The Apple iOS 9 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- Tablets
- iOS 9
Final Words
This year has been a big year for Apple, and a big year for iOS devices. I’m interested to see how 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus changes how users interact with their iPhones, and I’m also interested to see what the iPad Pro means for the iPad as a productivity device. As for iOS 9 and all the existing devices it’s coming to, I would say that’s it’s not as big of a release as iOS 7 or iOS 8 was when you consider the entire ecosystem of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. However, when you just consider the iPad iOS 9 might be the biggest and most important update that Apple has ever shipped.
Multitasking has a profound impact on how you can use an iPad. No longer do you need to interrupt your current task to quickly check another application, as you can now slide it in from the side. Watching videos is no longer something that prevents you from performing any other tasks, because now we have picture-in-picture support. The iPad Air 2 and now the iPad Mini 4 go even further with split screen multitasking, allowing you to have two applications running in the foreground at the same time. The boost to productivity that split screen multitasking enables will be enormous once applications enable support for it. To me, iOS 9 feels very focused on breaking down many of the limitation that have held the iPad back as a productivity device. The iPad has always had applications tailored to its large display, but you were still limited to using one app at a time just like a tiny 3.5” iPhone was.
The future of the iPad is something I don’t even want to attempt to speculate on, because I don’t know where it’s headed. Apple certainly gave the iPad Mini a significant update this year, but the smaller form and lower price prevent it from achieving the same performance as Apple’s bigger tablets. However, for many users the convenience of a small device is worth sacrificing a bit of performance. Apple has also gone really big with the iPad Pro, and there’s no way to say how popular it will end up being, or what percentage of users will adopt the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. I do wonder if they those accessories will also be made usable with future versions of the iPad Air if they prove to be popular, or if they’ll remain as tools specifically for the type of user that would purchase an iPad Pro.
While I definitely feel that iOS 9 focuses on the iPad, it’s not true to say that Apple’s other devices have been left behind. Every device benefits from the performance improvements and optimizations to save storage space that have been made to the core OS and to applications. New developer APIs open up many new possibilities, and some of the new features and APIs relating to Safari may have a significant impact on the web as we know it if Apple decides to allow ad blocking applications into the App Store.
As for Apple’s services, I think Apple Maps has matured more than I expected it would have in the past few years. Apple’s transit additions are actually really well executed, and they were enough to make me try out Apple Maps again which I think is impressive given how much I would use Google Maps on a daily basis. Apple’s foray into news aggregation with Apple News is definitely a great success as well, and while Flipboard is still my preferred application for news on Android and the web, Apple News is my app of choice on iOS. What surprises me is that Apple didn’t make an Apple News application for OS X, but I suspect that this will be coming in a future release after Apple opens up the iOS version to a greater number of countries.
I still have some complaints about iCloud. Part of the justification for 16GB devices is that users can now leverage cloud services for storing photos, videos, and other content. This is true, but Apple still only provides you with 5GB of free storage, and if you want to back up your iOS device to iCloud it counts against that storage. I think Apple is in a position where they could offer free users 15 or 25GB of storage for free, and not have their device backups count against it. This would allow all users to take advantage of iCloud backup without having to pay for an iCloud storage plan, and would make the experience on a 16GB a lot more comfortable even if 16GB is still not optimal.
On the topic of 16GB devices, it looks like we'll be seeing them for another year with the new iPad Mini 4 and the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Apple's app thinning optimizations are definitely going to help make 16GB devices more usable, particularly the app slicing aspect of app thinning. Obviously I would prefer that devices just ship with 32GB, but then I could also say that I think they should all ship with 128GB and what I would like doesn't usually align with maintaining a device's average selling price.
