I’ve been playing around with iOS 6 on my iPad 2012 for the last couple of hours and I’m pretty happy with the upgrade. On the iPad, there’s nothing revolutionary, but there are several additions that make the OS better. Some of these additions are long overdue and others are (seemingly) simple features that make the iOS experience that much more elegant. People that want things like widgets and other niceties found on Android will find iOS 6 disappointing, but that’s another issue entirely. Right now I’d like to go over my four favorite features of iOS 6 (so far) from an iPad user’s perspective.
1) Clock App: I always found it remarkably stupid that the iPad lacked a native clock app. After three versions of the iPad, Apple has finally deemed its tablet worthy of having its own clock. While third-party developers that sold clock apps will be disappointed, iPad users will be delighted. It’s a nice app that looks great and is very functional. It has a world clock, stopwatch, timer, and (thank Zeus!) an alarm.
2) Do Not Disturb: This is a fantastic addition to the iOS notifications center. Say you’re watching the latest Brazzers HBO Go video while being bombarded by text messages. The “do not disturb” function allows you to hit pause on the outside world and focus on the video. I remember this one time…a friend of mine was watching a Netflix video with a female companion in bed. In the middle of the movie, a Facebook notification popped up showing a flirtatious message from an old girlfriend. This caused problems for my friend. Had the “do not disturb” feature been in place back then, my friend would have avoided hours of questioning and fighting. Eliminating situations like that is the best reason for this feature.
3) Siri: There was never a good reason for Siri not to be on the iPad. Dumb excuses were made, but it was obvious that Apple wanted to use it as a selling point for the iPhone 4S. Siri has arrived on the iPad and it works just as well as it does on the 4S. Naturally, its usefulness can be debated. Personally, I like it a lot. It can be useful for certain types of reference and search. It can also be a fun, dumb time waster. Of course if you’re really lonely, Siri makes sure that you always have someone to talk to.
4) Improved Sharing: I love the way sharing is integrated into iOS 6. It just looks and works better. And yes, one of the reasons I included this feature was to continue my exploitation of Olivia Lisa Munn.
Anyway, those are my favorite iOS 6 features for iPad (so far). I’m going to put it on my phone and play with that for a bit. For now, please let me know if you’ve upgraded to iOS 6 and what you think of it so far.
My 1st gen iPad is not worthy :(
I did update my broken iPhone 4 though. I don’t notice anything really new about it. Oh well….I’m taking it apart Friday anyway.
So far…
I’m hating the maps. I’m hoping Google releases a straight Maps app similar to the last one (and Apple approves it).
I’m digging the FB integration. All my friends birthdays and events on FB synced with my calendar… that’s pretty cool.
The App store is… different. I’ll have to get used to it.
Passbook… waste of space.
More thoughts to come, but it’s generally pretty smooth.
Yeah the new app store is trash. They took the bad from the iPad app store and put it on the iPhone!
Maps is pretty awful. I disagree on Passbook. There’s a lot of potential there and a lot of companies have pledges support.
I miss the Street View pretty bad. It came in handy on multiple locations. It would give me a preview of what to expect to see when I’m trying to find somewhere.
I’m still not even sure what Passbook is! Every time I open it, it’s just a link to the app store telling me what it should do. I don’t understand what it can do better or easier than the store specific apps and an email.
And now there’s a tumblr page showing how bad Apple Maps is: http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/