The iOS 10 Review: Refining the iOS Experience Both Over & Under the Hood
by Brandon Chester on September 13, 2016 12:00 PM ESTFinal Words
iOS 10 marks a major anniversary for iOS. Originally launched as iPhone OS way back in 2007, iOS has come a long way from its original iteration. iPhone OS 2 brought the App Store, while iOS 4 brought the iOS name. iOS 5 brought Notification Center and many new APIs, and iOS 6 brought Apple Maps. With iOS 7 a brand new design was created, which has been iterated on since then in iOS 8 and iOS 9.
Now after nearly ten years we have iOS 10. iOS 10 is a very big release, and there's far more to it than what I've been able to cover in this review. Many parts of the OS have received subtle tweaks to their appearance, while some apps like Maps, Music, and News have received complete redesigns. It's impossible to cover all of the changes Apple has made, and users will end up discovering them for themselves over time after they update their phones.
iOS 10 comes with a new design of its own. It's definitely an evolution of the design put in place with iOS 7, but the level of refinement is far greater than in iOS 8 or iOS 9. iOS 7 took Apple's new design principles as far as they could go, and the interface ended up being a bit too abstract to be intuitive. Since that time Apple has taken a step back by making parts of the UI that can be interacted with more pronounced, and in iOS 10 they've stripped out many of the UI's hard edges and replaced them with rounded corners and cards that contain the contents of views. It definitely takes inspiration from the evolution of other operating systems like Android, but the end result still feels distinctly Apple and fits in great with the design of iOS.
iOS 10 brings some great new features. Again, I haven't nearly been able to cover them all, with the most notable omission being the changes made to the Photos app. Thankfully, I actually covered all the new features previously in my preview of macOS Sierra, and all the features there have made their way to Photos on iOS. Messages is definitely the other tentpole feature of iOS 10. Apple has taken a great deal of inspiration from other messaging apps to add functionality to iMessage. Most of it is just visual, with new message effects and Digital Touch being brought over from the Apple Watch. The inclusion of iMessage apps will allow for functional improvements as well, with messages that hook into iOS applications to allow the sharing of content. What developers do with iMessage apps remains to be seen, but the fact that Messages is the most used application on iOS makes me confident that the adoption will be quite strong.
As a developer, the most exciting thing that iOS 10 has brought is Swift Playgrounds for the iPad. When I first heard about the app I assumed it would only be useful as a tool for teaching basic programming concepts. That assumption was completely wrong, and I underestimated the app in two big ways. Apple's included books already go beyond what I expected to be taught in the learn to program guides, and the ability to create books for other users to download means that online programming courses and tutorials can use Swift Playgrounds to teach any concept they want in a fun and interactive manner.
The other way I underestimated Playgrounds was assuming that it wouldn't be useful to existing iOS developers. I didn't think that Apple would make UIKit available in the app for developers to use, but I was wrong. Swift Playgrounds on the iPad is actually a great tool for prototyping and testing ideas when you're away from your development machine, and the availability of UIKit means that you can use the same APIs that you use for designing real applications. I don't have any doubts that Playgrounds is the first step on the road to XCode for the iPad, and I don't think it'll take long for that to become a reality.
iOS 10 is a fitting tenth anniversary release for iOS. It brings enough refinements to the UI that you could call it a redesign in its own right, includes big changes to core parts of the experience like Messages, Photos, and Siri, and it has laid the foundation for a future where you can develop for iOS using iOS devices. On top of all that, it brings stability and smoothness to a level that I haven't seen on iOS since long ago with iOS 6 on the iPhone 5. Users of older and newer iOS devices alike will enjoy iOS 10, and with some great new APIs for developers to use in their apps the experience for users is only going to get better as time goes on.
