In this year’s WWDC, Apple revealed their Desktop OS, the
Lion, along with iCloud and iOS 5, their new OS for iPhone/ iPad/ iPod Touch. Around 200 new features have been added. It will be compatible with the iPhone 4 & 3GS, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th Generations and iPad 1 & 2. It will be available in July.
First up, they’ve finally overhauled the notification system of iOS. Notifications, till now was iOS’s Achilles’ Heel. They heavily borrowed from Android. They appear unobtrusively on the top when you are in the middle of something, while swiping from the top to the bottom will give you access to the Notification Center. They will also be visible on the lock screen. Swiping across the message will take you straight to it. A bit like Samsung’s TouchWiz implementation.
Next, they borrowed from Blackberry, and launched an iOS-exclusive messaging service of their own with Push Notifications. You can send messages from your iPhone/ iPod Touch/ iPad.
Cashing in on the popularity of magazines on the iPad, a Newsstand has now been introduced from where you will be subscribe to any magazines or newspapers. As new issues come, Newsstand will automatically update to the latest issue.
A new “Reminders” system has been added. Reminders can configured according to time-based events or location-based ones. Like they can be set for a deadline, or say when you arrive or leave someplace.
Twitter has now been deeply integrated into t
he OS, and tweeting can be done from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube or Maps.
The Camera has also been updated slightly, with an icon on the lock screen itself, and the volume-up button acting as the shutter button. Zoom-Gestures and single-tap focus and exposure locks have been added as well.
Along with Camera, Photos has received a slight bump in functionality as well, one-touch Auto-Enhance if “you are feeling lucky”, pinch-rotate to crop your photos, and one-touch red-eye removal from within the app.
Safari has received a major update, with support for tabbed browsing, and a new “Reader” mode, which filters out all the ads and unimportant stuff leaving you with just the article, and its photos. Whats more is that you can, save articles to read later.
Among the lesser updates, you can know activate iOS devices over wireless, and without a computer. Mail, Calender and Game Center have been updated too for even more functionality. Syncing between your computer and iOS device can now be done over Wi-Fi, without need of a cable. iPad has got a few exclusive updates in form of a split-keyboard, Multi-Task gestures and the ability to duplicate and display content through your Apple TV.
iOS 5 will be available as an Over the Air update. Watch it in action:
