The Apple iOS 9 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- Tablets
- iOS 9
2015 has been a pretty big year for Apple as a company. Product launches this year included the Apple Watch, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the iPad Mini 4, the iPad Pro, and the new Apple TV. This month is a big month for their software launches, with today marking the release of iOS 9 as well as watchOS 2, and OS X El Capitan launching at the very end of the month. In time I hope to do some sort of review of the new features in watchOS 2, but today's article focuses strictly on iOS 9 and everything new that Apple is bringing to their biggest operating system for both users and developers.
What's interesting about iOS 9 is how Apple has involved their community of users in the development process by creating a public beta program. OS X Yosemite famously was the first version of OS X to have a public beta (with the exception of the OS X 10.1 Kodiak beta 15 years ago), but Apple had never done anything like it for their mobile devices until now. However, many users found ways to install the developer betas of iOS on their devices by bypassing the activation or having a service register their UDID for beta installation. With more and more features being added to iOS, and more and more users adopting devices that run it, it appears that Apple felt that expanding their beta user base beyond developers would be a good way to collect information on bugs and stability, as well as general feedback about what does and doesn't work well.
Opening up iOS 9 with a public beta also plays into the focus of the new release. iOS 7 was an enormous release that redesigned the entire operating system, and iOS 8 added features like continuity and extensibility to improve how apps communicated on iOS, and how iOS devices and Macs communicate with each other. With all those changes there has been concern that there hasn't been enough attention to polish and eliminating bugs in iOS. While it's not something explicitly stated, it's clear that iOS 9 does go back to basics in some ways, and focuses on improving performance and stability. There are still new features, and some of them are very integral to keeping iOS competitive as a mobile platform, but the key focus is on solidifying the existing foundations.
The polish and improvements that will be most obvious to the end user are those that involve visual or functional changes to the apps they use on a daily basis. With that in mind, it makes most sense to start off the review by taking a look at some of the general changes made to the UI and the system in iOS 9, so let's dive in.
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dmunsie - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
The iPhone 5 and iPad 4 could be fine, but the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S probably has more than enough problems that it was easier for them to draw the line with the new ISA rather than burden developers with having to build and test for two different ISAs just to support a couple of devices.greyhulk - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
It's pretty sad that Apple beat Google to the multitasking (split screen) front. In the past, Android tablets were always condidered to be the "power user tablets" and more capable, despite the smaller selection of apps. And they were built with a more ideal aspect ratio for split screen viewing, but only Samsung bothered to utilize it. Google has no excuse for not having built it into stock Android by now.cknobman - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Apple is trying to copy Windows and the Surface tablet IE "IPad Pro" LOL.A note taking app where you can put in anything for IOS, wow pioneers.
NO OneNote has been doing this for years.
A low power mode when your battery reaches 20%, mind blowing!!
NO Windows phone has been doing this for years with tons of customization options.
dmunsie - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
"A note taking app where you can put in anything for IOS, wow pioneers.NO OneNote has been doing this for years."
Yes, clearly Apple needed inspiration from Microsoft for this since the company that brought you the Newton over 20 years ago (which had even better note taking capabilities) couldn't have come up with this on their own.
jimmy$mitty - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
The Newton was a PDA, not even the first one really just a clone of the others.For tablets, Microsoft had a spec for a Windows tablet PC long before Apple. It was 2002 when the first Tablet PCs started hitting the shelves.
Apple has never truly been original or innovative. Everyone claims Apple had the first GUI, no Xerox did and Xerox gave the idea to Microsoft and Apple.
Apple is just really good at marketing and because their products are so idiot proof and appeal to the not so tech savvy, Look at how easily even toddlers can use an iPhone/iPad, they sell as the masses are not so tech savvy.
Personally I laugh at people. People think the iPod was the first MP3 player, again there were other superior ones like the Creative Zen Blaster (which Creative also sued Apple for the MP3 player GUI and won) or the Sony Walkman.
As said, Apple is just really good at marketing their product which has a big effect, even if they are not superior products. Most people buy products they know and have heard of.
cbmuir - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Check your facts, Newton was pretty much the first PDA. The British Psion was earlier, but never got much market outside of the UK. Palm, WinCE, etc. came after Newton.The Newton got beat up because of the HW recognition, but after a couple years of development it was pretty darn good.
Swordmaekr - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
The PSion was just a pocket organizer with a chiclet keyboard, no touchpad or any capability for graphical user interface. The Newton was first.Chirpie - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
Someone seems to make the mistake assuming that making devices for the masses is an easy thing. And it's not nice to laugh at people. It makes a person sound arrogant and unlikeable. :-Pkmmatney - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Who really cares who came out with an idea first - what matters is how it's implemented.As an iPad4 owner and a Windows tablet owner, I am pretty disappointed with my Windows tablet (running Windows 10). The Windows store is still crappy, and I've had a lot of Apps crash on me. Even solitaire stopped working on my tablet, and the fix was to install VLC player (which re-installed a few things that a Microsoft update removed to kill solitaire!). I've given up an their Apps, too buggy and missing features. The desktop experience isn't bad, but it really does seem like I'm fighting with it all the time just to do simple things. If that was the only tablet I had, I could live with it, but the iPad just does things so much better and smoother. It's my goto device. If I want to do real work, then a laptop is much better,
lilmoe - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Just curious, which Windows tablet do you have? How much did you pay for it?