Siri is a feature that Apple can constantly improve on the back end, and I can definitely notice that the accuracy and speed of Siri has improved in recent times. I think Apple’s attempt to make Siri more proactive and intelligent didn’t really work out though, particularly the search screen to the left of your main home screen. I just didn’t feel that the suggestions for apps, contacts, and news were relevant to me. However, the improvements to search itself are substantial, and this will only become even more evident as developers allow their applications to be indexed by search so users can search through them for information or content.
It’s probably not surprising to hear that iOS 9 is better than iOS 8. On the iPhone I think iOS 9 brings along many smaller improvements throughout the OS, along with new APIs that developers can implement to improve the user experience. There are definitely some big changes such as the addition of Apple News and Transit in Apple Maps, but these are again just strengthening the core services of iOS rather than adding incredible new abilities and features. iOS 9 is definitely a huge release for the iPad though, and because I’ve been limited to Apple’s own applications I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of what capabilities the new multitasking features can enable. I think the iPad definitely deserved a major release that focused on it though, and it’s clear that Apple has had many of these changes in the pipeline for quite some time now.
In the end, iOS 9 offers something new and great for all iOS users, and particularly those who use an iPad. With Apple expanding their portfolio of iOS devices and implementing new features like 3D Touch there are a number of directions they could go in with future releases of iOS, and only time will tell which direction they choose.
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Speedfriend - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
@melgross I have recently seen numerous tablets being used by businesses (restaurants, delivery companies) that were clearly no-name Android tablets designed for that specific tasks. Why would a corporate that needs a tablet for a single task buy a $500 iPad when they can get a $200 Android?iPad is now caught in the middle between cheap single task Androids and multi-task windowns 2-in-1s. Our CEO is obsessed with Apple products but we have gone Windows tablets and it looks like we are going to go full surface range soon (3 and Pros). Why, because an iPad is too limited even as something you just take to meetings with you.
FunBunny2 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
-- a respected history of hardware-design and innovation..really, really now? Apple has always bought their silicon, 99.44% is off-the-shelf. Yeah, I know, the fanbois brag that the Ax chips are somehow blessed by Apple. Fact is: Apple only tweaked around the edges, using industry standard silicon design tools, a bit of cache added here and there. Just look at the BoM from any of the usual teardown sites. You'll see the fact: it's always other people's parts.
osxandwindows - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
So why is apple not using 8core chips ha?Intervenator - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
I hope that post was sarcastic or it would really be funny.damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
...Because that would be too far a jump. Apple wants to MILK its customers for everything then can hence the small updates. Someone like Nokia committed a mortal sin as they released a 41Mp (36+5mp) camera phone while others are still messing with 20Mp.All about the cash.
P.s. Android NEEDS more cores as it runs like a bag of crap.
calden - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
Actually Android runs just as smooth as iOS. The problem is skinned, custom versions of Android, i.e. TouchWiz. When I replaced TouchWiz with CM 12.1 on my Note 4, the system took up only 580MB, where as TouchWiz took up more than 1.5GB before a single app was even installed. I also installed the launcher SmartLauncher 3, the whole experience is lightning fast. Even when running multiple apps in the background, something iOS still can't do. I think it is ridiculous that a modern OS in 2015 cannot do something as simple as stream a movie to your TV and still allow you to use the device, iOS simply pauses, even disconnects the stream in some cases if you want to do something as simple as look up an actors name in IMDB. With my Android tablet I can not only stream a film to my TV but play a game like Modern Combat 5 at the same time. As a programmer I need to run a terminal app to stay connected to my firms server during trading hours as I have monitoring tools. IOS has terminal apps as well but I can't run them them in the background the entire day without iOS terminating it's connections. Again, I find this to be absolutely ridiculous as who wants to stare at a terminal the entire day, especially when I need access to my tablet or phone to do other tasks. Apple adding Pro behind the iPad doesn't automatically make it a pro device. IOS still has one of the worst document, file management systems on the market today. My Nokia 9500 from 2004 is light years better than what iOS provides, apps should never be allowed to manage their own files. Default apps, I still can't change the default apps in iOS, why? I have no use for Apple's included apps, if I had the choice I would immediately delete them from the system, as such I need the ability to select my own browser, email client, messenger, media player, etc. as the default applications. I find this tactic of not being able to select my own default apps in iOS highly anti-competitive. The EU went after Microsoft for including Internet Explorer in XP, even though the user had the option of choosing another browser as their default. Why hasn't Apple be scrutinized about this?calden - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
