Everything you need to know about iOS 5

Overview

Apple iOS 5, as flaunted by Apple, is the most advanced mobile operating system in the world. Whether it is the best OS or not, it is certain that iOS 5 will be embraced by many for a number of cutting edge features that it realizes on iDevices. From the much-hyped iCloud, cloud-based media service to an advanced Safari browser, iOS 5 offers almost 200 outstanding features. Apple announced iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch at its Developers Conference in June. Introducing the new version of the company’s famous mobile OS, the then CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs described it as the best operating system the mobile world ever had. Here is everything you need to know about iOS 5, which is to debut on iPhone 4S, slated to arrive in stores by 15th October, 2011.

iOS 5

Pricing and Availability

Apple iOS comes only with Apple products like iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It is not to be sold. Naturally, the fresh versions of iDevices like iPhone 4S and iPod touch 5 will come preinstalled with iOS 5. The software is free for the users of previous iDevices that support it. They include iPhone 4S, 3GS, iPad original, and the latest versions of iPod touch.

What’s great?

As specified above, iOS 5 is up with around 200 new features. Here is a list of exhilarating things that will appear on the new iOS version. Actually, Apple’s upcoming iPhone 4S, a slightly reworked version of iPhone 4, makes the difference mainly because it is on iOS 5, a game changing version of the Apple mobile operating system. Get through the major features of iOS 5 below.

iCloud: Apple’s long-rumored cloud based media service, iCloud officially kicks off on iOS 5 enabled devices. Apple iCloud is meant to automatically push the data from your iDevices and Mac computers to the cloud server of Apple. This way, you will be able to retrieve your data from anywhere in the world and from any device. Indeed, iCloud is to transform the way we use computers today. In future, thanks to the popularity of cloud computing, our reliance on HDD and other physical storage options will go down.

Notification Center: On the iOS devices with iOS 5, there will be a powerful notification center. All your notifications whether it is new mails, SMS messages, friend requests, and any others will appear on a greatly convenient location. You can just swipe down from the top of your iDevice’s touch screen to get into the advanced notification center, which accumulates all your updates in one place. You can catch breaking news, weather updates, and stocks instantly using this feature.

iMessage: It is yet another groundbreaking feature with iOS 5. Using the new messaging service, you can send free texts, images, videos, and contacts to other iOS 5 devices via 3G or Wi-Fi. With iMessage, you won’t have to spend money for sending messages to your iOS 5 device owning friends. You can also send group SMS messages on iMessage, and sending messages becomes an experience almost like instant messaging. You can just see when your friend types a reply to you as it is on an IM service. But this feature might turn out a threat for the carrier of your iPhone; because you will use its SMS plans only to send messages to non-Apple devices.

Newsstand: As its name suggests, it is a virtual news stand for all your subscriptions. You can find world’s top magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals on iOS 5 Newsstand. The feature will help you subscribe your favorite magazines quickly. The subscribed magazines will go to the Newsstand folder, where you can read them.

Better Twitter integration: Twitter becomes a very part of your iPhone and iPad with iOS 5. You can see fantastic Twitter integration in all major apps on your device. You will be able to instantly tweet from Safari, Camera, Photos, Maps, and YouTube, even adding locations to your tweets.

Great camera experience: iOS 5 metamorphoses the functioning of your iDevice’s camera. You can even access the camera app right from locked screen. Multi-gesture features like pinch-to-zoom and single-tap will bring you incredible stills. You will not miss any dream moments of your life with iOS 5-featured device’s camera. If you have activated Photo Stream on iCloud, the images taken on your device will automatically move to cloud, and you can later use them on any of your iDevice.

Enhanced Safari: Apple iOS 5 introduces a revamped Safari web browser. Web surfing becomes a more marvelous experience on your iDevice with iOS 5. You can add more tabs and maintain them fantastically with no clutter in performance.

Voice recognition: Apple starts to provide voice recognition feature on iOS 5. Thanks to the takeover of Siri, Apple’s new products with iOS 5 can recognize your voices. You can now just talk to your iPhone instead of typing a text message or search keyword.

What’s not so great?

The biggest disadvantage of iOS 5 will be that it does not support Adobe Flash. Even being a leader in smartphone market, the lack of Flash player is a shortfall of the operating system. Users will not have a great web browsing experience without Flash support.

Verdict

Apple iOS 5 can be better called as the most revolutionary iOS update ever. It may be for the first time that these counts of features appear on an iOS version. To take on iOS 5, Apple’s leading rivals Google and Microsoft are about to introduce new versions of their mobile operating systems. Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Microsoft’s Windows 8 are about to come out of wraps this fall. However, as features and capabilities are concerned, iOS 5 is a great contender to the upcoming Windows and Android versions.