatically downloaded when connected to Wi-Fi.
Personally, I will have all options set to ON on my iPhone, but apps set to OFF on my iPad. I do not want iPhone apps installed on my iPad; if I purchase a universal application, I’ll download it manually to my iPad. What about you? Do you plan to enable Automatic Downloads? And if so, for which combinations of music, apps, books?
Apple is once again upping their accessibility game with iOS 5, this time adding LED flash and custom vibration patterns to better inform users when calls and other alerts come in.
It may not be as sophisticated as BlackBerry or Android notification lights, but it’s an option in iOS 5. Will you use it?
Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!
Find my iPhone: Now you will be notified when an offline device you are trying to find comes online. [Free - iTunes link]
iCan ABC: An app to help kids learn the letters of the alphabet. [$0.99 for iPhone - iTunes link] [$2.99 for iPad - iTunes link]
AT&T Navigator: Now a universal application for iPhone and iPad! [Free, with AT&T Navigator subscription -iTunes link]
SCRABBLE: Now featuring Origin – an easy new way to find and connect with friends playing SCRABBLE. [$2.99 - iTunes link]
Tweetings for Twitter: Now you can add color groups to users to accent the timeline. [$2.99 - iTunes link]
Any other big apps or game releases or updates today? If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!
Now that the excitement has died down after the WWDC keynote, let’s consider what is missing from iOS 5. There has been a huge amount of speculation over the last few months about what to expect. This often leads to huge disappointment when the actual details are revealed. These are a few of the areas that are still lacking in iOS 5. Of course things could still change and get added into iOS 5 prior to its debut in the Fall.
System Wide Voice Control, not a single mention of this. It is still an area where iOS needs to catch up with Android.
SMS Messaging application is still basic compared with the jailbreak alternatives like BiteSMS; despite what Scott Forstall would like you to believe. No quick reply options to be had and you still have to go into the app each time you want to reply.
Themes and Customizations are still missing. The 20 icon screen layout is here to stay for at least until iOS 6. Still No customized Email tones either.
Folder Passwords would have been a simple addition to iOS 5, a simple way to keep your personal information and apps away from others.
Synergy, this one was a bit of a long shot but would have been a great addition in iOS 5. The ability for your iPad and iPhone to talk and work together would have been great. HP can do it why not Apple?
Are there any more glaring omissions from iOS 5 that you can think of? Let us know in the comments!
Apple has quietly updated its Find My iPhone application to include a couple of very handy new features. After you have updated the app, when you try to locate one of your devices that is currently offline, you will receive an email to tell you when it has reconnected to a network.
You can also now delete a device that is attached to your account, without the need for it to be online. Previously you could only do this from the MobileMe web portal. If you don’t have Find My iPhone you should get it as soon as possible. It is completely free and gives you an easy way to locate your iOS device, remotely lock it or completely wipe it, if it is stolen. We have a guide to show you how to set it up right here.
You’re flooding us with screen shots of iOS 5 (sometimes without removing your personal info first — please do that!), and we’re going to keep adding them here. Here’s some of what we’re seeing:
Photo gallery after the break, and we’ll update if/when we’re sent more.
Rene, Seth, The Keith Newman, Ally, and Leanna talk WWDC 2011 Keynote: iOS 5, iCloud, what it means for Apple, for users, for Jailbreak, and for apps. Yes, we snuck in an early, secret show on you… This is iPhone Live!
As you all probably know, Apple’s was live earlier today at WWDC discussing about their newest software updates. Among the many rumored surprises, is the newest version of iOS, the top mobile operating system, iOS 5. It seems Apple doesn’t like to disappoint, the newest version of the iOS is packed with new things that I am just dying to check out!
