The Apple Beat: iOS 5 grows up, raises the bar even higher

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Monday's WWDC Keynote was such a flurry of announcements that it was all to easy to miss the magnitude of the revelations for current iOS users. Apple clearly put the user experience front and centre and aside from the usual performance and functionality enhancements we've come to expect from an iOS update, there are a number of upcoming features that stood out.

At first glance, iOS 5 seems very similar to iOS 4 but once you install it you are greeted by a welcome screen instead of the "connect to iTunes" screen which is the cause of buzz kill for every new iOS owner who is away from their computer. iOS 5 is really about the user, as if Apple took all people's suggestions and complaints into consideration and did their best to squeeze the most functionality into this release as possible.

Apple also studied the competition and checked out what features kept their customers happy, and one can say that they short-listed these popular features and created their own, competing features as well.

As a result, iOS feels completely grown up and you get the feeling after using it that a lot has changed under the hood. The changes are subtle and welcome. 

Double click the home button on the 'to unlock screen' and you are given the option to play your iPod's music or quickly access the Camera app. You can now also use the volume-up button to take a quick photo, a feature many iPhone users have been clamouring for.

Notification Centre - iOS did not have the most effective notification system. You could get pop-up messages on the unlock screen, but in the case of some applications, you wouldn't know if something was going on unless you went out of your way to seek them out.

Notifications under iOS 5 are accessible via one swipe down the screen to reveal Notification Centre. A one-stop repository that lists most recent messages, texts and call as well as gives you a quick look at the Weather app as well as Stocks. 

The way this works is reminiscent of how notifications are done in Android, except that in iOS, you can access this from almost any application. Tap on any item on Notification Centre and you will be taken to the actionable application straight away.

Camera App

It is no secret that the iPhone 4 has one of the best cameras on any device. We were using a Windows Phone for some time but switched back to the iPhone 4 because we take a lot of photos and many of the apps we were used to had no equivalent versions.

In iOS 5, the Camera App is more accessible (as explained above) and it is also a bit faster all around. You do get the choice of overlaying gridlines  to better frame photos and the faux HDR option is still available if you want punchy photos. But, there's more. Apple built in some of iPhoto's functionality into the Photo app which makes it possible to crop, auto-enhance, remove red-eye and rotate every photo in your library. This is great because in the past, we'd have to use a variety of third party applications to make any of these changes and now they are a few clicks away. 

Reminders

This is really a feature we feel should have been delivered during earlier versions of iOS. Instead of relying on the Calendar app and the Notes app to create lists and to-do's, the Reminders App offers a one-stop spot for making lists and setting alarms.  

Reminders can be scheduled to alert you at a specific dates and times and more interestingly, to locations. Reminders can, using GPS, WiFi or 3G, determine your current location and alert you when you leave a place or when you arrive at a location.

Reminders should sync with iCal on the Mac and Outlook on Windows when iOS 5 arrives later this year. We'd like it to sync with Google calendar.

iMessage

We've not had a chance to try iMessage yet but we're convinced that this is the biggest feature in iOS 5, or, at the very least it will be the most popular. iMessage allows the sending of text and multimedia messages (free of charge) between iOS devices (roughly 200 million of them) a la BlackBerry's popular BBM.

Not only will this apply to iPhones and iPod Touches but to iPad's as well, giving Apple's iconing tablet its own messaging app and considerable added value.

Yes, iMessage is a copy of BBM, but it looks like Apple took its time to implement it properly and it should make a lot of people rethink their smartphone choices in the Fall when iOS 5 becomes available.

-------------------------------------

Gadjo Sevilla is a long time Mac user and technician and has been covering Apple's business and products for over 15 years. The Apple Beat is a weekly opinion column focusing on the latest Apple news.