This years WWDC came to a close this afternoon. The only real surprise was that there was no new hardware at all. However, there were some very interesting developments with the new iOS 5, iCloud, and Mac OS Lion. iOS 5, in my opinion, was the biggest and best release this year. However, I’m very interested in Mac OS Lion. But that’s for another time. Let’s focus on iOS 5 for now. There are ten big features included in the new OS… and here they are.
Probably the biggest news with iOS 5, is auto-updating. Steve Jobs pushed the phrase “PC-Free” very heavily. Almost every downloadable item within the OS, is now going to be able to download automatically. This includes… OS updates. Now I know that all of the Android readers will be merely shrugging this off, as they were able to do this several years ago. However, for iPhone users, this is a big deal. Other auto-updatable items include apps, music, books, newspapers, and videos (the last few are updated by iCloud).
The next big thing (not the iPad), is the revamped notifications system. This, again, is very similar to what the Android OS looks like. You will be able to swipe from the top, and have a drop-down menu appear with all of the notifications that are currently on your device. The current notifications system that pops up and locks the device from use until the user dismisses the alert… has been replaced by a very similar alert system that jailbroken users are enjoying currently.
Non-carrier-locked devices (A.K.A iPads, and iPod Touches) are now getting a messaging system, called iMessage. This system allows users to send and receive messages sent from other iDevices (it’s currently limited to iDevices only). This messaging system uses the aforementioned notification system to alert users to new messages.
Apple also announced that they are including Twitter support in their iDevices (which makes me think that Apple has sided with Twitter, and not Facebook… interesting). Users can now send tweets about almost everything they do on their device, including images taken on their device. You can also tweet about web pages that you are viewing. The other Twitter-centric feature that they included is one time login for Twitter across your device (no more logging in one hundred and fourty times a day).
The next, next, next big thing (still not an iPad), is the inclusion of Newsstand. A section of iBooks that allows users to download newspapers, and magazines (GizmoRay… maybe). Users will then be able to access these publications offline, directly from the SpringBoard, just as if it is a folder. Once again Apple made a point that the publications that you download would be synced, wirelessly, to all of your devices.
Apple announced numerous Safari upgrades, including: Reader mode, a mode that allows users to take out the distractions that are present in the current view. Tabs, pretty obvious… it’s just tabs, like almost every other third-party browser available for your iDevice. And of course Tweeting from the browser.
Yet another new feature (yeah, I know, there’s a lot), is Reminders, which allows users to be reminded, based on more variables, including location. Of course all of your calendars will be synced via iCloud.
The next (almost last) feature is an updated camera app. The new app includes, taking pictures directly from the lockscreen (see image above), pinch-to-zoom functionality whilst taking pictures, volume button shutter button, and an AE-AF lock. Apple included a new editing section for the photo review section of the camera app. The editing functions are very similar to those of iPhoto’s (i.e. auto-enhance, red-eye reduction, and crop).
The second to last feature, not that big of a one, but still very nice for iPad users, is a split keyboard. One of the biggest annoyances currently included in the iPad, is the keyboard. One has to have rather large fingers to use the iPads keyboard effectively. Hopefully, this new spilt keyboard design will eliminate this handicap.
Alright, we’re finally at the last feature… iCloud. As mentioned in the image above, iCloud will automatically sync your purchased music, apps, books, documents, and photos and videos from the camera roll. It will also, if you upgrade your device, sync you previous devices settings and app data. All of these features will be available for free this fall.
After seeing all of the announcements, just in the iOS 5 category, it makes one only slightly glad that they didn’t release any hardware. This year Apple did a very good job of considering all of their users’ requests and including almost all of them. As far as updates go, best one yet.
What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.