Apparently, there are over 200 new features that are included in the newest version of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad OS, iOS 5. Available today for developers, and looking at a Fall launch for the rest of the Apple fanboy world, 10 remarkable features were showcased for some 5,200 people live today, and I’ll be going over them. If you don’t want to read through the live coverage we had posted and updated regularly earlier, which was in fact just a very brief overview on everything, then I’ve covered everything iOS 5 down below:
#1: Notification Center In my mind, the system for displaying push notifications prior to today’s announcement of Notification Center was extremely lackluster. Notifications would just pop up, randomly and disrupt your activity; the whole thing just wasn’t ideal. Well, with the reliance of push notifications going up Apple has announced Notification Center, which allows you to keep track of all of your notifications in a well-organized, and easily accessible, pane. By sliding up or down on the screen, you can open and close Notification Center, respectively. From there you can access the source applications to your notifications. Overall, it seems like a great addition and will make the whole process a whole lot simpler.
#2: iMessage If you’re a Mac user, you may be familiar with the chat application, iChat. Apple have included a similar application with the new OS, adding to the amount of standard applications. iMessage is an application designed to let iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users easily text, chat and share between devices. With a great, user-friendly interface, the application looks as if it could come in use.
#3: Newsstand Available through the app store, much like iBooks, Newsstand is an application that contains a huge database of magazines and newspapers. It supports your subscriptions to magazines, and also is already backed by many publishers. By the looks of it, it will probably take its graphical and interface cues from Apple’s application for reading eBooks, iBooks.
#4: Reminders Apple, before today, hadn’t really provided a way to keep track of to-do activities. With Reminders, yet another application that will come standard with the OS, you can jot down what you need to do and get them done thanks to the aid of in-app calendars and reminders. The screenshots depict a really polished looking interface, but they could be deceiving because Apple’s really good at making things look good digitally.
#5: Twitter Integration This new addition won’t make a huge difference to us Apple fanboys, especially people who don’t care about Twitter, but it’s not such a bad thing. Apple have made it easy to tweet through many of their applications (Camera, Safari, etc.) by having one place to type in your credentials for your Twitter account.
#6: Camera From the lockscreen, you will have the option to immediately navigate to the built-in camera application. By simply double tapping the home button, you can click on a camera icon, which will instantaneously take you to the camera screen – all from the lockscreen. The up-volume button have been configured to take pictures, only when you’re in the camera application, and an optional screen grid has been added as an extra little feature.
#7: Photos From your device you can crop, rotate and organize your photos into albums. Auto enhancement and red-eye removal are also included.
#8: Safari Safari has been totally re-skinned, functionality-wise. In the computer version of Safari, there’s an option next to the URL called “Reader”, which will slim down pages or articles you’re on and get rid of ads. The option is now available on the mobile version of Safari. Working much like bookmarking, you can now also set aside, in a sense, articles to read for later. On the iPad, tabbed browsing has been added to make it easier to navigate across pages.
#9: PC-Free Also with the release of iOS 5, is the release of dependency on PCs. You can now set up your new iOS device straight out of the box, without the need for iTunes, you can update software through WiFi and backup/sync to your computer. Additionally, with iCloud, you can restore from backup as well. I’m totally stoked for this because now I won’t be pestered by those stupid iTunes errors I always have to plow through while updating my device.
#10: More The mail application was updated to make browsing through emails easier, with a search bar and now has a better layout, improving the UI. The Game Center application has a variety of improvements from total achievement points (finally), the ability to update applications through GC, and more.
Of course, there were a total of 200 changes, of which only a few were covered. So obviously, there are probably a ton of other little additions/updates that were made to the, now very lackluster-seeming iOS 4. Though these new additions are something I’m really on my toes for, Apple has eliminated the need for some third-party applications currently on the app store, so I’m not sure how developers will take that. Either way, I really cannot wait!
Apple has just posted a video on iOS 5 (refresh once to watch):
Despite, at that time, very understandable speculation about the iPhone 3GS losing interest in the eyes of Apple, according to numerous blogs, Apple’s representatives have confirmed that iOS 5 will be compatible with the $49 iPhone. That means that the new OS will support the iPod Touch 3rd and 4th generations, both the iPads, the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 3GS.
