In World Wide Developers Conference, on Monday, Apple announced its operating system’s latest version, Apple iOS 5. The Apple iOS brings 200 new features for the iDevices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod. It isn’t available for the consumers at this time, but soon will be available. Apple has brought some new features with iOS 5, revamped old features and made the things much smarter than before. Here are some of the new features packed in iOS 5.
Notifications
In older versions of iOS, the notification used to take the full screen of the iDevice to show itself, thus making your current work distracting. The iOS 5 has made some changes in this, and with Apple iOS 5, the notifications will appear on the top of the screen as a slider instead of taking the full screen. Just tap the slider, and it will take you to the App where the notification has been sent from. This way, you can see notifications as well as ignore them without halting the current work.
PC Free
In the iOS 4 or older, an iDevice user must require a PC to do the work with his iDevice. Like, to updating the device to the latest firmware, syncing media, doing other tasks. PC was necessary to do such things. With the iOS 5, PC is no longer needed. You can update your iDevice with the latest firmware updates directly from the device, no iTunes or such things required. OTA-Over The Air updates will do it without connecting to the PC. This time, the updates will become smaller, because the iDevice will only download the Delta Updates (changes updates only), thus reducing the use of your bandwidth. The screen has changed from the conventional iTunes to Welcome screen.
iMessages
The latest and most useful feature in iOS 5 is, iMessages. It lets you send messages from your iDevice to any other iDevice on both the 3G and WiFi network. You can send Text, Photo, Video, etc. from your device to another device. Also, it shows the various kinds of reports, such as Message Delivery Reports, iChat reports, etc. iMessages can only be used with iDevices only.
Safari Reader
In the traditional Safari browser, Apple added the Reader feature which lets you make content as much better as you wish. You can change the formatting of a web page to make it more comfortable to read. In iOS 5, you can remove the navigation, the ads from the sites and enjoy clutter-free environment while browsing. It includes the Reader List feature, too which makes a list of all your favorite web pages and syncs them with your iDevices as well. The good feature in Safari in iOS 5 is Tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing is a similar function which you use in your PC browser such as Firefox, Chrome, etc. It lets you open many websites at a time, and you can change the tab to switch to the site. Apple has limited this feature to iPad only, because of its larger screen. It wouldn’t be better for iPhone, iPod due to their small screens.
Newsstand
Newsstand is a stand of your favorite newspapers as well as magazines. With this feature in iOS 5, you will be able to get the latest editions of magazines as well as newspapers to read them. It automatically downloads the latest editions for you without going to the app, downloading, etc.
With the built-in Twitter in iOS 5, you will be able to tweet much easier than before. Before, each time you install a new app, you had to authenticate your Twitter account with that app. But in iOS 5, you just have to add your login details once a time, it will automatically provide these details when an App requests for it. Thus, making Tweeting faster without entering the login details each time. Apple’s inbuilt apps such as Photos, Safari, Maps, YouTube will be integrated with your Twitter account so that you can make a tweet directly from these apps.
Reminders
The latest Reminder service in the iOS 5 will make your to-do list much easier to navigate and to do such tasks. In the reminders, you can set tasks either by time-based or by a location based. When the time is near for the task, the iDevice will alert you for that. In location based, when you reach that geographic location, the device will alert you.
Camera
The camera app is now much easier to open even while the phone is locked. You can take pictures from your iPhone camera by just tapping the Volume Up button. When the phone is locked, you will be able to take pictures, but can’t access other data. The grid lines will let you take accurate pictures for your project, work.
In the Mail on iOS 5, you can compose rich text formatting emails, bold, italic, underline. The Full message service is useful in the iOS 5 Mail; it lets you see the messages which haven’t been downloaded to your device but exist on the server. You can send encrypted emails using the S/MIME. The lock icon will appear when you are sending encrypted message.
Game Center
iOS has become a gaming platform, too. Beside its professional features, it makes you feel much better while playing the games on iDevices. Apple says that the Game Center has got 50 million users, in just nine months. The Game Center lets you purchase/download latest games directly from your iDevice; you can see game recommendations, see your friends game scores, compare scores, etc.
The features mentioned above are only just a preview, the other new features will surely Rock the iDevices! Drop your comments about Apple’s iOS 5 !!