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damianrobertjones - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
Cash. Money. The usual. Bills have to be paid. The days of complete, free, impartial journalism died years back. The Verge and Engadget being the worst of the many. I see a web page design in the future for Anandtech.robinthakur - Friday, September 23, 2016 - link
Because people click on the articles more, would be my guess? I scanned the whole site for the iPhone 7 review and clicked on another apple article on iOS10 when I couldn't find it. This is actually a good technical review by somebody who clearly knows the OS inside out, so I've got no problem with it.ABR - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
The overall UI smoothness improvement is really noticeable on an iPad Air 2. It's a really shame this is the release they decided to cut support for iPad 2 and that era devices, because those are just the ones that became truly unusable starting with iOS 8. Thinking charitably, it could be that dropping the support is one of the things that helped improve the performance, or, more cynically, maybe it's just part of their plan to continue encouraging purchase of new devices.tipoo - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
Yeah, even if they dropped all the new features, the performance improvements would have been huge for A5 devices. In fact I wouldn't mind if they stripped the OS as much as they could to get A5 smooth again, but of course they're not going to do such an undertaking for the old chip.tipoo - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
The worst thing about it is no OS security updates for older OSs, so you're forced to either go insecure, or get a dog slow OS on your formerly decent hardware. There's also no easy downgrade mechanism.m16 - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
I'm very impressed with the update, really snappy. I'm even more impressed that all my apps work, but I don't have any fancy apps outside of some photography apps that control the aperture.I wish they'd brought back notification center social media posting. I mean, OS X Capitan has it!!! It had it back on the iOS 7 days.
Anyone else thinking this should be back should go to apple's feedback page on either iOS or the iPhone/iPad and request the feature back.
yhselp - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
I'm very glad Apple have seemingly fixed performance and UI issues for the 5s compared to iOS 9.After upgrading yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. At least for now. I hope I don't jinx it. The 5s is now noticeably smoother; navigating menus, multitasking, and general use overall is now more in line with how fast it used to be on iOS 8. In-app performance seems to have improved as well; I specifically tested an app that used to work great on iOS 8, then ran poorly on iOS 9, and now seems to work great again on iOS 10. Furthermore, the UI itself is now better optimized for a 4-inch display - not only is it better than iOS 9, but there are also improvement over how it used to be on iOS 8.
So far so good then. Haven't encountered any major hitches, and battery life seems to be holding up. Still, some things are sometimes actually slower than how I remember them from iOS 8, but the opposite is true as well - sometimes the 5s feels faster than ever. Overall, so far, I'd say the smoothness is on par with iOS 8.
One thing that still baffles me is the Music app. I still pretty much hate it, although it's an improvement over iOS 9 both in terms of usability and 4-inch friendliness. Maybe it's better suited to how most people seem to consume music nowadays - internet music, music services, etc. I can't believe that so few people listen to music in a more traditional way that it's worth ignoring them. Why is it so hard for Apple to at least offer more control over how the music library is sorted? I want to be able to browse by artist, tap on a band, and see all their songs I have on my device in one place with little bars above every group indicating which albums they're from; just as it used to be, and not how it is now. On top of that, the Music app is now less sexy than ever, there's no cover flow at all (at least, I can't seem to find it), and the UI can still get unnecessarily cluttered on a 4-inch display. For me, the best Music app would be a hybrid of how it used to look on iPhone 5 running iOS 6 with some of the improvements from iOS 7 and 8.
yhselp - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
I can't help but think - thank God they made the SE, because without it iOS 10 might not have been as 4-inch friendly as it is.I'd be very much interested to hear any impressions on how iOS 10 works on iPhone 5/5c.
yhselp - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
Update: One important thing that has seen a downgrade, in my opinion, is notification banners. When you're doing something, and someone sends you a message the banner that appears on the top of the screen is bigger, gets in the way, and it's harder to reply quickly without opening the Messages app - pulling down the banner is harder, and once done it takes up to whole screen.For me, that is a major downgrade as it makes banner more obtrusive on a 4" device, and make it hard to reply to messages quickly. I understand it might have been made in a bid to improve visibility on 4" devices, but I don't think it was the right call.
This might prove to be iOS 10's Achilles' heel on 4" devices. I would very much like to see it fixed.
mdriftmeyer - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link
You'd be wrong. Works great on my iPhone 5s. Notifications now are more easily flipped through and understood at quick glances.