The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2012 2:21 PM ESTNew iCloud Features
Since iCloud made its debut last year alongside iOS 5 and OS X Lion, it has matured as a truly integrated service and has been at the center of Apple’s cloud strategy. With iCloud deeply integrated with iOS and OS X, it evident that Apple is using the service to keep users happy and stuck within Apple's own ecosystem. Good iCloud integration gives users a reason to buy tablets, notebooks and phones all from Apple, instead of picking and choosing from different vendors.
iCloud itself cannot be regarded as a new feature in iOS anymore as it its already been deeply embedded into the OS since iOS 5. There are however some new features that rely on the iCloud backend, such as iCloud tabs, offline reading list and Shared Photo Streams. Other features such as Facebook integration also leverage iCloud to keep contact lists and calendar events in sync. In conjunction with the iOS 6 release, Apple has also added new apps to iCloud.com, namely, Notes and Reminders. Other apps such a Mail, Calendar and Contacts have also been refreshed to blur the line between their iOS and OS X counterparts.
iCloud tabs lets you view your open tabs on your iOS 6 devices and Macs running Mountain Lion. The feature works as advertised, and the update speed across devices is quite impressive. This is a huge boon to the tablet usage model as it allows you to quickly switch between being productive on a notebook and relaxing content consumption on your tablet. Gone are the days when you need to email yourself links to your iPad to continue browsing what you had open on your Mac. This is also a big feature for keeping users using Safari on the Mac instead of migrating to alternate browsers like Chrome.
Safari on iOS also adds support for offline reading list, so you can cache pages for offline viewing later. These also get synced across devices almost in real time and at an impressive speed. If you’ve ever had to live through the nightmare that was MobileMe, you will truly appreciate the speed and reliability offered by apps and features that use iCloud.
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dayndrew - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
When I look for an update on my iPhone 4 under Settings->General->Software Update it gives me "iOS 6 beta 4". What gives?ajcarroll - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
You're got the developer profile installed. I think you'll need to remove the profile in xcode to install the final build.dayndrew - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I've never done any developer work of any kind for iOS. In fact, I have no idea what you mean by xcode. Do I need to do a reset?ajcarroll - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Since it reports itself as 'iOS 6 beta 4' it indicates you have a developer build of iOS installed. Did you lend your iDevice to someone with a development license, if so I assume they installed the development provisioning profile, and installed a dev buiild of iOS. If this is indeed how you got a dev build on your device, you may have to hand it back to whoever installed it for you, have them remove the provisioning profile.Alternatively it might be possible to do it from the latest release of iTunes, but I'm not sure about that.
pxavierperez - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
You can add additional pictures to an existing mail using the copy/paste command even in previous iOS.eg. copy photos from Camera Roll, then paste to already written mail in Mail.app.
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Were there any improvements to graphics performance from new drivers?Brian Klug - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I ran GLBenchmark 2.5 before and after and didn't see any changes. If there are, they're things that don't directly impact performance.-Brian
PHlipMoD3 - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Thanks Apple. No Siri on iPad2 - with no real reason for it not being present apart from the fact that this is not the 3rd gen iPad...Proof that Apple just want your money.
seapeople - Saturday, September 22, 2012 - link
I bet you're also out looking for proof that water is wet and the sky is blue.Of COURSE they want your money, they're a business; it's their job. Find me a company that doesn't want your money, and I'll show you one that's either heading toward bankruptcy or is supported by other, non-competitive factors such as donations/grants/etc. (like non-profits)
So, unless you think people would start donating hordes of money out of good will to keep Apple afloat, I don't think they're about to start giving you newly developed software for old products for free. What's the next step? FREE LIFETIME REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT ON ALL IPADS. COME GET IT WHILE IT'S HOT! PLEASE LEAVE SPARE CHANGE IN OUR DONATION BUCKET WHEN YOU LEAVE THE APPLE STORE.
steven75 - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - link
No real reason other than the processing required, the mic hardware, and noise cancelling chip.Yep, no "real" reason except for the hardware the iPad 2 doesn't have.