iOS 6
Friday, September 21, 2012 at 2:59AM iOS 6 rode into town two days ago and the social networks, news websites and lots of other people have not stopped talking about it since. The Apple haters have visited every website that discusses iOS 6 and made comments like ‘it’s so old fashioned’ or ‘usual rubbish from Apple’. The Apple loyalists have also been out in force; ‘Apple Maps is great’ or ‘OK, Maps isn’t brilliant, but it will get better. Honest it will.’
Anyway, I immediately went off-topic there so will get back to the reason I wrote this. What is iOS 6 like and was it worth waiting for? The short answer is yes and the longer answer is yes, but Apple still needs to work out some problems. Let’s look at the main changes-
Siri
Let’s be honest. Siri has been unreliable, limited and just plain useless for the past year. A novelty that failed to catch on and one that was often more frustrating to use than the alternatives. Enter Siri on iOS 6 and it is much, much better. You can now open apps, ask questions and receive genuinely useful answers and so far it has connected every time or me. There are still some quirks, however, such as when I asked it to put in a calendar appointment for 4PM on Sunday and it managed to place one that ran from Thursday to Monday. Also, the sports side is somewhat weak in that it only seems to cover big teams. I asked if Chelsea won last night and the answer came through. I asked if Bournemouth won its last match and the response was ‘Would you like to search the web for Bournemouth etc.’ No doubt more substance will be added to the database, but until then it is a little hit and miss.
Overall, however, Siri is now a very functional assistant and one which may feature more in my life from now on. There are no guarantees for me because I still find that this type of feature is rarely practical, but I have to say that Siri now is a much better solution than it ever was before.
The App Store
I love the new App Store design because it feels much more modern than the previous effort. However, I can understand the concerns developers may have because less apps are shown on screen now and much more scrolling is required. Everything somehow feels as though it fits better on the iPhone and it really works for me. Despite the occasional connection glitch, I am more than pleased with what Apple has done here. Roll on the desktop version.
Maps
I don't need to add much to what everyone else has said except to confirm that it is not good at all. Here are some links explaining the problems.
Apple Maps service glitches: what problems have you spotted?
New Apple maps app under fire from users
And so on...
Do Not Disturb
This is one of those 'others did it before, but Apple did it best' features that immediately proved useful to me. The settings are simple and so anyone will be able to understand them and once set, you are good to go. It sounds like something so minor, but never having to mute or disable data on my iPhone is a refreshing change. Love it to bits.
Other changes
There are numerous other small changes in iOS 6 of which many are visual. The Clock app is stunning now, especially on the iPad which seems to have a direct copy of a classic railway clock in it, and there are other tweaks to notification centre (post to Twitter and Facebook), the Phone app and others. And then there is Passbook which is destined to become the next Ping.
Overall I am very impressed with iOS 6. It is fast, looks good and really does feel like a new version which I didn't expect following the lacklustre announcement. It is just a shame that Apple has completely screwed up the Maps app and managed to overshadow everything that is good about it.
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Reader Comments (18)
The new font on iOS 6 with my iPad 2 is amazing. So much clearer. Best improvement.
I'm struggling to see a point in upgrading my iPhone 4; little of the functionality is available to me, it seems :(
The maps are stupendously bad. Even if Google releases an app to compensate, you won't be able to make it the default mapping app. So, roll on iOS 7 - let's hope they do something about these gripes. I suspect iOS has a big update coming next year.
The rest of it is fine.
Shaun, try asking Siri about the Scottish premier league! I'm not actually a football fan, but growing up in Paisley means that when I hear the world "football", I think about Rangers and Celtic.
Just who or what are the New York Rangers and the Boston Celtics, Siri?! Gah. Do they even hate each other? Is there a strain of religious bigotry and intolerance deeply ingrained in the psyche which blossoms into bouts of extreme violence between rival supporters? If not, they are unworthy to carry the names "Rangers" and "Celtic".
As good as Siri may get, she still has an "Archille's Heel", no network = lobotomy. Google Navigate's route planner also has the same problem. I don't see Siri promoted that much here down-under, probably for that reason.
When I was testing Google Navigate, a few times I instructed it to find the route home (typically a 30 minute journey). I was halfway home by the time Navigate chirped up with turn instructions. And I haven't bothered to use Navigate for interstate journeys because I know there is no coverage in the regional areas.
David,
That's absolutely true, but there are plenty of other technical limitations, too, not the least of which is that the very best natural language technology still falls far short of customer expectations. Siri is a bust and so is every other system of its kind.
My iPhone 5 arrived just after nine this morning. First delivery luckily. Initial impressions are awesome so far. I didn't expect it to look so good. Earpods are incredible. I wouldn't change them as they are superb. Doing big sync of apps, movies, photos etc via iTunes. And then I'm going to test the GPS Maps app.
My S3 is available for £375 inclusive of UK special delivery postage. Screen protector fitted and spare, many cases too , unlocked etc very very good condition.
I am left with the impression that Apple have rushed this release out because of the competition, and have obviously not tested the software on this rushed release well enough. Promoting a new mapping system with the release and have it fail so badly is not going to help it's reputation, and will only fuel the mud slinging war between it and Android.
