Apple iOS 5 Review
by Vivek Gowri, Andrew Cunningham, Saumitra Bhagwat & Brian Klug on October 18, 2011 3:05 AM ESTiTunes Wi-Fi Sync
Another much requested feature that finally makes its debut in iOS 5 is wireless syncing. Apple calls it iTunes Wi-Fi Sync and its introduced under the PC Free initiative that ironically has a USB cable and a pair of scissors as its marketing icon. Unfortunately, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync asks that your phone be connected to a power source for the feature to work. This shouldn’t be too hard to grasp considering the massive power drain issues people would have inevitably faced had it not been otherwise.
As long as your Mac/PC and your iOS device are on the same network, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync automatically kicks in and syncs your device. A new iTunes Wi-Fi Sync option under General Settings lets users follow the syncing process as it goes along and a new sync icon in the status bar notifies users when their device is syncing from anywhere in the OS. iTunes Wi-Fi sync also enables one device to be synced to more than one PC or Mac. Users have granular control over what gets synced with each machine; for example, if you have a machine at work and one at home, you could have your music synced only on the home machine as long as both computers are authorized with your Apple ID.
Documents in the Cloud
As a supplement to some of iCloud features, Apple has released a new set of APIs that let developers build in iCloud functionality into their apps. So for example, if you create documents or spreadsheets using programs other than iWork for iOS, then developers can leverage these new APIs and allow their apps to backup documents to iCloud, which are then pushed to all your other devices automatically. You can read more about this feature and its integration into the iCloud.com site in our companion piece about iCloud on the desktop.
Photo Stream
Photo Stream essentially allows users to backup and store up to 1,000 recent photos imported or taken on their iOS devices and have them pushed down to their Mac and other iOS devices. A new version of iPhoto (9.2) with Photo Stream makes sure the latest photos from your iOS devices can be viewed and saved on your Mac. iCloud saves your photos uploaded via Photo Stream for 30 days before discarding them - otherwise, you can delete all of your Photo Stream photos in the Advanced settings on iCloud.com, or you can wait for them to disappear. There's no way to delete individual photos from the stream in a way that will propagate across all of your devices, which seems like a pretty serious oversight - any photo taken, no matter how embarrassing or compromising, is automatically sent to every other Photo Stream enabled device you've got. In this case, the feature works a little too well. Photo Stream also works with the newest Apple TV update and makes the stream visible there as well.
Photo Stream at this point only syncs photos when you're connected to WiFi, so you have a bit of of time to delete things before they're synced. For users with no WiFi, this restriction does diminish the functionality of Photo Stream, and at present unfortunately there's no way to force photos to sync over cellular data for users with unlimited data plans. At least not without a jailbreak, yet.
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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.