The Apple iOS 9 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- Tablets
- iOS 9
Low Power Mode
Low power mode is a new feature in iOS 9, and it's fairly self-explanatory. Android OEMs have been adding similar features for a while now. When your battery hits 20% the normal low battery popup will appear, but it now has a button to turn on low power mode. Apple hasn't specifically detailed what they're doing in low power mode, but they have given a broad overview of what they're doing, and some of the things can be measured manually. Low power mode makes the following changes:
- Brightness is dimmed
- Mail fetch is disabled
- Push notifications are disabled
- Background refresh is disabled
- Background network access is limited
- CPU performance is reduced
- Parallax on the home screen is disabled
- Animated wallpapers go static
With all of these changes, Apple says that low power mode can extend battery life by up to three hours if used for an entire cycle. You can actually enable the mode manually if you want by going to the battery section of the settings application. The low power mode will also automatically disable itself once the device is charged to 80%.
As for some of the specifics, I can confirm that the iPhone 5s will bring the SoC to a state where the max clock is 800MHz, while the display on this specific unit drops from 523nits to 414nits. I hope to get figures for the iPhone 6 and 6s as soon as possible, and I'll update this section once I have them. It's difficult to measure the impact of something like low power mode, as it's still heavily dependent on how you use the device. Regardless, it's good to see Apple bring this sort of feature to iOS, and I would be interested to see which users decide to use it all the time to improve their battery life even if it requires sacrificing apps running in the background and a degree of performance.
An Improved Notes Application
The iOS Notes application has been fairly simplistic since its original incarnation. You can add text, and if you long press you can insert images. Through some copy and paste magic you could end up getting text formatted with different fonts and sometimes features like bullets, but that implies that you had to write it out in another application anyway unless you’re pasting right from the web. In contrast, an application like Google Keep on Android has support for other features, like making checklists of items. Something like Evernote provides even more features that make the iOS stock app look bare in comparison. In iOS 9 the notes application receives a large overhaul, with a number of visual tweaks and new features.
Notes on iOS now supports rich text formatting. You can change whether your text is meant to be for a title, a heading, or a body of text. You can also make text bold, italicize it, or underline it. There’s still no support for fine adjustments like setting a precise text size, and for those controls you’ll still need to rely on a third party application or on Pages. To be fair, it’s not in Apple’s best interest to kill the viability of making third party note applications.
In addition to the font formatting you can also make lists using bullets, dashes, or numbers. There’s also the ability to create checklists, which I have used a few times during the course of writing this review to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything that I want to cover. You’ll also notice in the screenshot above that you can link to locations, webpages, voice recordings, and other content and they’ll be embedded in the note inside a rounded rectangle.
Something else Apple has added is the ability to draw on notes. Clicking on the squiggly line on the bottom navigation bar opens up a drawing section which has different virtual tools to draw with. There's your standard fine marker, a thicker tool like a highlighter, and a pencil. There's also a ruler which can be used to draw straight lines, and both an eraser and undo/redo buttons for any mistakes.
While the ability to draw on pages is interesting, it’s not implemented the way I had hoped it would be. Your sketches are essentially images in the note, rather than being drawings that you can position anywhere. An app like Notability lets you put scribbles wherever you wish, which can be helpful when you want to emphasize something or put yourself a note in a margin. Since your sketches are just images they have to be positioned above or below a line of text, and cannot be put to the right.
The last thing worth mentioning about the new Notes app is that Apple has also added the ability to view all the images, sketches, and attachments that exist within all of your notes. This can be helpful when trying to find a note based on a photo or a link inside it when you aren’t sure exactly what sentence or list you had in the note alongside it.
A Better iPad Keyboard
I've always felt that the iPad has one of the best first party tablet keyboards out there. I think part of it has to do with the 4:3 aspect ratio allowing for keys of greater height in landscape, which means you aren't dealing with rectangular keys that result in uneven movement depending on whether you're moving your fingers vertically or horizontally. The iPad keyboard has also had some unique features that the iPhone doesn't, such as the ability to split it into two parts by pulling outward from the middle. However, when Apple added QuickType suggestions I always felt like there was a lot of wasted space on the left and right sides where there were no suggested words. In iOS 9 the iPad keyboard gets a few feature additions that can greatly improve productivity, and fills in those empty areas in the QuickType bar while doing so.
