iOS 5 Beta

[mjdmike]

Just curious if anyone else here is using the iOS 5 beta. I've got it on an iPad 1, and an iPhone 4, and so far it's been a very stable release for a beta. No crashes at all and most things work as they are supposed to.

As expected for a beta, many apps don't function at 100%, but the developers will have them ready for the full release I'm sure, as they are mostly minor bugs with the new APIs.

Some of the features are fantastic, and others are not, but that could be just that I don't need them.

Here's my run down:

Notification Center

Fantastic upgrade to the ever annoying, incredibly intrusive popup alert telling me that someone stole some gold from my "High Noon" safe, or that my daughter just kicked my butt in "Word with Friends". The Notification Center merges perfectly with all apps and simply puts a very small banner at the top of the screen. The message can be touched to go to that app, or simply leave it alone and it will go away soon. The messages will appear on your lock screen if the device is asleep. You can swipe down from the top of the screen to pull down all of your notifications (email, text, weather, calendar, game messages, stock quotes). You can also turn on or off notifications for each app individually, or have them set as an alert. I give iOS 5 a 5 star rating for this feature alone.

iCloud

I use Google mail, calendar, and contacts on my devices, so I'm not using iCloud 100%. I use an Exchange account for those, a Gmail account for notes, and iCloud for Reminders, Photostream, and Find my Phone. Yes, it's a little strange how all of this is setup, but that's the only way I can get what I need where I need it. All this said, it works perfectly, with email, calendar, notes, reminders, and photos all syncing between the devices instantly without me doing anything. No issues here at all.

Photostream

Nice idea maybe, not sure, but could be trouble for some. You take a photo on your iPhone and it automatically shows up on your iPad and in a folder on your PC within seconds. That is cool, however could be a nightmare for those that are using multiple devices on one account, or if you really don't want anyone else seeing that photo.

Huge glitch in this one right now. Get this... you can't delete the photos!! The latest 1000 images stay in your Photostream iCloud server space for 35 days, period. There is no delete button on the devices for the Photostream images. So now, I have a neat little Photostream tab in my "Photos" App that is full of really bad, blurry, ugly images that I want to remove -- but can't. Huge oversight on Apple's part, IMO.

Thumbs down on this so far. there has been a bug fix, and an enhancement request turned in on this, so maybe Apple will change this behavior for the full release.

iMessages

I don't know anyone else on this release, so haven't tested it. This should be a great feature. The device will send an iMessage to another user on iOS5, or will send it as a regular text if not. Not a big deal to some, but will be nice to not have to use my AT&T text messages for other iOS5 users. Also, if my thinking is correct, I will now be able to send free texts to an international iOS5 user. This is a huge feature for me in that regard. (haven't tested though)

Reminders

Really nice feature that auto syncs with other devices and has a location feature that will notify you when you are in that area, whether arriving or leaving. I'm there are probably apps that do this, but this is a clean app that works well.

Camera Features and Photo Editing

To me, these are small upgrades that are not quite keeping up with the better apps out there. They work well, but I still use Camera+ for most of my photos.

Safari

Nice, fast, and tabs. I use Firefox, but this one is good.

PC Free and Wi-Fi Sync

It will be very nice being able to sync without using the PC. I like the new app purchaces going to all devices. Nice features!

Other Features

I don't use Twitter so can't comment of that. The mail and calendar updates are small but good enhancements.

Over all, I'm really impressed and happy with it. I'm curious to hear what others think.

I'd rather this not turn into an Apple versus PC thing, nor a "Big deal, Android has been doing this for 273 years" type conversation. I know some hate Apple products simply because they don't like Apple (WTF is that about?) And yes, Android is a great platform, as well as PC. I'm not an Apple fan boy per sey, but they sure do turn out some really nice products.

I like 'em all!

[TheFantasticG]

I'm just surprised Apple's denying Camera+ into the iTunes store because it used the volume up button to take photos. They had to remove that function because Apple said they were using hardware not in the way it was intended and it would confuse customers, before the app go readmitted back into the app store. Lo-and-behold the new iOS5 native camera app has the volume up button to take pictures...

And then there's Wi-Fi Sync app that Apple denied and now iOS5 has it.

[knowimagination]

I have been running it for a couple days now on my iPhone 4 and iPad 2. I really like it and I too am suprised at how stable it is for a beta 1.

I love the new notifications and am very interested to see icloud once everything is available I have held off enabling it because I have read that it is not quite to its full potential yet on the dev forums. I may try it soon anyway though, but I am sure that the photostream thing will be fixed in the next beta hopefully.

As for imessages I am hopeful for it and will really like it if I can get my imessages texts to go to both my phone and iPad at the same time. I am petty sure it is possible but I really haven't had anyone to test it with either.

Overall it was just the type of upgrade I wanted to keep me from being swayed to the dark side :)

[zeroendless]

Had it on my iPad 2 for couple days, buggy. The main issue was device went to sleep and won't wake up occasinally. Happened 3 times and I have to plug in power then force restart. Minor issues were mail froze and app crashes, then the image delete not really working right if you were to delete one from main album. Other than that, not miss much of the new features, honeycomb got most of them already. As Jobs mentioned earlier, it's the year of copycat.