I'm aware of those few audio and GPS apps that can run in the background in IOS, but this is a far cry than allowing any app that the user needs in the background. No, this has nothing to do with battery life, if it is than Apple really needs to rewrite iOS. My BlackBerry Passport, running three apps in the background, easily lasts the entire day on a single charge, actually it lasts a day and a half with moderate to heavy use. Android has the ability to select how many apps are allowed to run in the background, you can even set it to 1. So if people feel like their apps are eating up their battery they can control the amount of running apps. Apple could easily implement such a feature, they don't though, which means they have all the control, they dictate how the user uses their own devices. iOS is a wolf in sheep's clothing, looks pretty, inviting but once you start to do real work you encounter a brick wall a 20 stories high. How many times have you iOS users logged into iCloud on your device, I had to do it over 25 times to cover every app. Why, why do I need to log in even twice, once should be enough, in Android upon setting up my Google user that was it, from that point on every app that could communicate with Google Drive would automatically be setup. This is because the apps talk to the system at the lowest level, iOS requires spaghetti API's, a spiderweb of tunnels trying to pass info to each other. The Share TO function in iOS works only if the app dveloper has created a share profile. Why can't the system just dynamically create these Share To lists like Android 5.1.2, SailFish 2.0, Windows Mobile 10, BlackBerry OS 10.3.2 by looking for every compatible app that is installed and than listing. No, instead iOS uses this half ass API system. What about mult-user support, will never happen in iOS because of the way it handles files. To support multi-users in iOS each user would have to reinstall each app over again to distinguish each users. They could embed the users info in the file's metadata so the app can distinguish each user but that is just hacky at best would and how would these modified files react when used on other systems. IOS is definitely not a pro system and anyone thinking differently is either lying to themselves to protect their beloved Apple brand, aren't professionals themselves so don't reall understand the meaning or are working around these limitations, fighting the system at every point to get their work done which falls in line with point one, their lying to themselves.I'm not saying that iOS devices don't have their uses, they do. They make great consumer devices for media consumption, social media, gaming, drawing and other artistic apps, music and music creation, etc. However as a productivity tool these devices are highly limited and can't compete with the likes of a Surface Pro 3 or even Surface 3. Even an Android tablet would be a better option. With my Nexus 9 I can log into the LDAP and gain access to all my allowed users NAS storage, mount it as a local asset. Set file extensions to open up certain apps, etc. Trying to do this in iOS is like trying to put a round peg into a square one. You can do it with a bit of force but your going against it's designed purpose. Apple needs to completely rewrite iOS, combine many functions found in OSX before I would ever consider using another mobile device from Apple.
mikhapop - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
you really nailed it, i am a web developer and i often fail to tell my friends how the ios is very limiting for even the basic stuff (my basic stuff). android is far better as far as the os go. Now i am using a surface pro 3 and never looked back, very good in meetings, and it is now my main machine for 98% of my work.blackcrayon - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Sounds like you know close to nothing about the Ax chips. They are custom Apple designs, and they also optimize their OS for them. I bet you thought Intrinsity and PA Semi were just marketing facades that didn't actually do anything before Apple acquired them years ago, right?KoolAidMan1 - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Apple spent billions acquiring semiconductor companies and is one of the few companies along with Qualcomm that has a license to make ARM chips. Anand himself highlighted this while showing that Apple's custom designs matched or exceeded Intel's Bay Trail.You really think their custom designs are something to be dismissed just because of the name on the package? The fanboy is strong in your posts