1. Notification Center: The iPhone’s notification center is a huge improvement to the way the phone works. Things like texts or twitter notifications no longer get in the way of what you’re doing at the moment. You see a subtle little drop down that says you have a message that you can read if you’d like then. If you don’t read it then, it’s ready to go in the notification center later.
2. iMessage: If you’re on an iPad, iPhone, or any other iOS device, message any other device—it’s just like texting except iMessage doesn’t go through your cell phone carrier, so you can message unlimitedly. It’s free, fast, easy, and synced.
3. Reminders: Brilliant. It’s an easy way to keep track of your “to-do” list. It’s a way to remind you to do something based on the location you are currently at. You can set a reminder of what to do when you are near a certain place, when you show up to a place, or even when you leave a certain location. It’s brilliant.
4. Built-In Twitter: Twitter has always been a separate app…until now. Since Twitter has become so popular and useful in social media, Apple has decided to integrate it into their new operating system.
Just plug your login and password information into Settings, and you can tweet directly from Photos, Safari, Camera, YouTube, and Maps.
5. Photos: It’s always been a pain to grab that picturesque moment in only a few seconds; you used to have to unlock your phone, search for the Camera, and open it. iOS5 changes that. All you have to do now is double tap the home button and tap the Camera app button to access it. The + volume button now work as the camera button, so you can keep the camera still and get the shot you want in only a few seconds.
6. Speed: From what we’ve seen thus far, the iOS 5 platform is FAST. It’s smoother than it’s predececor and helps make the usability factor go up substantially.
7. Newsstand: Subscriptions to magazines and newspapers used to be managed through out-of-Apple realm in the past. therefor, we’ve both kind of avoided it. It’s nice to have something to browse through when you have a few seconds of downtime and Newsstand now keeps all your favorite magazine subscriptions up to date.
8. Safari on the iPad: Reading content on an iOS device has been about as easy as any in the past, but they’ve made it better. You now can hit the reader button at the top to make each website even more readable. The new Safari even features tabs like the computer version (as opposed to the dropback windows). It’s faster and more convenient.
9. iCloud: For us, it’s never been an issue to just plug in the phone or device to the computer to update, but apple has finally… cut the cord. They’ve made each iOS device it’s own stand-alone device and handheld computer. Love it.
10. Airplay Sharing: Sharing your iPad 2 or iPhone 4s screen to your Apple TV with video mirroring is now just a matter of hitting a button. It makes doing presentations with your iPad even easier than it’s been. Share a presentation with Keynote, or share photos or videos you took of your vacation.
Apple has, yet again, changed the way we all communicate and operate for the better. Life just got easier.
