What to expect in iOS 5

Coming up next soon will be the latest iOS update from Apple, and there are over 200!! new features scheduled to be included. This certainly feels like the most dramatic of all the software updates. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones:

Notification Centre 

Finally!! I think many  iPhone users found the notifications quite dated compared to Android’s, even my old Sony Erikson’s had a more intuitive and informative UI when it came to notifications and the use of the home screen . Well the wait is over; iOS 5 notification centre aggregates all of your notifications, new email, texts, and friend requests and displays them in the notification centre. The lock screen now also displays notifications and with a swipe you can respond to them or check your voice mail, all from the comfort of the lock screen (awesome)

WI-FI Sync

The ability to sync your IOS device via Wi-Fi and finally lose the ITunes sync (via USB cable) has been a long time coming. I found it really annoying that every time I wanted to add something to my device, I got out the cable, connect and then wait for the backup to run and then eventually I could sync.  All that is required is once off initial setup using the USB cable and you good to go.  In the beta tests it’s worked just as fast as syncing with the USB cable (maybe a bit slower, but negligible)

Cutting the Cord

One of the pet gripes of many Apple haters has been “you need a Mac or PC to use your phone???”. I have to admit, this is one argument that you will find hard to win. Why should you need to setup your phone or tablet by connecting to another device? Well with iOS 5 Apple promises independence for all iOS devices, you can now set up your device wirelessly. You can now update your software and backup and restore your device automatically using iCloud. You get 5GB for free (shared between your I-devices)

iMessage

Goodbye BBM, hello iMessage (well not exactly!) With apps like What’s app and a thousand more, messaging on the Idevices has been around for a while, however with iMessage you can send messages to other idevices over Wi-Fi or 3G. With read and delivery receipts and the very cool feature of being able to pick up your conversation where you left off on different idevices it does seem attractive, especially if you own an iPhone, iPad and IPod.

These are just some of the new features that you can look forward to, if you want a more comprehensive list of features vist TechZoom .