Of course Windows Phone can watch quietly from the sidelines, and hope like hell that WP8 lack of backward compatibility does case more damage to their ailing reputation.
It's a while since I read about what was in iOS6 but I thought it was more than this. They've updated Siri (which no-one uses) and the AppStore (which may be useful but "more scrolling is required" sounds as though it's optimised for the iPhone 5), they've knobbled their maps functionality (which I've long found the most useful feature on a smartphone) and they've copied (sorry, 'innovated') a Do Not Disturb feature.
I've been using Google Navigation recently and it's been very good. About the only thing I'm missing is lane info, which is why I'm looking forward to TomTom. CoPilot would probably be good too, but Shaun raves about TomTom so much I just have to give it a go.
Some more background on iOS maps: http://gizmodo.com/5945014/why-apple-maps-wont-get-better-anytime-soon
To be fair to Apple (don't worry, it'll pass) it's a massive undertaking to try to make something comparable to what Google's spent years and millions to develop. I'm not aware of anyone other than Google who has Street View-like data, and Street View is extremely useful, so Apple's going to have to send camera cars down most roads in the world in order to really replace Google Maps.
I can understand Apple not wanting to keep Google Maps; it's was always decidedly second-rate on iOS compared to Android. However they really needed to produce something more comparable before ditching it.
Bug,
Yes, iOS 6 is no great shakes, although developers do get a load of cool new APIs. It seems to be more about divorcing from Google services than pushing the OS forward. The maps are as bad as those native maps that used to ship with Blackberry devices. Google's maps are the gold standard.
It's a major misstep. Note how few people are defending Apple over this - iPhone users are just as demanding of high-quality software and services as any other mobile user and the community is quick to react when they get it so wrong.
I loved Streetview and found it useful. No matter how much the basic mapping improves, that won't be back. Roll on a Google mapping app. Garmin has included Streetview in Navigon, too, for a price.
Apple announces products annually, but actually seems to work on a two-year development cycle for both hardware and software. Therefore, the next iOS release *should* be very interesting, with core OS features heavily updated compared to iOS6, which merely treads water. I would like the capability to make default apps such as other mapping systems or browsers the system default. Will it come? I really don't know. We'll see.
Despite the mapping debacle, the iPhone 5 is garnering very strong reviews across the board. It seems to be a formidable achievement, incrementally improving every aspect of the hardware; CPU, GPU, screen, memory, camera, voice quality, reception, connectivity, durability, speakerphone, headphones. I have a very Scottish need to pick the holes in everything and I'm looking forward to receiving mine today so that I find the flaws and just write about them.
I suppose an interesting question is ; Will Apple allow a Google Maps App?
They could reject it on the basis of competing against their own built-in application. It's not without precedence.
I will also be interested in seeing how the Rail Clock copy goes. Did someone in Apple forget to check for licencing or just think that it doesn't matter.
First run Using Maps turn by turn and actually the implementation was much better than Google navigation. Obversely there are issues with missing poi otherwise I was quite impressed I even tried to confuse it and by going wrong deliberately several times at least but It re routed it correctly.
Tried it yesterday and it got lost after 10 mins.
I'm sure the maps will get better over time, but i doubt it will ever catch up to Google in this regard.
My upgrade today consisted of a jailbreak — I had not done so in the past (well, not since the original iPhone), but the lack of a decent update to the 4 in iOS 6 prompted me to take a look.
I can now control Wi-Fi from the notifications centre and use FaceTime over 3G, and I still have Google Maps. I am not hugely tempted to poke around at other things for the moment, but I'm very happy with my upgrade so far :)
I'm going to quote you on that Shaun - I don't think passbook is going to be the next ping at all. Look at the mess NFC is at the moment. There is no consistency nor standard with its' implementation and no sign on the horizon that this is going to change anytime soon. I think passbook will thrive until a suitable middle ground is met with NFC.
Everyone is bitching about maps and as an Australian I have even more to bitch about with it (pressing the 3d button here just changes the orientation of the maps, it's a joke! We have no navigation here either). However I don't call it a "misstep" or "oversight". Let's face it, Google have basically said F*## you to iOS for the last few YEARS. Google maps in iOS has had no major new features for years, whilst Google have been steadily improving it's Android counterpart. There is no doubt they are trying to use this as a major differentiator between Android and iOS (as is their right). However iOS users are the ones to suffer and its clear google didn't care.
AS to not allowing google maps on the store? I doubt it. IF anything, I hope Apple's attempt at breaking free from their reliance on google maps will encourage google to actually pull their finger out and provide some decent upgrades to google maps for iPhone. Until then I'm happy to rely on TomTom for my navigation needs.
Having used a Samsung Galaxy S3 for the last few weeks I can happily say that iOS users aren't missing much with google navigation - its got nothing over Tomtom, but I can appreciate you can't argue with it as a free solution.
As long as you have connectivity, I guess.
As I was saying about passbook....
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/21/how-popular-is-passbook-sephora-sees-17000-passbook-users-in-day-one-20k-after-24-hours/
And I don't think it's just a one-off.