iOS 6 was unveiled at Apple’s annual WWDC keynote yesterday, but what exactly is the new iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system bringing to the table? Well below you will find a handy guide to what will be on offer come this autumn when iOS 6 goes live for users.
Safari
iOS 6 brings with it some Safari improvements, including the ability to sync tabs between your different devices. What that means is that the tab you are looking at on your phone can be easily recalled on your iPad or Mac. It’s actually a pretty useful feature if you’re like me and use the phone to browse on the move and want to be able to recall that straight away when I get back to my desk.
Facebook
Like Twitter before it Facebook is being integrated with iOS. What does that mean? Well it means that you will have a single sign-in option in the Settings menu that will allow you to use any Facebook related app on your device without the need to constantly sign-in. Yes, that does include the Facebook app itself. You can do other stuff too though, such as upload photos straight from your photo library, use ‘Like’ buttons in iTunes and the App Store and even use Siri to make status updates.
Siri
Siri is getting smarter … so say Apple anyway. With iOS 6 Siri has learned some new things, such as the ability to get you information on sports scores, restaurants and film listings. Siri has also been integrated with Yelp to provide reviews for restaurants too. Arguably the biggest news on this front though is the fact that Siri will be coming to the iPad! Alas it seems it will only be the third generation iPad that will see Siri.
Maps
Gone is Google’s Google Maps and instead we now have Apple’s own maps service. Apple has been on a map company buying spree recently so this wasn’t a major shock and with a patent war against Android it makes good sense for Apple to loosen its ties to Googe. The new maps service looks pretty sweet it has to be said: 3D flyovers with vector based graphics, turn-by-turn navigation with Siri integration, and traffic updates, as well as integrated Yelp ratings. Note though that Sreet View wasn’t mentioned so a bit of a loss there on that one sadly.
Facetime
Face Time will, at long last, throw off the shackles of WiFi! Yes that’s right people you will be able to make Facetime calls over cellular data networks. There was no word on the minimum data speed needed, but it’s probably a safe bet to assume that anything below 3G standards is out of the question.
Phone Calls
This is probably where I was most excited yesterday and yet the changes here are more subtle than some of the other stuff we’re going to see in iOS 6. A very cool addition will be the ability to quickly reply with a standard text message to a call you don’t want to take right away e.g. “I’ll call you later”. You can also set a reminder to call the person back, either based on time or location using geofencing. You can also setup a blocking system to only allow calls through to your phone from certain people.
Messaging
It’s not just calls getting a once over, messaging is changing too. With a new unified ID the theory is that your messages will be synced across all your iOS and Mac devices. In short you should be able to receive a message and use your Mac to reply to it. via mobile-review.com