Introduction
It's June again, time for Apple to make headlines. The WWDC is over and the iOS 5 and the iCloud are now official. It won't be before the fall though that the iOS 5 will officially launch.
However, Apple has given us a taste of the iOS 5 by releasing a developer preview soon after the announcement. We went on to update an iPhone 4 with the beta release and we are ready to share our first impressions.
But before we continue, let's take a look at the most important features to premiere on the iOS 5.
Apple iOS 5 new features:
- Notifications - real time on-screen notifications, lockscreen notifications and pull-down Notification Center
- iMessage service in the Messaging app enabling instant messages to other iOS users
- Reminders - including location-aware options
- Customizable notification sounds - email, voicemail and calendar alerts
- Twitter integration
- iCloud service integration
- Enhanced Camera app - viewfinder grid, hardware shutter key
- Integrated photo editing - crop, auto enhance, rotate and red-eye fix
- Updated Safari - tabbed browsing (on iPad), private browsing mode, integrated Reader, Reading list and optimized performance
- Dictionary lookup throughout the interface
- Computer free operation - independent activation, OTA updates, iCloud backup and restore
- Wi-Fi synchronization with iTunes with automatic operation
- New features in the Mail app - Bold, Italic, Underline and Quote options, extended Search, mass Mark as Read/Unread and Flag setting, Add/Delete mailbox folders
- Updated Calendar and Game Center apps
- Newsstand app combining all of your magazine subscriptions
- iPod player now called Music, has new icon
- Separate Video app for iPhone
- AppStore purchase history (already available for iOS 4 too)
- New Storage management options (list and info of all installed apps)
- Multi-tasking gestures for iPad
- AirPlay mirroring for iPad
- New accessibility options involving the LED flash and custom vibrations
Typically, there's still plenty of stuff missing and some of the things will probably never make it to the iOS. Here is a list of the things we continue to miss:
Still missing:
- No Flash support in the web browser
- No quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G
- No Facebook integration
- No proper widgets for the lockscreen
- App folders still are limited to 12 apps tops
- No DivX/XviD video support out of the box (though there're lots of players in the App Store)
- No USB Mass storage mode for uploading content to the device
- No haptics for the touchscreen
- No Bluetooth file transfers to other phones
- Contacts lack a swipe-to-delete or mass delete feature
Well, the list is notably shorter than last year's. It's debatable though whether Apple listened to the users or just filled their time with low-priority features that have been on the list for quite some time. Either way, some of the new stuff is quite good so let's waste no more time on introductions. Follow us on the next page where we start to explore the iOS 5 at close range.
User interface on iOS 5 - Notifications, Lockscreen camera key, Newsstand
The Apple's iOS must be already approaching the final stage of its evolution. The platform has certainly been through a lot. This is the fourth major update, and it brings less change than the others. It's not to say the iOS is finally close to what Apple had in mind for it. And by the way - what Apple has in mind is not necessarily what users have come to take for granted or other platforms have had forever. But when you have the standard-setting touchscreen interface you can afford to make your own rules.
Anyway, iOS may as well be still a few updates away from a complete overhaul, the scale of Windows Phone 7. So let’s focus on the here and now.
Apple says the iOS 5 brings more than 200 new features. We didn't bother count, but the really interesting things are about 40 at best.
There have been virtually no visual changes to the core interface. The only new thing you'll notice are the new toggles in the settings menu – they're now circles instead of squares.
The familiar homescreen • the new toggles
To go straight to one of the most important novelties though - the iOS 5 has a new approach to Notifications.
Notifications are enabled on both the lockscreen and the homescreen - and there's an Android-like pull-down Notification center. You can set the behavior for each app's notifications: view in Notifications Center on/off, view on Lock Screen on/off, Badge icon on/off, number of shown items 1/5/10 and alert style - off/banner/pop-up alert.
The system is pretty flexible and configurable now.
The notification settings
The notifications on the lockscreen are displayed only as long as you unlock the phone. The next time you lock it, they are all gone even if you haven’t checked them up.
To access an event from the lockscreen, just slide its icon left-to-right just as you would unlock the phone. Simple as that.
The notifications on the homescreen or any running app can be displayed in two ways - as a banner at the top of the screen or as a pop-up.
Notification banner and pop-up on the homescreen
The notification banner at the top stays for a few seconds and then disappears. If you tap on it you will be taken to the relevant app. The pop-up alert works the same way: it appears at the center of the screen and has two buttons - View and Dismiss.
Finally, the pull-down Notification Center works just like the notifications in Android. You can access the Notification Center from anywhere in the interface. It does pause the app below, so there’s no chance that you crash your car in Real Racing.
The Notification Center
The Notification Center displays all your pending alerts. You can enable/disable and rearrange the alerts from the Notification settings.
The Notification Center supports widgets too. Currently there are only two - Weather and Stocks - but we expect more to come in the future.
