Apple iOS 5 Review
by Vivek Gowri, Andrew Cunningham, Saumitra Bhagwat & Brian Klug on October 18, 2011 3:05 AM ESTReminders
Reminders is more or less a portable to-do list. Once you create a reminder, you can edit it, making it remind you on a selected date (after which you can also set up recurring reminders), assigning it a priority, switching the reminder list it appears on, or making notes to associate with it.
You can have multiple lists of Reminders set up, just as you can use multiple calendars or email accounts. By default, you have one list that lives on the device locally (syncing Reminders to iCloud will replace the local one with your iCloud copy), and Exchange tasks can also appear as a Reminders list. In list view, the app will allow you to swipe between your lists of active and completed tasks. You can also use a calendar view for time-sensitive or recurring reminders.
For those of you connecting to Exchange servers, your Reminders will sync with your Tasks lists in Outlook. You should note that, whether you have one Exchange list and one iCloud list, or two iCloud lists, or any other multiple-list configuration, a given Reminder can only live on one list at once.
On certain devices (namely, the iPhone 4 and 4S), you can also set location-based reminders that will trigger an alert when you’ve arrived at a certain geographical location. The accuracy of this feature is contingent on the accuracy of Apple's background location service, which uses cellular based location calls that are limited to the iPhone 3GS or higher. It isn't entirely clear which level of background location method is being used for Reminders, however the "significant-change location service" state outlined under "Tracking the User's Location" is the most likely. This doesn’t work on other WiFi-only devices for an obvious reason - this level of background location service uses individual cell sites to determine rough location. It's curious that the 3GS doesn't get Reminders, but no doubt Apple is reserving this feature for the higher end devices as a selling point.
For those of you connecting to Exchange servers, your Reminders will sync with your Tasks lists in Outlook. You should note that, whether you have one Exchange list and one iCloud list, or two iCloud lists, or any other multiple-list configuration, a given Reminder can only live on one list at once.
On certain devices (namely, the iPhone 4 and 4S), you can also set location-based reminders that will trigger an alert when you’ve arrived at a certain geographical location. The accuracy of this feature is contingent on the accuracy of Apple's background location service, which uses cellular based location calls that are limited to the iPhone 3GS or higher. It isn't entirely clear which level of background location method is being used for Reminders, however the "significant-change location service" state outlined under "Tracking the User's Location" is the most likely. This doesn’t work on other WiFi-only devices for an obvious reason - this level of background location service uses individual cell sites to determine rough location. It's curious that the 3GS doesn't get Reminders, but no doubt Apple is reserving this feature for the higher end devices as a selling point.
We experienced varying levels of accuracy, and again this depends on the density of cell sites in your particular areas. Obviously urban areas are going to have much more granularity, and rural areas might require some significant changes in location to trigger. Apple's guidelines stipulate around 500 meters as being average, which is about right. Some other developers have done their own statistical studies and come up with a good breakdown of how far one must travel for the location-trigger to happen based on this background location level. If you use Google Latitude on iOS, this is (best we can tell) the same background location service used there.
Twitter Integration
You may not really notice this if you don't use Twitter, but for heavy users of the service it's nice to see it integrated more fully into the OS - the ability to share photos and links via Twitter is a first-class menu option, right alongside printing and emailing.
You'll need to have the Twitter app installed to enable this functionality, and you'll also have to save your Twitter authentication credentials in Settings - iOS prompts you to do both if you haven’t. Once you’ve done this, you can select individual apps that can send Tweets using your account (Safari and Photos are here by default, but expect more as developers adopt the APIs).
Custom Vibrations & LED Notification
There are some new accessibility features in iOS 5. You can now create custom vibration patterns as an alert (even on a per-user basis), as well as rely on the LED flash for notifications. The flash isn't quite as nice as a subtle LED notification indicator for normal use but if you need a highly visual alert system, it gets the job done.
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name99 - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
It's worth remembering that Apple also did not say, on day one, that FaceTime would be available on desktops. In fact they announced
- FaceTime for Phones in June 2010.
- FaceTime for iPods in Sept 2010.
- FaceTime for Macs in Oct 2010.
I'd say, given the FaceTime experience, there is no reason to assume iMessage for Macs won't appear as soon as Apple feels the time is appropriate. (Who knows when that will be, but it will probably be thrown into, to spice up some Mac related announcements, rather than just appearing silently in OSX update 10.7.3).
The limitation to the Apple world may be a bigger hassle longterm, at least in terms of wanting to avoid SMS charges. I guess if you have lots of non-Apple using friends, you need to stick with Viber and suchlike.
The REAL attack on the telcos comes when
- FaceTime offers a voice-only mode AND
- Apple offers VoIP transport to foreign numbers (like Skype does)
My guess is Apple has plans for both of these, but they'll be introduced at the point where the Telcos no longer have the power to screw Apple over (which Apple probably feels requires a larger critical mass of customers than they have today).
alpha754293 - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
How does the new iOS affect battery life?techloverLA - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
Hello,I own a Mac that recently got the iCloud upgrade. I turned it on and registered a new .me ID just to try it out for fun. Later when I turned it off, it gave me the message that "turning off iCloud will delete all iCloud data from the Mac. User can still access iCloud data with other iDevices." That scared me a bit, as I thought all my calendar/contacts on my Mac will get deleted. I logged on to iCloud.com and found nothing has been sync'd, so I went ahead and turned iCloud off. Nothing happened to my existing data on Mac. However this makes me wonder, does turning off iCloud wipe off data from the advices? I don't own an iPhone, but am considering one. However I don't want to have to delete data from my device should I choose not to use iCloud. Do you find that true in your test? Thanks.
RosiePerkins - Friday, October 21, 2011 - link
I think that if you are so pedantic as to worry about mising calls constantly. Or enough to be thrown by the fact there is no 'repetitive and annoying' alerts, then you should either get into a habit of constantly checking your phone. Which you would be if people were ringing you so often that you always miss calls or text messages.You're being rather lazy by expecting a feature in an already highly advanced phone to compensate for you not wanting to hit the wake button. If you are then unsatisfied with the way you have to wake your iPhone now and then maybe you should reconsider ever having it leave your person. This way there is no need for features that would cause stress for every one else around you.
IndyJaws - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link
Thank you for one one of the most thorough recaps/reviews I've seen on iOS 5 - excellent work!One thing I'll share with others at the risk of looking stupid...I couldn't figure out why iTunes kept launching on my 2 computers for no reason at all (phone was not connected at the time). I'd shut it down and it'd start back up, seemingly randomly, from time to time. Silly me, I had iTunes configured to sync to iCloud, but to still launch iTunes when the iPhone was connected. So...the wireless sync would kick in (at intervals much more frequently than I would have expected), causing iTunes to launch. Clearing that checkbox fixed the issue. Just an FYI in case anyone else runs into the same issue - I'm sure there are others, but not willing to admit it!
mashimaroo - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Mirroring in the iphone 4s and ios5 makes doing presentations on my iphone so much easier. I can simply connect it with a vga connector or a/v connector to my aaxa p4 pico projector and im good to go. I can use whatever docs goodreader or keynote. i can even play games with it and stop staring at my tiny phone screen.