As I’ve done for the last few years, here are a few quick thoughts about today’s new iOS release, version 11.
I’ve been using the iPad version since the beginning of August and the iPhone version for only a couple of week but I think I have reasonable picture of what you’re going to see.
Good
- Multi-app support on the iPad. Wow! It’s quite different. You might need to give it a while before you get used to it. I also found that I needed to rearrange my dock so that apps I use to multitask are quickly available
- “Swipe up on the iPad keyboard to get symbol characters.†Such a time saver
- The voice synthesis of Siri is way better. But I agree with Gruber, if I could have dedicated engineering resources to Siri that wouldn’t have been where I would put them
- iCloud sync for Photos. No more training each device to receognise each person!
- Lots of nice, minor changes. The “Now playing†lock screen widget, the “play†button at the top of playlists/albums in the music app
- Control Center is improved (but see first item in the “ugly†section below)
Bad
- I’m guessing this has something to do with the iPhone X, but the one 3D Touch gesture I used all the time was the hard-press on the left side of the screen to trigger the app switcher. That’s gone in iOS 11. This is going to take a lot of getting used to
- It won’t work on older devices. I get the “why†but it always sucks when they get left behind
Ugly
- Why did the WiFi button is Control Center change to be “disconnect†rather than “switch off�!
- Not sure about some of the animations, especially on iPhone.