iOS 5 commentary
Jun. 12th, 2011 01:38 pmBeen reading up on the new stuff in iOS 5. A few comments.
The notification centre is of course basically a copy of what Android has been doing from the start. That's okay, it seems to be the best way to handle notifications, and they've improved on it a little with the widgets.
The lock-screen notifications are much better than I've seen on any Android devices. The typical lock-screen notification arrangement on Android is an icon in the notification bar and maybe a flashing LED. None of that is interactive -- you unlock the phone and then pull down the notification area.
Reader mode in Mobile Safari is a nice touch. I'll be curious to see just how large a font it really allows, but at least the UI is not indicating an arbitrary three or four sizes. Combined with the existing inverse-mode display this could be very nice for people with shonky vision.
The handling of apps and syncing via iCloud looks good. How much of that functionality will be available outside the US is another question though. Wait and see, I guess.
Using the volume key as a shutter key in the Camera app is encouraging. Maybe they'll include a proper shutter key on the next hardware revision?
I'll most likely be sticking with Android in the longer term, but interesting and useful new things in iOS helps everybody, just like interesting and new things in Android and WP7 helps iOS users.
It's also heartening to see Apple has backed down on the in-app purchasing debacle.
The notification centre is of course basically a copy of what Android has been doing from the start. That's okay, it seems to be the best way to handle notifications, and they've improved on it a little with the widgets.
The lock-screen notifications are much better than I've seen on any Android devices. The typical lock-screen notification arrangement on Android is an icon in the notification bar and maybe a flashing LED. None of that is interactive -- you unlock the phone and then pull down the notification area.
Reader mode in Mobile Safari is a nice touch. I'll be curious to see just how large a font it really allows, but at least the UI is not indicating an arbitrary three or four sizes. Combined with the existing inverse-mode display this could be very nice for people with shonky vision.
The handling of apps and syncing via iCloud looks good. How much of that functionality will be available outside the US is another question though. Wait and see, I guess.
Using the volume key as a shutter key in the Camera app is encouraging. Maybe they'll include a proper shutter key on the next hardware revision?
I'll most likely be sticking with Android in the longer term, but interesting and useful new things in iOS helps everybody, just like interesting and new things in Android and WP7 helps iOS users.
It's also heartening to see Apple has backed down on the in-app purchasing debacle.