Preview of iOS 10 Public Beta

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

iOS 10 is the biggest update to Apple's mobile operating system that's now celebrating it's 9th birthday.

Apple is making iOS 10 and macOS Sierra available as public beta. This is so the public can install the OS's and act as beta testers to help squash bugs and get a feel for what's coming. I don't advice anyone to install beta software, specially a device's operating system, on any device they use on a daily basis. That said, you can find out out more about Apple's Beta Releases here.

While not as a big a visual overhaul as iOS 7 was a few years ago, iOS 10 offers the biggest fundamental change to what one can do on their device. The public beta for iOS 10 is now available for intrepid users and beta testers who want to experience the work in progress that will become the iOS version to ship with iPhone 7 devices in the fall.

Being a beta, iOS 10 is not going to have the stability and efficiency of a completed OS. I installed the public beta on my daily driver iPhone 6S Plus  and my iPad Pro to really understand what it is like to live with the new OS and all that it offers. Installation took around 40 minutes from start to finish on the iPhone 6S Plus, a bit longer on the iPad Pro.

Already, the red flags that come as part and parcel of any beta software, have come to surface. This mostly includes weird behavior, certain apps crashing or failing to open as well as greatly diminished battery life are some of the early issues I've experienced.

Unpacking iOS in 2016 

As the oldest of the modern mobile operating systems, iOS is starting to feel a little old school specially when compared to some of the customization and functionality found in Android as well as the fluid interface offered by Windows Phone's tiled interface.

Changes to iOS in version 10 begin with the lock screen, which now omits the 'Swipe to Unlock' gesture in favour of using the Touch ID Home Button. 

Swipe right on the Lock Screen and you get a list of your active widgets, which list the apps and notifications that are most important or recent. Swiping left brings up the camera.

IOS 10 is still an icon-based app-focused experience, the home screen is an endless scroll with a four-icon launcher containing the four most needed app icons.

This hasn't changed but Apple's managed to work with other aspects of the OS to make it smarter, more proactive and eminently more user-focused.

The new Raise to Wake feature animates the lock screen and allows access to various widgets and notifications, it's a simple re-purposing of data that cuts a lot of time.

What's New?

Notifications are now actionable and can be replied to, dismissed or deleted instantaneously.

The new widgets, which push information from apps forward, to the lock screen (and are always accessible with a swipe to right, make it fast to triage apps and other to-do items. This reduces having to hunt through folders and apps to get to specific functions.

Notifications can now feature graphics alongside text, this makes the OS feel more alive and conveys more information in the same amount of space.

iOS 10 also bolsters some of its biggest features. iMessage is an almost completely different beast than the older version.

Emoji are up to three times bigger, text effects, stickers, exploding message bubbles and a large variety of visual effects are now able to convey ideas and feelings better.

The Photos app is now a powerhouse application that rivals Google Photos not just in terms of editing and sharing photos, but also for enabling better search and organization.

Aperture users, like myself, have been riding out Photos and waiting for more pro-level features and there are some on the way.

Photos on iOS 10 can identify faces, locations, locales, mountains and thousands of different search strings to slice through volumes of photos and create short music videos.

Photos goes through 11 billion calculations per photo on the iPhone when it is plugged in and charging, which smartly indexes all your photos and the content they contain. More importantly, it is now easier to search for those elusive moments. Photos can also generate thematic short movies, similar to HTC's Zoe app. These mix Live Photos, pictures, videos and music based on AI.

The News App has been revamped and offers a more readable and visually engaging style. Ditto for Apple Music, which is more user-focused and aims to be more intuitive. I didn't spend too much time on either of these apps, but it is good to see some headway and rethinking of what works better for users.

Apple Maps, which is new and improved, was the biggest surprise for me.

Long considered the red-headed stepchild of Apple's built-in suite of apps, often languishing in some folder in the third of fourth screen, Maps deserves a second look.

Apple Maps now features real-time traffic information and has many location based sub-categories like information on nearby places as well.

Extensibility will be Apple Maps' most promising feature because it can now interact with apps without needing to open them or diver the user's attention to another app. Extensibility is nothing new, it was released back in iOS 8 but is now surfacing as a smart and intuitive way to avoid having to open apps just to get things done. 

This means that mapping your way to dinner at a particular restaurant means you can book a table via OpenTable, call an Uber and even make payments without ever leaving the Maps app.

One thing that many of the improvements in iOS 10 have is that they are now available to developer input.

This means developers who update their apps to work within these frameworks, will likely get more popular and useful.

This is a good idea to thin the herd. There are gazillions of apps on the App Store but many of them haven't been updated or aren't maintained, pushing these new app features means they need to step up their game.

A delicate balancing act

Apple has the unenviable position of having to ride the popularity and ubiquity of iOS while making sure it isn't left behind in terms of modern features and functionality. This is specially true since Apple is known for leading the charge but after nine years, iOS needs to straddle familiarity with innovation which is extremely delicate. 

iOS 10 succeeds in making the iPhone and iPad more action oriented. The notifications and widgets are pushed forward and the once desolate lock screen is now more powerful and effective since users can quickly shift between actionable items and alerts without the extra two or three steps to open an app and engage the features.

While far from finished, iOS 10 is very promising and looks and feels more like a new coat of paint. iOS 10 will be smarter, more proactive and better at making the iPhone and iPad a communications tool while pushing Apple's own apps like Maps, News, Music and iMessage to name a few. The result is  likely the most elegant, organized and productive version of iOS yet.

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Opinions are based on unfinished beta software which has features, designs and functionality that is still subject to change. - Gadjo