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Apple iOS 5 Review

 by Vivek Gowri, Andrew Cunningham, Saumitra Bhagwat & Brian Klug on October 18, 2011 3:05 AM EST
86 Comments | Add A Comment
86 Comments

Camera Application Improvements

The default iOS camera application also gets some love with new improvements and features. The changes are initially pretty subtle. Under options at the top is a new toggle for a grid overlay which helps you optionally compose photos using rule of thirds, and on the iPhone 4 the HDR toggle is here. Of course on the 3GS the only toggle is for grid. Next, pinch to zoom brings up the digital zoom toggle at the bottom. 

 

Another new (and more subtle) feature is AF/AE lock. Just like the normal tap to AF/AE, except hold down. The target square flashes twice, then on release you're shown AF/AE lock. 

Last but not least, the volume up button now triggers image capture. This feature was famously added by Camera+, which then resulted in the application being pulled from the App Store, and now the feature resurfaces in the official camera application. While capturing using the volume up button is useful, it also makes the iPhone 4 form factor a much less stable shooting platform thanks to the volume button's spring preload. Pay attention to good DSLR camera buttons - the spring preload isn't that much at all, and the shutter button "break" only takes a few newtons of force. This is very important because it doesn't result in the shooting platform moving right at capture trigger. Unfortunately in this regard the iPhone 4's beefy buttons make shooting blur-free images difficult, the result is that shooting with the volume button still feels like something of an afterthought. Interestingly enough, the iPhone 3GS' much less preloaded volume button makes for a much more stable shooting platform when using the button.

 

On the lock screen, double tapping the home button brings up the new camera button. This enables you to take photos pretty quickly, and even with the a passcode you can shoot photos. Apple has done a pretty good job making sure you can't escape from here either, we tried force quitting the camera application or gallery after entering the capture mode through the lock screen. Further, you can't view photos in the gallery from this secure camera application. Things seem pretty locked down (as they should be) so far. 

The last subtle feature is a camera button which appears in the bottom left if you enter the gallery from the camera app. This button brings you, as expected, right back into the camera application.

Photos

 
Along with the camera application, the Photo app has also been overhauled. This one is actually a pretty solid update, with basic editing capabilities now integrated, along with the ability to create and manage picture folders on the iDevice. The other major new feature in the Photo app is Photo Stream, which we already covered in the iCloud section. 

The editing capabilities aren’t robust by any means, but as far as elementary tasks go, they’re decent, and they're present on all iOS5 devices, including iPods and older iPhones. Cropping and rotation support are definitely on board, and though it’s much easier to use on a larger screen, both form factors of the rotate/crop part have some performance issues. Get too creative with your rotated crop and the frame rate will start dropping, with some very choppy interactions when you try to change the rotation angle or the crop boundaries. Other than that though, it’s decent. 90 degree orientation changes are handled by a dedicated rotate button. Cropped images can be constrained to a long list of standardized aspect ratios, as well as the original aspect ratio of the image. 

The auto-enhance option tinkers with colour saturation, white balance, contrast, and brightness to theoretically improve your pictures. Sometimes it works, sometimes it goes a bit overboard with the changes, and sometimes it doesn’t do very much (this is usually the case for any image that wasn’t captured on a smartphone). The red-eye removal option is pretty self explanatory, but I legitimately can’t remember the last time one of my pics ended up with red-eye, so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness. 
 
Just to stick with the camera and photos theme, let’s touch briefly on FaceTime. Basically, not much has changed, though video quality is supposedly improved, something I noted on a test call between devices on my network. However, subsequent calls to my friends (mix of iOS 5 and late adopters) gave me mixed results, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that either way, you’re going to be bandwidth limited on the video call front. The more interesting update is that you can FaceTime on the big screen using AirPlay mirroring, which we discussed earlier in the AirPlay section. 
Safari Changes and Benchmarks Calendar, Game Center, and Newsstand
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  • lurker22 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    I disagree. Anecdotal reports better antennae reception in the 4s over the 4. Also the internals are almost completely different between the 4 and the 4s.

  • Andrew Rockefeller - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    ...but then again, I come here for the info that I don't/can't get elsewhere. Is there really any need for yet another review on a spec bump? What magical new insight could be added to the dearth of info already available??

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=iPhone+4S+review

  • uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    Well, reliable comparisons of battery life and antenna performance would be good start.

  • LordSojar - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    It's the Android notification system we've had for years with a few minor tweaks. Wow, Apple sure is revolutionary.

    Why isn't Google suing them again? Oh right, because Google aren't a**holes... my bad.

  • uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    I thought Android was "open" and even GPL/Apache licensed? Hard to sue anyone doing what the license allows them to do, really.

  • lurker22 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    Oh please just stop already it's getting old.

  • name99 - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link

    "Why isn't Google suing them again? Oh right, because Google aren't a**holes... my bad."

    Presumably because Google don't have a patent on the idea. Why not?
    Maybe there is prior art? Maybe Google just didn't get a patent?

    Either way, throwing out random statements as you are doing is not informative. The law has its flaws, but it's not just a popularity contest. If you have something useful to say about the legal issues go right ahead, but what you have said is not helpful, implying as it does that Google would never sue over patents. To take an example, if someone started copying pagerank or the adwords system, I expect Google would be suing them the next day.

  • Yann Bodson - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    The music app new design is inspired by the old Braun vinyl players.
    http://www.wearesuperfamous.com/wp-content/3511586...

  • cjs150 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link

    There is a lot to admire about the new OS, and to be fair to Apple, the iPhone has been the class of the field since it first came out.

    Problem is that the field has raised their game. The rest of the field has no hang ups about making sure their phone works well with lots of software not just "Apple approved" products - particularly Microsoft products (I am not going to start on the Flash argument - lets just say it is an example of the closed universe that Apple wants).

    Simple fact is the overwhelming majority of businesses run Microsoft products and in particular Outlook and exchange servers. If Anandtech cannot the iOS 5 calender to work with Outlook consistently what hope is there for the rest of us.

    Great as a home phone, fantastic for kids. No better than B+ for business

    More positively I really like the Apple philosphy of getting all their mobile products working the same way, there will be loads of people with mobile phones and iPads and an MP3 player of some sort. I would take issue with the idea that make OS upgrades "PC free" is a novel concept. The iPad 2 probably has more processing power than the office machine I used 7 years ago, so the concept that freeing updates from the PC is revolutionary is feeble. The real question is why did it take so long to achieve such an obvious step.

  • steven75 - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link

    Funny because many of here at this Exchange shop use iPhones with our work email just fine, calendar and all. In fact, it works quite nicely.

    We have our choice of company phones and it's extremely rare for anyone to pick anything but an iPhone. I'm sure that would be different if it didn't play so nicely with Exchange.
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