The most obvious addition to the keyboard are the new shortcut keys on the left side of the QuickType suggestions. Depending on the context these buttons will differ, but by default you get a pair of undo and redo keys, and a paste key. If you select text these buttons change to a cut key, a copy key, and a paste key. They also change in different apps, with the Notes application condensing the standard 3 shortcuts into an overflow menu, and adding a button to create a checklist as well as a button to adjust the formatting of text.
On the right side of the keyboard are additional shortcuts that depend on the application you're in. In Notes they are buttons to insert images and access the sketch screen, while in Mail they're for text formatting, adding images, and adding attachments. Many apps don't have shortcuts here at all, and you'll have to open up the keyboard in an app to see what you get.
More interesting than the new shortcuts is the ability to use the keyboard as a trackpad of sorts. It's not something that allows you to bring up a mouse cursor and move it around the screen, but in apps where you're inputting text it allows you to move that input cursor and to increase or decrease the size of a text selection field. To use this trackpad mode you need to place two fingers on the keyboard at the same time until the keys go blank. After that you can move your fingers around and the cursor will track with them. It's a useful way to move the cursor within a sentence to insert a word, or to accurately change the size of a selection by only a letter or two.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that the case of the letters on the keyboard now changes depending on the status of the shift key. This fixes a longstanding issue with the shift key on the iOS keyboard that has existed since iOS 7. The change applies to both the iPad and iPhone keyboards, but I felt it was best to just mention it here.
Ultimately, I think the changes Apple is making to the iPad keyboard go hand in hand with the new multitasking features that I'll be discussing later in the review. They represent the iPad finally growing up and becoming its own device. It was never correct to say that the iPad was just a big iPhone, but from a high level the two devices did provide similar experiences as they used the same applications and operating system. Adding features that are very specific to the iPad differentiates it more from something like the iPhone 6 Plus, and improves its ability to be used to get actual work done.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
227 Comments
View All Comments
centhar - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
It's called a "toy" because all that "power" it has is relegated the iPad to just being a consumption device. The OS is not developed enough to make it a serious creation tool.ws3 - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
"The OS is not developed enough to make it a serious creation tool."That is not true at all. There is no OS-dependent reason why an equivalent pretty much any desktop software could not run on a high end iPad like the iPad Pro. Desktop applications themselves do not rely on the user having full access to the file system. Of course user interaction would have to be redone to compensate for the lack of a mouse, but the power and OS services required to get the work done are there.
centhar - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
One issue here, the lack of a file system. It makes organization, copying, managing, importing and exporting of data impossible in iOS. Which is needed for apps to function for the user like their desktop bretheren.ws3 - Saturday, September 19, 2015 - link
There is a file system, of course. But it is not exposed to the user.Apple's idea is that manual organization of the file system is an obsolete concept for most users. iOS apps allow you to import and export files without having direct file system access. Of course, due to the lack of direct file system access, the user has much less control over exactly how his files are organized, and must rely upon app-internal organization and cloud services to manage files.
The claim being made by Apple haters is that full user access to the file system is absolutely necessary. The claim being made by Apple is that full user access to the file system is more complexity than most users need or are able to handle, and that in the long run it will be seen as no more necessary than the manual layout of data in main memory -- something that was seen as critically important in the early days of computing, but which now, of course, is completely irrelevant to everyone except people writing operating systems.
It remains to be seen who is correct. I suspect Apple is, but we'll have to wait a while to find out.
osxandwindows - Sunday, September 20, 2015 - link
How about file managers for iOS, I use them all the timeSc0rp - Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - link
Why is it that people were creating stuff on primitive operating systems back in the 90's with far less power available than the iPad, yet for some reason you think that the iPad's os isn't developed enough and it can't be used for productivity. This is someone that used to use Mac OS7/8/9 back in the day and did a lot of producing on those systems, which were limited to cooperative multitasking.osxandwindows - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Well I don't have to buy a new device every 3 yearswylie102 - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
"The Apple people are stupid sheep who can't think for themselves, and I hate to break it to you, but Apple consumers are a very small market compared to the overall PC and tablet market."A sheep is someone who follows the crowd, yet you state in your next sentence that the crowd is overwhelmingly using windows.
