Today around 1pm Eastern Time Apple released their new mobile operating system iOS 5. Its packed with over 200 new features so you might have some questions about what are the new features. No problem we have a full review waiting for you after the jump.
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Though iOS 5 is not as drastic of an upgrade as we saw with iOS 4 in June 2010, it does offer some much-needed and exciting enhancements for iOS users. A few are quiet and long overdue and others will seriously change how you use your Apple handset.
On that note, perhaps the biggest of all is the addition of over-the-air updates, which obviate the need to tether your iPhone to a computer for syncing. But there’s a lot more under the hood with this upgrade, and we think users should be excited to plug in their iDevice one last time. iMessage also adds a new way to keep in touch and a way to circumvent your carrier’s monthly allotment of messages.
A few improvements simply make the user experience easier, like Twitter integration in the major Apple apps, basic image-editing tools for the camera, and a Notification system paired with reminders that keep you informed with a glance at your Home screen. Smaller upgrades abound, of course, some of which we’ve listed here. We haven’t found all the “Easter eggs,” though, so as you find other changes, let us know in the comments.
We’ve documented many of the major changes here, but we tried to limit our coverage to the big tweaks that will affect users most. Apple says there are more than 200 new tweaks for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, and we’ll be covering many more of the minor changes with features and How To posts in the coming weeks.
Available for free, iOS 5 will be compatible with the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, both versions of the iPad, and the third- and fourth-generation models of the iPod Touch. Keep in mind that the quality of iOS 5 may vary by device. When Apple released iOS 4 last year, many iPhone 3G users complained of degraded device performance after they downloaded the update (one group even filed a lawsuit). Apple mostly fixed the issues with the release of iOS 4.2, but we’ll be taking a close look as to how iOS 5 fares on the 3GS.
Notifications
Instead of pop-up menus that interrupt your work, a new Notification Center will combine messages, missed calls, app updates, a stock ticker, and the current weather in a single place. You can access it by swiping your finger downward from the top of the screen, and notifications will appear on the lock screen as well. You then can jump directly to the related feature for each notification and delete items by tapping the small X next to each line.
Though not exactly original–the pull-down menu has long been a hallmark feature of Android–the ability to see all notifications in one place in iOS 5 is certainly welcome. Since the first iPhone’s debut more than four years ago, the iOS notification system has remained largely unchanged so we were long overdue for an upgrade. While simple, in the pre-iOS 5 world, the current application running is unusable until you dismiss the message. Even worse, several messages in a row quickly become annoying. We think iOS users will appreciate this small, but time-saving change. Check back later this week to see how these notification features compare with Android.
Newsstand
This app will bring together magazine subscriptions in a central place. The concept is similar to iBooks, even down to an icon that looks like the periodicals shelf at your local library. As you subscribe to a publication through a new channel in the App Store, new issues are delivered in the background, eliminating the need to manually grab them when they publish.
Newstand’s success on the iPhone depends largely on how much reading you do on the smaller device, and how much digital content you purchased through Apple, but it’s a great way to have content you like delivered to you. iPad users will probably benefit most here–with the added screen real estate–and reading magazines on your iPad will now be easier than ever. Worth noting is that Apple’s done something interesting with this app, letting it expand into a user’s home screen, just like a folder of applications. The company doesn’t let third-party apps do this. All of the Newsstand features will become available at launch. We will add to this portion of the review when we learn more.
More on the review here.
