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Fall 2011 : iOS 5 release
Friday, 01 July 2011 00:00

The new Apple's operating system iOS 5 will be available this fall. According to Apple it « includes more than 200 new features for your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch ». Key features are described on its website.

The major update done by iOS 5 is undoubtedly the «Notification center » that gathers all notifications in one single place. You just have to swipe down from the top of the screen to let it appears (probably inspired from Android).


From a user view point, all notifications will be recorded and accessible: so that new ones will no longer replace the old ones, neither pop up in front of a running application : it will appear unobtrusively at the top of the screen and disappear shortly after. In addition each new notification will be visible from the lock screen to ease the way to get to its apps.


This is a good news for developers since users will certainly be less reluctant to activate their apps notifications. They will also be able to keep track of them all. Developers can be sure that their notifications will be seen.

 

 

Another important new feature : iCloud. It will be available with iOS 5 and directly integrated into each apps. iCloud will automatically and freely sync all your Apple devices. In other words, the content of your iPhone will be the same in your iPad, iPod touch or Mac. It will be stored in Apple's cloud. Each user have 5GB of free storage for his custom data (excluding music and apps) which can be extended.

Apple iCloud logo


For users iCloud looks useful since it is said that half of iPhone users never sync their phone (except for activation). In case of restoring, your device will recover your apps datas from the cloud.


For developers an API will help them to integrate iCloud into their apps. This means that any iOS/Mac OS developer can now implement synchronization feature for their multi platform applications without spending any money to develop the cloud part.

 
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