Monday, June 6, 2011

iOS 5

Today Steve Jobs and the Apple team released info about the upcoming iOS 5 update.

The best source for concise info about what the new OS will do is from Mobile Crunch (Everything You Need To Know About iOS 5).

The biggest deal for many seems to be the addition of notifications, and missed notifications on the lock screen that allow you to swipe directly to the pertinent app. Apparently many folks felt this was a major issue on the Apple vs. Android battlefield.

I'm personally more interested in the newsstand portion of iBooks, where your subscriptions to magazines will now appear.

Many folks were also stoked to hear about the reading list option. From Safari, you can now add items to a reading list which will showcase your articles in a "prettied up" version. Sort of like your very own magazine or newspaper.

Reminders, the way I understand it, is the least useful change for me personally. I already have reminders popping up from my calendar, which I've synced to Google Calendar for years now.

One thing that is interesting is the photo shortcut from the lock screen. This makes capturing spontaneous shots easier, faster, and better. They say the camera's improved as well with this latest software update. This is probably aimed at higher-pixel camera phones coming out daily nowadays.

The thumb keyboard cracks me up. It's the keyboard separated into two areas, one on the left margin and one on the right margin.

The "PC Free" concept is pretty much, yes very, a huge deal, since we've all been tethered to laptops and desktops indefinitely for iPhone and iPad updates and syncing...and let's not even bring up iTunes syncing *shiver* The Wireless synch to iTunes and the iPad mirroring are nice add-ons that make a difference without much effort from the user.

Twitter is now better integrated, and iMessages promises stealth and speed when sharing between users--not something earthshaking since I don't really use my IM app of choice (eBuddy) all that much anymore, nor IM in general. And I doubt this is that relevant for most, since they're anyway used to texting.

I am very excited that this latest iOS update brings with it so much functionality, that I can barely contain myself to run home and plug in the little buggers to see how it all applies to the particular models of devices I own (iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS).

If anything interesting happens once I update, I'll be sure to follow up with a post.

Cheers and happy iOS-ing. Of course, we have to wait until the fall, but what's a couple of months!

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