iOS 5 finally arrived on Oct 12th as Apple announced on during "Let's talk iPhone" event on Oct 4th. I was prepared for the arrival of iOS 5 - upgraded iTunes, Sync'd up and Backed up my iPhone 4.
This time, I wasn't interested to upgrade to iPhone 4S. There are 2 main reasons ...
• One, I have 2 year contract with AT&T and AT&T approves my upgrade after Feb 2012 (18 months completion of the contract).
• Second, except for Siri, I didn't find the new capabilities of iPhone 4S compelling for me to upgrade. I'll wait, I am good with my iPhone 4 for now :-)
iOS 5 Upgrade
Upgrade to iOS 5 took a long time, it was more than 2 hours - the upgrade failed for the first time and then, iTunes was trying to restore from the backup. I was beginning to get worried if I'll end up with no phone for a day or two. Thank god, once iTunes prompted that restore is complete, there was a sigh of relief. Interestingly, I was surprised that my iPhone 4 has been upgraded to iOS 5 regardless. So, I really don't know if my upgrade was a successful upgrade ;-). My iPhone 4 with iOS 5 is working fine since then …
In this blog, I am going cover some of the iOS 5 features based on my experience on my iPhone 4. I won't be writing about Siri or other features that are iPhone 4S specific or iPad specific. Let's jump right in ...
Notification Center
One of the very first and visible features of iOS 5 is its notifications center. Pretty good implementation for handling notifications and catching up with Android platform. Prior to iOS 5, the notifications were terrible on iOS platforms - notifications were handled like a system message/alert, interrupt your work or game play, can't handle multiple notifications and you can't get to notifications later. I am glad that iOS 5 notifications took care all of those issues.
New System Apps (Reminders, Newsstand)
Apart from enhancements to existing system apps on iOS devices, Apple has added a couple of new system apps in iOS 5.
• Reminders
⁃ Didn't quite understand why there is an integration with Yahoo Reminders given that there is an iCloud Reminders.
• Newsstand
⁃ Newspapers and Magazines - Similar to Books, specifically designed for subscription based content delivery. As a user, I didn't find anything great or interesting enough content.
iCloud and PC-Free
Now, you can back up your iOS device on the cloud with iCloud - pretty neat. iOS upgrades are PC-free (no iTunes tethering required anymore and everything can be done Over The Air (OTA)). Apple hopes to end jail breaking with such features, it would be interesting to see what happens on that front. Apple is smart with 5GB free option - I had to clean up my iPhone 4 content to less than 5GB to use the free iCloud backup. I suspect most people will have to pay for iCloud services (Nothing really comes for free from Apple).
There are more than 200+ features/enhancements on iOS 5. Check out iOS 5 features @ http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html.
Summary
iOS 5 adds significant number of improvements, enhancements and takes the OS capabilities of smart phones/tablets to the next level.
This time, I wasn't interested to upgrade to iPhone 4S. There are 2 main reasons ...
• One, I have 2 year contract with AT&T and AT&T approves my upgrade after Feb 2012 (18 months completion of the contract).
• Second, except for Siri, I didn't find the new capabilities of iPhone 4S compelling for me to upgrade. I'll wait, I am good with my iPhone 4 for now :-)
iOS 5 Upgrade
Upgrade to iOS 5 took a long time, it was more than 2 hours - the upgrade failed for the first time and then, iTunes was trying to restore from the backup. I was beginning to get worried if I'll end up with no phone for a day or two. Thank god, once iTunes prompted that restore is complete, there was a sigh of relief. Interestingly, I was surprised that my iPhone 4 has been upgraded to iOS 5 regardless. So, I really don't know if my upgrade was a successful upgrade ;-). My iPhone 4 with iOS 5 is working fine since then …
In this blog, I am going cover some of the iOS 5 features based on my experience on my iPhone 4. I won't be writing about Siri or other features that are iPhone 4S specific or iPad specific. Let's jump right in ...
Notification Center
One of the very first and visible features of iOS 5 is its notifications center. Pretty good implementation for handling notifications and catching up with Android platform. Prior to iOS 5, the notifications were terrible on iOS platforms - notifications were handled like a system message/alert, interrupt your work or game play, can't handle multiple notifications and you can't get to notifications later. I am glad that iOS 5 notifications took care all of those issues.
New System Apps (Reminders, Newsstand)
Apart from enhancements to existing system apps on iOS devices, Apple has added a couple of new system apps in iOS 5.
• Reminders
⁃ Finally, there is a TODO app that comes with iOS - for free. It was long overdue. Location aware (Geo-fence) Reminders are pretty cool. Now, you can set up a reminder to buy milk when you are near a grocery store.
⁃ Didn't quite understand why there is an integration with Yahoo Reminders given that there is an iCloud Reminders.
• Newsstand
⁃ Newspapers and Magazines - Similar to Books, specifically designed for subscription based content delivery. As a user, I didn't find anything great or interesting enough content.
iCloud and PC-Free
Now, you can back up your iOS device on the cloud with iCloud - pretty neat. iOS upgrades are PC-free (no iTunes tethering required anymore and everything can be done Over The Air (OTA)). Apple hopes to end jail breaking with such features, it would be interesting to see what happens on that front. Apple is smart with 5GB free option - I had to clean up my iPhone 4 content to less than 5GB to use the free iCloud backup. I suspect most people will have to pay for iCloud services (Nothing really comes for free from Apple).
There are more than 200+ features/enhancements on iOS 5. Check out iOS 5 features @ http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html.
Summary
iOS 5 adds significant number of improvements, enhancements and takes the OS capabilities of smart phones/tablets to the next level.
No comments:
Post a Comment