There are two more things we need to mention related to the general interface. The first one is the dedicated Camera shortcut on the lockscreen. You can bring it up the same way you invoke the music controls - with a double click of the Home button. The camera key appears right next to the Unlock slider and will launch the Camera app when tapped.
The camera shortcut on the lockscreen • the Newsstand
The other thing is the Newsstand app on your homescreen, which displays as a homescreen folder. All the periodicals you buy at the App Store will go there.
Multi-tasking gestures work only on the iPad family
Much has been said about the iOS multi-touch gestures since the first iOS 4.3 beta came out. Basically, their purpose is to help you navigate through the UI without using the Home button.
You can switch between the active apps using horizontal four (or five)-finger swipes. A similar upward swipe will bring you the task switcher. There's a four (or five if it feels more natural) finger pinch zoom out. It will bring you to the homescreen, sending the app to the background.
Those gestures will only be available in the tablet version of the iOS 5.
The pinch zoom out and the horizontal swipes work everywhere but the homescreen, while the swipe up gesture is available across the interface.
Here is a video demo of how they work (note that the video shows iPad 2 running iOS 4.3 with activated multi-touch gestures, but they work exactly the same on the iOS 5)
iMessage service - free text and multimedia messages across iOS devices
Here is another useful thing to premiere with the iOS 5 - the iMessage service, which is integrated into the Messages app.
The iMessage service lets you exchange instant messages between iOS 5-running iGadgets via Wi-Fi or 3G. You can send plain text as well as multimedia (pictures, sounds, videos) messages.
To activate the iMessage you just need to go to Settings->Messages and turn it on. But, how it works?
The iMessage activation
You tap on the new message button and you'll see the standard message composer with a green SEND key. When you choose a recipient you'll notice a small loading icon right next to the name. If the person you are texting has the iMessage service, your SEND key will turn blue and the top bar will say New iMessage instead of New Message. Yes, it’s all automatic.
Searching for iMessage availability • switching to iMessage
The rest is pretty simple - you type, you add content (optional) and hit send. The iMessage conversations are color-coded to differ from the standard SMS/MMS - their bubbles are blue instead of green.
An iMessage conversation • standard SMS thread
The iMessage service is essentially an IM - in an iMessage conversation you can see when the other person is typing and you get their messages instantly. You can also get Read Receipts.
One more thing about iMessage - your ID is either your phone number or your email - just as in FaceTime.
Telephony - same old phonebook, new sound alerts, FaceTime email identification
The phonebook has seen almost no changes and there is still no smart dialing in the dialer (you have the system wide Spotlight search for that).
The new thing is the several new social-network-related fields when creating or editing a contact – you get Facebook ID , Flickr ID, LinkedIn ID and a MySpace ID. When you save the person’s service ID in the field, clicking it later on will take you straight to the person’s profile. The feature doesn’t work so well right now at it only allows to enter the details one after the other.
Creating a new contact • social profiles fields
Another new field subset in the phonebook is the Related people field. It let’s you add labels such as mother, father, parent, brother, sister, child, friend, spouse, partner, assistant, manager and other though at this beta stag, it doesn’t allow you to pick the specific persons from your contact list.
Related people fields
The other new thing about the telephony on iOS is that finally, the mail, voicemail and calendar sound alerts are customizable.
Customizable tones for various alerts
FaceTime on the iPhone also gets a new feature. If your carrier does not support FaceTime, you could still activate it with your email as ID. It's done automatically if the activation with phone number fails. Just make sure you are connected to a Wi-Fi network and turn the FaceTime on from Settings.
FaceTime settings
Wireless activation
Perhaps this is the part Apple put most effort in. Many are probably put off by the dependence on iTunes. Well, Apple has finally made this a lot easier..
You no longer need a computer to activate your iGadget. The moment you turn on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch for the first time, you can do the activation and setup process right from your device (a network connection is required of course). After a few simple steps, quite similar to Android's initiation process, you are good to go.
The whole activation and setip process
OTA updates
You no longer need a computer connection and iTunes to install new firmware updates either. Now you can do it over-the-air. The option is in Settings->General->Software Update. Of course, you can still use iTunes on your Mac/PC to do that if your Wi-Fi connection is too slow.
And thanks to the use of Delta encoding, the updates will now come with a much smaller footprint than before when they carried a whole system image. The new update files will carry only the bits that need changing.
The OTA updates section
Wi-Fi iTunes sync
In case you choose to rely on the traditional computer dependent iTunes sync, you will be happy to know Apple is working to add an option to sync wirelessly. The only requirement is your iGadget and your PC/Mac are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Much like with Windows Phone 7, the wireless wync can be set to run automatically as soon as you plug your device to charge.
The iTunes sync settings
This feature is currently unavailable in this iOS 5 beta, so we can’t share the experience with you.
Another new about the PC/Mac iTunes sync, is that it no longer locks your device during the process. You can continue to use your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch during the sync process, but you might experience some lag (at least in the beta). Still it's a real improvement.
