Features to look forward to in iOS 5
The Apple iPhone was introduced in 2007 to a market where touchscreen technologies were in their infancy, there was little interest in surfing the internet on your mobile phone and people were still using iPod’s to listen to their budding MP3 collection.
Despite being laughed off by its competitors as a mobile phone that had shipped lacking basic features, such as the ability to send MMS messages and copy and paste text, the iPhone was an instant success for the burgeoning market of brand-aware and tech-savvy technology enthusiasts.
Four generations of iPhones and years later, we’ve seen the company revolutionise not just the mobile phone industry, but also what consumers expect to get from a touch enabled interface. The App Store set the bar for providing its users with an easy and simple way to publish and sell applications to its ever growing user base.
We’ve also seen the company gradually introduce a wide range of new features as part of its annual software refresh. iPhone OS 3 brought copy/paste and MMS abilities to the iPhone whilst iOS4 brought the innovative FaceTime video calling features to all users who had recently purchased the iPhone 4.
This forthcoming September sees the Californian technology giant get itself ready for the latest update to its line of iDevices, iOS 5. This fifth incarnation brings the iPhone screaming ahead of its rivals with the adoption of a much better notifications system, centralised around what Apple is dubbing, the ‘Notifications Centre’.
A simple glance at the new ‘Centre’ brings up instant comparisons with the way its rival, Google’s Android, copes with presenting notifications to its users. The same sliding drawer paradigm has been employed by Apple to provide its users with a one stop location to find out who their latest text message is from, or simply who they’ve missed a call from.
iOS 5 also introduces iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users with an exclusive inter-device messaging system. Whether you’re a pay monthly or pay as you go customer, iMessage will allow you to message your fellow iDevice buddies in the same manner that BBM does for BlackBerry users.
The software update will also finally provide iOS users with the ability to wirelessly synchronise and backup all of their important content without the need to manually activate it. Text messages, photographs and downloaded programmes will be all stored in the cloud allowing users to seamlessly download this content across their portfolio of Apple devices. Users should keep their fingers at the ready as Apple is expected to roll out the software to its users this coming September, just in time for the much speculated refresh to its iPod line of portable music players.
More on iOS 5 improvements.
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