Opinion

iOS 6

Like all the best upgrades, iOS 6 is almost entirely invisible. It works just like iOS 5 — which is to say, pretty well most of the time — but with some convenient new additions. Also, unlike version five, it’s been relatively stable throughout the beta process.

What’s new and what will you like? I’ve grown so accustomed to most of them that I had to look up the “What’s new” page on Apple’s website. Really, that’s a good thing. Invisibility is the fate of a feature that’s quickly integrated with how you use a device. (The thing that makes it tricky is that it’s also the fate of a completely useless feature that you never use.)

Roughly ordered by how much I like them:

  • Do not disturb. This is the one feature that the Blackberry had that I missed in iOS. I only had a Bold for a few months but being able to switch off “work” between certain hours was brilliant, and the same is true of Apple’s implementation. You set a range of hours and it automatically mutes. This feature alone is worth updating for
  • Shared Photo Stream. This will be even better when I can share directly with other people’s devices, but being able to create a web gallery of Photo Stream pictures has already proved to be useful
  • iCloud tabs. This feature sat idle until Mountain Lion and then… great. The only thing I would ask is for this to work on my iPad!
  • New options when receiving a phone call. The “decline but remind me later” is a great option

Stuff I’m ambivalent about:

  • Maps. Apple switched from using Google’s maps to their own. I miss Street View but otherwise all the functionality seems to be there. Searching for stuff seems a bit hit and miss, just like with Google Maps. Search results differ but I’ve not used it enough to determine whether one is better than the other
  • Siri. I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad 1, the former of which doesn’t support Siri, the latter of which doesn’t support iOS 6
  • Passbook. This might be great when there are apps to support it. Right now, a waste of a spot on my home screen
  • FaceTime over 3G. Not sure if it will be supported in the UK. Rarely had the need to call when there’s been no WiFi

The only “bad” I can think of is that it doesn’t run at all on my two year old first generation iPad. I understand technically why they made this decision, but at the same time it’s a little galling to have such a relatively recent device be declared obsolete.

In conclusion, this is one of Apple’s “refinement” releases. They seem to have a big update (iOS5, Lion) and then a release that fixes some of the rough edges (iOS6, Mountain Lion). 2012 has been a year of two spit and polish releases. I’m not complaining.