I guess everyone’s a winner with the release, except of course iPhone models earlier than the 3GS (1G, 2G, 3G) and the iPod Touch 1st and 2nd generations. Everyone else can enjoy the features that are included with iOS 5, announced earlier today at WWDC.
Oh yeah, at-least everyone has to wait till Fall to get their hands on the shiny new version of the successful operating system, developers excluded!
After Apple unveiled the newest versions of Mac OS X and iOS, the WWDC 2011 keynote was ended with the veil of secrecy being pulled off of the heavily-rumored iCloud cloud service that manages a limited amount of backup options and syncs data between your Apple devices. It goes deeper than that to not be quite how many would expect – in both good and bad ways.
The point of iCloud is so users can have all of their documents, iTunes/App Store purchases, photos, books, contacts, and calendars constantly updated as created/purchased/edited on every Mac and iOS device that they own. Apple realizes that having files organized and in-sync on even two devices has been far from effortless. With many owning an iPhone, iPad, and Mac, data storage has become fragmented due to the hassles of transferring files between devices, which is a true chore for regular attempts. iCloud is Apple’s ambitious (and expensive) venture into putting an end to such fragmentation.
Perhaps the most game-changing thing that iCloud brings to the table is one that many other Apple products do as well: it just works. As in, it does not require a user to do anything for data to remain in perfect harmony. Transfers constantly take place automatically in the background, providing an almost-instant full synchronization.
Take a photo on an iPhone and it is instantly-accessible on an iPad. That is truly how quick iCloud was demonstrated to be; everything seems to actually be taking place instantly. Speaking of photos, Apple provides “Photo Stream,” remote in-the-cloud space for 1,000 images.
All purchases made through Apple’s digital stores (iTunes, App Store, and iBooks) can easily be re-downloaded through a list view. There is also an option to have content purchased practically simultaneously download to every compatible devices that a user owns.
iCloud offers an array of backup functionality. Not only can it keep track of progress in the iWork suite of apps without the need for manual saving, but it removes the need for time-consuming PC-based backups. Since everything that iTunes would store in a backup is handled daily with iCloud, including settings, an up-to-date collection of important data is always available to users.
Developers can get in on the cloud-storage action as Apple provides new APIs for iOS 5 that allow apps to store data in an iCloud account.
Separate from app, music, book, and Photo Stream storage, every user gets 5GB of space to be utilized by apps and documents among many other things. iCloud will be free for anybody with an Apple ID when it launches alongside iOS 5 in Fall.
iTunes Match, one of Apple’s radically-new music offerings, shakes up even the company’s own a la carte pricing model in iTunes. A $25/year subscription presents users with the ability to have their library scanned and matched with the same high-quality 256kbp/s AAC songs available in the iTunes Store at no additional cost beyond the yearly fee. Songs matched can then be transferred to iCloud-enabled devices since they are also remotely-tied to a user’s Apple ID. If a song cannot be matched in the store, then it will be uploaded and made accessible from-the-cloud as well.
So, let’s say a user obtained a song from a source other than iTunes. Since the user already has the song in their library, a high-quality version of it already stored on Apple’s servers would be provided with an iTunes Match subscription. The simple scan removes the hassle of uploading an entire collection to a remote server and will leave some users with better-sounding music.
This is one of Apple’s most-controversional introductions ever since there are no restrictions other than a 250,000 song storage limit. Users could easily exploit the service by trading low-quality, illegally-downloaded music for the same version that customers paying standard prices receive, especially since the service’s cost is only equal to the price of about 20-25 songs. On the other hand, labels would be receiving some money from people who were probably not going to pay at all anyway. Of course, there will also be many people who subscribe in order to bring legally-obtained music into iCloud as iTunes Match is intended to do, but it is not clear whether that will be the majority.