You can use your iPhone even when syncing with iTunes (note sync icon at the top)
So the connectivity has been vastly improved. If you choose to use the iCloud, the only one thing that you may ever need the desktop iTunes is for using the USB mass storage functionality. We hope someday Apple does this more natural.
Accessibility
Apple has added a few new accessibility options that may be helpful even for those who are not actualy disabled. The iPhone may now use the LED flash for alerts and you can assign and even create custom vibration patterns to specific alert events or contacts – much like you would assign a personalized ringtone.
The Accessibility settings
iCloud
Now, let's pay due attention to the iCloud. What is it, how you set it up and what you get?
iCloud is Apple's cloud-based content management - the service, which comes free with iOS 5 will further reduce the need of a PC/Mac and iTunes. Effortless syncing and backup/restore - along with pushing content to all devices associated with your Apple ID.
You iCloud account and settings - you choose what to sync
Apps on iCloud
Until now you synced all your apps with a single computer and its iTunes. If you had more than one iDevice you've done two (or more) separate sync processes. Well, this is no more.
You've probably noticed the new Purchased list already in the App Store's Update tab. Now Apple knows exactly what apps you've purchased, what you have installed on an iDevice and what you've deleted for some reason. Apple knows this for each one of your iDevices.
So if you chose to sync with iCloud, Apple will sync only the app's personal data, not the entire IPA file (as iTunes did). Here is an example:
You have Angry Birds installed on your iPhone. It has a save data of 50KB. Apple will sync only this file. If you delete the game and later install it again (free, from the Purchased list), your iPHone will download the original IPA from the App Store and will get back this 50KB file too - a lot more natural process to sync an app rather than keeping the whole image. If you use an app as USB storage (Filer or even CineXPlayer), then the whole content will backed up (have that in mind).
The Purchased list in the App Store • The app data • The actual app data iCloud will sync
There is one more thing with the iCloud app sync - when you buy a new app, it will be pushed to all of your iDevices automatically (if available).
Contacts, Calendar, iBooks, Photos and Documents on iCloud
The iCloud is capable of syncing all your contacts, calendar events, books, photos and documents. The content will become available on all of yours iDevices automagically. The iCloud stores new photos automatically for 30 days, enough time to connect your other iGadgets so they can get the photos too.
Activating Photo Stream will backup your latest photos • you choose what to backup
iCloud free email
iCloud offers a free me.com email that will also sync automatically across all your iDevices. You will be offered this when you activate the iCloud for the first time and the setup process is done in one easy step.
iCloud Mail • iCloud Mail settings
iCloud Music
Music syncing is probably the trickiest part of the iCloud sync. Along with the tracks purchased from the iTunes store you surely have a collection of your own (ripped music, etc.) that you sync with your iOS device via iTunes. Apple cannot backup that music offers the iTunes Match service exactly for that reason.
Activating the iTunes music sync
The music you've purchased from iTunes Store will be easy to sync automatically across all your iGadgets - it will sync the same way the other content syncs. But you will need to use the iTunes Match service for the rest of your music collection if you want it synced too.
iTunes Match will scan your collection and sees if your songs match to songs in the Apple's iTunes Store (currently 18+ million songs and growing). If there is a match, the iTunes song will be synced, if not - well, you will need to use the standard computer depended sync.
So the iTunes scans yours songs and push them to all your other devices if they match. If some of your songs are with lower quality than 256Kbps, the iTunes will download the song with better quality (256Kbps). The iMatch service costs $25 per year and seems unique in the music store world.
iCloud Backup/Restore
You can back up your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch with the iCloud. It will store all of your settings and other important stuff, so if you need to restore wirelessly (if you got a new device for example) - it's the easiest way. The backup is automatic and is done once a day.
Activating iCloud Backup • Choosing what to backup
5GB free storage
Apple gives you 5GB free storage for iCloud sync. Now this may sound not enough for you, but actually it's more than enough. Your purchased music, apps and books don't count in this storage (except the app's personal data such as saves, settings, etc.). So the things that eat that storage are app's data, contacts, mail, photos, calendar events, backups and personal documents. Of course, there is an option to buy more iCloud storage, but Apple is yet to announce the storage plans this fall.
You have 5GB free iCloud storage
First impressions
It looks like lots of little tweaks but combined they do make a difference. And this is a BETA version for developers to optimize their apps. Come September, there will probably be more new stuff to talk about.
Surely, many of the updates we covered here have been already available in the App Store by third-party contributions. Apple copied a thing or two from other platforms too, like Android and WP7.
It all depends what your priorities are, of course, but to us it seems the iOS 4 had more weight as an update. But then - it came on an awesome new phone, which kind of stole the spotlight.
It looks like the iOS 5 will be filling the blanks and connecting the dots. And it's not a job to be ashamed of. The updates show enough promise and we wouldn't mind getting surprised in September either.
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