Top Ten iOS 5 Features, Apple’s Scott Forstall Explains
Now onto the good stuff. After an appropriate kickoff by Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook, the ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event has now changed courses onto what we can expect with iOS 5. Scott Forstall takes the stage to outline the top ten features of iOS 5.
Safari, will have a new feature called Reader. It makes it easy to read, like Instapaper. If you don’t have time to read a story, you can add it to Reading List, and read it later. Reading List syncs to iOS devices. Tabbed browsing has been added to the iPad so you can quickly switch between websites.
Game Center. There’s over 67 million people signed up for Game Center. There’s friend discovery, game recommendations, and more.
Camera. There’s now a lock screen shortcut that you can tap to be taken directly to the camera app, you don’t even need a pass code.You can use a volume up button to take a photo. You can use grid lines to compose a photo, pinch to zoom, ad you can set the auto exposure/auto focus lock. After you’ve taken a photo, you can edit them right on your iOS device, removing red eye, cropping, rotating, and a general enhance feature.
Newsstand. Lets you access magazines like The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, and newspapers like The New York Times. These subscriptions are gathered together in a single place on your home screen, and new issues are downloaded in the background.
Twitter integration. It’s integrated into the OS. Once you’ve logged in, you don’t need to login again from another app. You can tweet photos, tweet websites from Safari, videos from Youtube, locations from Maps, and more.
Reminders. You can have location based reminders, if you need to remember something on your way home from work, or simple reminders like a grocery list.
PC Free. With iOS 5, you take a device out of a box, and there’s no need for a computer. There’s support for wireless updates.
Mail. Rich text formatting has been added, as well as drag-able addresses, you can flag messages and search entire messages (thank goodness, I’ve been waiting for this one). You can also just swipe to get to the inbox on iPad.
Notifications, including the notifications center which is accessed with a downward swype on the device. Less intrusive than pop up notifications.
iMessage is a new messaging service between iOS users. It supports iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. You can send photo, video, messages, and they’re pushed to all of your devices. They can be sent over 3G and Wi-Fi. Messages are securely encrypted.
And that sums up the top ten features of iOS 5, as outlined by Scott Forstall. iOS 5 is a free update that will be available nex week, starting October 12th. Stay with us as we wait (impatiently) to see what else the keynote has in store for all of us.
