Apple’s iOS operating system is a mature, and very successful OS on portable devices, so the iOS 5 upgrade that Apple announced this week is more evolution than revolution.
It has two significant features for the chattering set. The first is that Twitter is integrated; the second is that iOS has its own instant messaging setup, which works on all iOS devices.
iMessages, of course it’s named that, can include photos, videos and locations and be sent to other Apple devices for free. It most closely resembles RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger app.
There’s a location-based reminder service that can pop up a message when the user leaves a locale, like leaving the office to remind them to stop at the laundry.
Baby boomers, Gen Yers and Millennials without PCs will be happy to find that a PC is no longer needed to upgrade. It can all be done over a 3G network.
Newsstand, an iBooks-like store for newspapers and magazines, is new. It has automatic, background and instant downloading of the newest edition.
Mail gets rich text, automatic indentations, flags and full-text search. A dictionary is now integrated.
Also new is Reader and Reading List, which automatically reformats Web pages for better mobile viewing and for collecting them for later use.
Safari now has tabs, which means you don’t have to select a separate screen to see the pages that are already open.
Reminders let users create notes and lists to schedule them at a given date a time or when they reach or leave a particular location.
Apple iOS is competing against a new version of Android, Google’s Web-based Chrome, RIM’s QNX, HP’s WebOS and, in smartphones, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. A key differentiator has become the OS’ ecosystem, everything from accessories to apps to compatibility with other mobile devices. Apple has the lead now; even its Apple TV is mostly in the family except for apps. But the competitors know what they have to do.
Apple’s Ears in the Cloud
Before Apple wrapped up its presentation, Jobs wanted to make sure the audience knew the cloud is the key to the future with the launch of an iTunes in the cloud called iCloud.
The iCloud service will now show the complete purchase history for all devices linked to an Apple account. Any track or album purchased can be downloaded to any 10 partner devices at no additional charge. Users get 5GB of storage for free storage, but apps, music and books purchased via iTunes don’t count against it.
Jobs said of the service, "We want all users to take advantage of these and we know that if we make them free, they will."
The service also comes with iTunes Match which will scan a user’s library and give them instant cloud access to the songs it recognizes and uploads songs to the cloud that aren’t in its library, all for the cost of $25 per year. Those signing up for the service can store up to 20,000 songs, which Jobs pointed out would cost roughly $200 if using Amazon’s cloud service instead.
One note that’s either good or bad depending on the user is that, unlike Amazon’s service, iTunes Match requires the user to download songs and doesn’t support streaming. It isn’t the best solution for mobiles but it could be better for users with a limited data plans for iPhones or iPads since they could load all that content on their device on a Wi-Fi network and then have it accessible anytime without the need to have a strong 3G connection.
Missing were TV shows and movies. These can’t be backed up over-the-air and aren’t made available as downloads through the iCloud backup service. The absence of this content shows that there is still a tough road to travel with studios. Users can already move videos to their iOS devices when connected to a PC, but not making them easier to move around makes the service feel like it isn’t complete.
Preview of What’s to Come
Apple has released a new version of iTunes that ties into the announced iCloud Web services. The new beta version of iTunes 10.3 provides access to just a few of the iCloud services but it is worth downloading if you’re a multi-iOS-device user.
With iTunes 10.3, all iTunes you have previously purchased from the iTunes store can be automatically downloaded to Macs and iOS devices. On iOS devices, opening up the iTunes app shows a new section called "Purchased" that lets a user sort by song or album purchased and then users can download whichever they click.
It was a great service and seemed to support iTunes purchases from around a year ago on. There were a few issues we ran into when testing out iTunes:
- Older content purchases are not able to be backed up if the content purchased is no longer for sale on iTunes.
- There’s no quick way to download all of the content missing on a device, users must click on each piece of content individually to download it.
- When viewing items as albums instead of songs, things like compilations and soundtracks are listed out by artist and users must click the download button near each artist to download the whole soundtrack.
- Multiple times during downloads across all iOS devices tried, the message "Your account is temporarily unavailable. Please try again," would pop up and not allow any more downloads to be added to the queue.
lso included in iTunes 10.3 is the ability to add book purchases to the iTunes store, letting users download books from iBooks across all iOS devices.
The service is a good start and will be a boon for existing iOS device users, but it isn’t necessarily a good reason for users to switch to Apple products if they’re already happy with another mobile OS or device.
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