Apple iOS 5 Review
by Vivek Gowri, Andrew Cunningham, Saumitra Bhagwat & Brian Klug on October 18, 2011 3:05 AM ESTMost of the applications near the heart of iOS core competency have also gotten a refresh here. We’re talking stuff like Safari, Mail, Messaging, Photos, Music, Calendar, heck, even the Camera application gets a redesign here.
Music
I’d like to start by lighting a candle for the iPod application on the iPhone and iPad. It has joined the ranks of the dearly departed, having now been split into “Music” and “Video”, as on the iPod touch. Other than the branding, the major overall changes are being able to play music while syncing your device and a couple of interaction changes. You can swipe sideways on a song to bring up the option to delete it from the device, and a long press on a song title will bring up the extended song information. But for the most part, on the iPhone/iPod touch side of things, the Music app stays basically untouched. It’s on the iPad side where things have really changed.
For starters, the iPad 2 now gets the ability to play 1080p video, but the real differences are in Music. The iPad gets a completely redesigned music player. While the previous iPod app looked like a lite-version of the desktop iTunes client, the new one looks nothing like it. You get a very low profile control/information bar at the top with playback controls and details on the song playing, plus a bottom bar to chose between playlist, song, artist, album, etc, along with a search field. The entire rest of the screen is dedicated to listing as many songs as possible. A few pixels on the right and left side have been devoted to thin, wood coloured borders. I legitimately have no idea why, since the colour they picked has nothing to do with the rest of the accent colours used in the OS (or any other version of iOS). It’s not a bad look, and it’s actually nice to have such a minimal interface for music.
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lurker22 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
I disagree. Anecdotal reports better antennae reception in the 4s over the 4. Also the internals are almost completely different between the 4 and the 4s.Andrew Rockefeller - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
...but then again, I come here for the info that I don't/can't get elsewhere. Is there really any need for yet another review on a spec bump? What magical new insight could be added to the dearth of info already available??http://lmgtfy.com/?q=iPhone+4S+review
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Well, reliable comparisons of battery life and antenna performance would be good start.LordSojar - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
It's the Android notification system we've had for years with a few minor tweaks. Wow, Apple sure is revolutionary.Why isn't Google suing them again? Oh right, because Google aren't a**holes... my bad.
uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
I thought Android was "open" and even GPL/Apache licensed? Hard to sue anyone doing what the license allows them to do, really.lurker22 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Oh please just stop already it's getting old.name99 - Thursday, October 20, 2011 - link
"Why isn't Google suing them again? Oh right, because Google aren't a**holes... my bad."Presumably because Google don't have a patent on the idea. Why not?
Maybe there is prior art? Maybe Google just didn't get a patent?
Either way, throwing out random statements as you are doing is not informative. The law has its flaws, but it's not just a popularity contest. If you have something useful to say about the legal issues go right ahead, but what you have said is not helpful, implying as it does that Google would never sue over patents. To take an example, if someone started copying pagerank or the adwords system, I expect Google would be suing them the next day.
Yann Bodson - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
The music app new design is inspired by the old Braun vinyl players.http://www.wearesuperfamous.com/wp-content/3511586...
cjs150 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
There is a lot to admire about the new OS, and to be fair to Apple, the iPhone has been the class of the field since it first came out.Problem is that the field has raised their game. The rest of the field has no hang ups about making sure their phone works well with lots of software not just "Apple approved" products - particularly Microsoft products (I am not going to start on the Flash argument - lets just say it is an example of the closed universe that Apple wants).
Simple fact is the overwhelming majority of businesses run Microsoft products and in particular Outlook and exchange servers. If Anandtech cannot the iOS 5 calender to work with Outlook consistently what hope is there for the rest of us.
Great as a home phone, fantastic for kids. No better than B+ for business
More positively I really like the Apple philosphy of getting all their mobile products working the same way, there will be loads of people with mobile phones and iPads and an MP3 player of some sort. I would take issue with the idea that make OS upgrades "PC free" is a novel concept. The iPad 2 probably has more processing power than the office machine I used 7 years ago, so the concept that freeing updates from the PC is revolutionary is feeble. The real question is why did it take so long to achieve such an obvious step.
steven75 - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
Funny because many of here at this Exchange shop use iPhones with our work email just fine, calendar and all. In fact, it works quite nicely.We have our choice of company phones and it's extremely rare for anyone to pick anything but an iPhone. I'm sure that would be different if it didn't play so nicely with Exchange.