On June 6th 2011 Steve Jobs revealed to the world iOS5. “The most advanced Mobile Operating System EVER”. Being an iPhone developer, I have access to the Developers Program and in turn iOS5 Beta 1.
Over the next few weeks / months, I’ll be giving you an insight into iOS5; The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
Notification Center
Apple boasts over 200 new features to the latest installment of its operating system with over 2000 API methods. What’s being labeled as the best asset of iOS5 is it’s updated Notification Center.
The screenshots above speak for themselves. There multiple configuration options found under Settings > Notifications. With all apps being customizable. To enter the “Notification Center” main screen, simply slide your finger from the very top of the screen vertically to the bottom of the screen. Again this screen is customizable. Whilst I do really love the Notification Center, I have come accross one major gripe with it tonight. One of my favourite games from the App Store is “Toy Balls“. This game is played with your iPhone horizontally and uses the whole screen. When I try to swipe my finger over the balls toward the top, notification center persistently opens and pauses the game. This has made games which use the whole screen virtually unplayable. Too my surprise there are no options to disable Notification Center either at all or when iPhone is being held in a horizontal manner.
Lets hope the people at Apple (Specifically Peter Hajas) get this ironed out swiftly.
Wireless Sync and iPhone Computer Free Software Updates
One of the aspects of this update which particularly excites me is Wireless Syncing. This would allow a user to sync there iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone update over a wireless network. Another key piece of functionality which makes iOS5 stand out above the rest is the ability to update your firmware without having to plugin your device to a computer.
Unfortunately neither of these features are currently enabled, so I unfortunately can’t comment on them just yet.
Deep Twitter Integration
Social Media seems to be the way forward nowadays so it was the next logical step for Apple to integrate one of the worlds biggest Social Network’s into one of the worlds best selling products. The big question in my mind is how does Apple choose between Twitter and Facebook. The answer is simple, Facebook is a direct threat to Apple. Two of the largest center points for Web Based apps in the world are The Apple App Store and Facebook. You can read more on this subject here.
A huge problem however is that the controls to tweet from Safari/Photos etc seem to randomly disappear in iOS5 Beta 1. At the time of writing this article I can’t find a single “Tweet” button on my iPhone. Screenshots below have been taken from Google images.
For now this is all, I’ll be back soon to introduce you into some more of the best features of iOS5.
I’ll give my thoughts…
I watched the conference on a live stream. I experienced two different emotions, one was excitement, the other anger!
On one hand, pretty much everything that was displayed can already be done on an android phone. The way people were applauding these things as if they were brand new inventions was beyond frustrating.
On the other hand, Apple does stuff the right way. If they they have a notification bar like android’s, it’ll work better. If they have wireless sync like dropbox, it’s be more convenient.
I owned an iPhone 3g and loved it. I only changed to an android phone because I’m a bit of a geek and like to change every now and then. My android phone is absolutely brilliant, but my next phone will most likely be an iPhone (be it 4 or 5). I’m not sure if it’s the geek inside wanting something new again, or if Jobs has convinced me.
I agree, there are some services that iPhone have lacked a little on, and in the end as an iPhone user is it rather arghhh and frustrating.
Ha ha “I’m not sure if it’s the geek inside wanting something new again, or if Jobs has convinced me.” – He does have the power to do that
One thing about apple I can say for a fact is, their products are beautiful.
@Rob Allison The way Apple portrayed these features as brand spanking new annoyed me too, especially as a lot of the functionality was already available to iOS4 via Cydia. Take a look at this post http://sdoyle.net/ios5-steve-jobs-loves-cydia/ for more information.
Their products ARE beautiful, but more importantly, for me at least, their UI is beautiful. Not just the way it looks, but the way it works. IMHO that’s the thing Mac OS X has that kills Windows.
I’ll be honest and admit that a lot of things that were announced about iOS5 to me were ooohh that’s exciting, until I saw a friend’s new HTC running on Android and then felt a little angry like you guys.
But you’re all right, what I do like about Apple is that even if they are behind on something, they will find a way of doing things and most likely do it better than anyone else. I think that’s shown with the low cost of Lion and the upgrade process which no matter how hard they try Microsoft aren’t going to be able to match.
Back on mobile though, iOS 5 seems to catch Apple up with Android and hopefully take them a step further still. Wireless syncing is probably the most important new feature for me, finally meaning it’s possible for someone to just own an iPad which I know a couple of people would be taken by.