The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2012 2:21 PM ESTMobile Safari
There are really only a few things that a smartphone OS needs to do right. Messaging (SMS and email), 3rd party applications (with a marketplace), PIM (personal information management – calendar, contacts, etc), and finally inclusion of a decent web browser. This last section is devoted to the iOS 6 improvements to Safari.
With iOS 6, Apple hasn’t dramatically changed anything but (you guessed it), made some tweaks. First is the inclusion of a full screen mode for landscape.
(Left) New fullscreen button at bottom right, (Right), Full screen view for Safari in iOS 6
If you rotate into landscape, there’s a new full screen icon which appears. Tap it and boom you’re given a full screen browsing experience without the loss of status bar and bottom bar. Tapping again in full screen mode brings up the toggle to switch back into windowed mode.
The other new feature is inclusion of an offline reading mode. Tapping on the send/action button lets you send the current page to an offline cache. I have no doubt this leverages some of the reading view backend. There’s a progress indicator under the bookmarks icon while the device is caching pages for reading offline, and it continues on into the background. Going in that menu brings you to another category with a list of what all you’ve made offline that has and hasn’t been read yet.
Currently open on the desktop
Another feature is iCloud tabs, which as the name suggests syncs open tabs across devices with iCloud logins. At some level this brings MobileSafari back up to parity with the equivalent feature in Chrome (synced tabs).
JavaScript Performance
This section wouldn’t be complete without mention of the speedups made to Nitro for MobileSafari, which is Apple’s JavaScript JIT engine which works for ARMv7. I tested the iPhone 4 and 4S on iOS 5.1.1 and iOS 6 GM and saw around a 10% and 30% improvement, respectively. I’m not entirely sure why there’s such a discrepancy between the two, however it’s possible that the new Nitro sends things off to multiple threads more effectively.
| iOS 5.1.1 versus iOS 6 GM | ||||||||
| Device | iOS Version | Sunspider 0.9.1 | Browsermark | HTML5test.com | css3test.com | |||
| iPhone 4 | iOS 5.1.1 | 3553.1 | 52557.0 | 324+9b | 459 of 946, 221 | |||
| iOS 6 GM | 3358.8 | 57351.0 | 360+9b | 498 of 946, 221 | ||||
| iPhone 4S | iOS 5.1.1 | 2242.9 | 86062.0 | N/A | N/A | |||
| iOS 6 GM | 1716.0 | 109775.0 | N/A | N/A | ||||
There’s also a nice jump in HTML5 feature support, which I’m always a fan of seeing. The user agent string in iOS 6 GM now reports webkit 536.26 alongside safari version 8536.25.
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snoozemode - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
With the increasingly more powerful hardware that runs Ipad and Iphone it only seems like a question of when, we will se Ipads and Iphones running OSX with something like a device-dependent skin and some under-hood tuning to fit the device. IOS feels aged in many ways and a merge in to something new seems natural.solipsism - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
iOS is OS X. The took Mac OS X, brought down to it's core elements and built up iOS from that. At one point Apple advertised it as OS X Leopard and OS X Phone; I think at MacWorld 2008.You won't see the Aqua GUi, printer drivers, etc. on iOS because it doesn't make any sense. There is no advantage to have a user plug a mouse into their iPhone so they can navigate with a pointer. The UI was designed for touch. Why even consider scrapping that?
dcollins - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
You obviously don't use the Mail App with Exchange. It still needs some work. My users have huge numbers of heavily nested folders (100s of folders, up to 5 levels deep) that they use to organize emails. When synced with Exchange, App pulls the entire list of folders and displays them fully expanded; you cannot hide/minimize nested folders! You cannot rearrange folders and moving emails between them is clunky at best.With more and more business users relying on iPhones for work, I would like to see a slew of improvements made to Mail's Exchange support.
robinthakur - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I agree upto a point. Our advice to users is not to nest folders and store the emails to SharePoint, as well as minimise folders. This seems to trip up alot of devices though to be fair, which seem to have problems with Folders in Exchange. Being able to set Out of Office through the mail.app would be a go send also.dsumanik - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
or apple could just add collapsable folders.lol
yet another apple ifail
Stas - Sunday, September 23, 2012 - link
Give them a break. They have to invent them first.randomlinh - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
"For now the sacrifice seems worth it as the payoff is something that works very well, but I worry about what happens down the road if you're forced to buy a device not because it's the best device for you, but because buying an alternative would hurt the experience on another, unrelated device"This is exactly what I fear. And I think we're closer to it than one might think
tekzor - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
already happened with app storesGotThumbs - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Agreed.Apples walled garden offers zero choices for consumers when it comes to shopping for content elsewhere. The simple truth is that Apple controls each IProduct users access, and is expanding those controls continually, should be very concerning for its followers.
While I use two Android devices (Phone & Tablet), Google does not restrict/control my ability/freedom to shop for content outside their market place. Part of what makes an open market great is not limiting consumers options and allows price competitiveness. Consumers win.
Apple's currently in trouble (along with four publishing companies) for imposing price controls/fixing. Do you really care about Apples 30% share or are you more interested in getting the same product at the lowest price? At the end of the day....everyone wants their money to go as far as it can for them.
When you have options and time...you shop for the lowest price. Apple has eliminated ts collective users options/choices and wants to inflict its will on others...ie restricting Amazon's price structure and the economies of scale in selling the same books at a reduced price to consumers.
It simply amazes me how so many of the general public continue to willingly give up their freedom of choice. Do they really just want to be controlled and told what to do and how to hold their phone?
Microsoft NEVER EVER prevented a user from installing and using a different web-browser in Windows...yet they have been sued for millions all over the world....
. Apple builds a walled garden and forces its followers to shop ONLY at its market and even fixes prices so its sure to get its 30% cut on purchases....
...YET the DOJ continues to sit on their thumbs and does nothing.
What is wrong with this country?
OK I'm done with my rant.
btw. I wonder if the driver had followed Google Maps instead of Apples route....would he have avoided the traffic and arrived sooner? Just a thought.
Best wishes,
bplewis24 - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I'm glad somebody else is as baffled as I am about consumers' willingness to do the same. Eventually they will either wake up or get what they deserve.