So which is it? You can't have it both ways.
robinthakur - Thursday, October 1, 2015 - link
I use a MS Surface Pro 3 and own an iPad Air 2 and I think the gap has narrowed in terms of what the ipad can't do (especially with a keyboard like the optional surface pro 3 keyboard) now that MS Office Web Apps run on them which is 90% of what the majority of working people need it to do. Now, obviously the Surface can do far more as a full blown Windows machine, and the software for it generally exists already. I as a power user and developer enjoy having that much control of full Windows and I need it. However it also has the historic disadvantages of running full windows which made people stop using it i.e. overheating, updates, security problems etc and complexity. For the average user who has been using an iPad in meetings for the last 5 years, Surface as an option really wasn't good enough as it was underpowered, battery poor, too small and too expensive. They have now changed to work with iPad and are used to working around some of the limitations and adapting their workflows.The reality is that the majority of users can get by with an iPad running a modern iOS with the appropriate apps unless they are doing something specialised like Visio, Photoshop or Maya or whatever. Speaking to the influencers and people with the power in business to change this through my job, the general consensus is that while they do like the Surface 3, and can see why having mobile Windows devices operating with a Windows enterprise stack makes things like SharePoint, and other enterprise MS software a much easier proposition, the reality is that MS has also made all it's software far more iPad friendly because the frightening alternative was people moving away from using software that didn't work on the iPad completely. We have zero choice on making software compatible with iPad because that's what people are using, period, and this can't change overnight. Apple has not properly targeted the corporate market other than maiking the devices basically compatible with things like VPN, Active Sync etc. because they haven't had any competition, but it wouldn't surprise me if they started taking it a bit more seriously.
I think MS don't help themselves by changing their minds and approach constantly on things like RT, Windows Apps and others. Businesses are only now starting to gain confidence that they are serious about the Surface program, and who is to say they won't decide to can it next year if the iPad Pro is a success and they want to focus on software and farm it out to Dell/Hp etc?
So nobody doubts that the Surface Pro 3 is a more capable device because it just is, but is it an appropriate device in an App centric world where most enterprise software can be delivered through a thin, light, cool-running iPad with Mobile Safari as a tier 1 browser via Office 365?
lilmoe - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
"most Apple users would never dream of changing ecosystems"Opinions.... Most have no brand loyalty whatsoever, and will move to the newer "best thing" as claimed by their peers in a heartbeat.
iPads are great consumption devices, even I was suckered into buying one because my dad wanted one (his friend told him it was the best....."rolling eyes"). They are successful in part because of the devices themselves (and the brand), but that's not the major reason why. The more important reason is the *lack* of proper/legitimate competition in the iPad's target market.
Tablets running mobile OSs are NOT a necessity in peoples lives. They're more like a novelty some of us buy for "convenience", and are easily replaced by phablets for most consumers. Those who want one, and are willing to pay, will find the iPad very appealing for its performance, smoothness, and selection of media consumption and companion apps. It's a proven product in that respect, and those who're paying the premium don't want to deal with "other issues".
Android has had lots of trouble getting its performance and framerate game together. Google, and it's utter failure to deliver is at fault. Samsung is NOT a software company, and no matter how good and feature rich their modifications to Android are, lots of people will still find them "clunky" because these modifications were never native to the OS. Google's recent versions of Android are too little, too late. While stock Android is now fast and smooth, it still doesn't stand a chance against Touchwiz in neither features nor usability. Let me say this straight for those who think Touchwix is bad; the absolute majority of consumers HATE stock Android with a passion (tech blogs and XDA are NOT the majority of consumers, not by a long shot). Let me say one more thing if that wasn't offensive enough for stock Android lovers: While I personally believe Android is the king of smartphones (for now), it is the very reason why the non-iPad tablet market is so bad, confusing, cheap, and has no future.
Windows RT (now Windows 10 Mobile, without the desktop) was the absolute best mobile OS ever to be installed on an ARM powered tablet IMHO. But it had a mix of management, timing and media conception problems (and sabotage), resulting in the alienation of both users and devs.
Microsoft are really late to the consumer game, so late it's painful. They shouldn't have settled for firing Sinofsky, and everyone else behind how Windows 8/RT was executed, they should make sure they never find a career in tech.
The Surface Pro is very successful and popular because its intended audience know exactly how capable it is. These guys don't need extensive advertising.
True, it's Android (or rather more accurately, Samsung) on smartphones that forced Apple to reconsider lots of their design decisions with their iPhones. But it's Windows that's forcing them to change the face of iOS on their iPads.
There are 3 major markets for tablets:
1) consumers (dominated by Apple)
2) prosumers (spread among Apple and Microsoft, with some Android users here and there)
3) professionals and content creators (dominated by Microsoft).
Apple's latest updates to iOS and the iPad are primarily for maintaining the second type. Because the first type couldn't give a rat's behind how a productive a tablet is.