Apple iOS5 New Features: Took Them Long Enough

Amidst all the new information the public is receiving about the new Apple iOS 5, there have been a lot of discussions about the new features. I’ve been in on a lot of these, informing friends about what to expect and how it will change their phone experience this fall. The new features are all great and will truly bring iPhone’s tighter UI inline with, say, Android’s friendly interface.

But for many of the new features, I can only say, “About time.” Check out the reasons why the top five features should have been included a long time ago.

Notification Center

Let’s face it, Apple didn’t only miss the boat on this, but Android (especially on HTC phones) shot them out of the water. Finally, iOS will have lock-screen notifications.

I’ll say this for Apple: at least they are doing it well. The swipe-to-open specific notifications is great and makes for a very usable interface.

Photos

If the notifications were long overdue, Photos’ updates are laughably late. With the new Photos, you’ll be able to finally edit your photos, including c0lor-enhance and crop. This lack of functionality was excusable in iOS 2, silly in iOS 3, and full-on insulting in iOS 4. Other phone OSes have had this a while, including WebOS.

This change finally opens up the iPhone to an out-of-the-box usable camera. With 5 megapixels, the camera is pretty decent. (And certainly, the next iteration of the phone will be an even higher resolution.) To do anything usable with photos, you had to download an app. As good as the App Store is, it’s overwhelming to most people. You have to wade through 30 photography apps to find one that handles what you need. As a photographer myself (I keep a Tumblr of iPhone-only photos), I have 11 apps on my phone solely to edit photos. That doesn’t include the 20-plus apps I have for treating/altering photos. Those 11 are just for cropping, straightening, resizing, etc.

This is a big miss for Apple to just now get it. I have a friend who is a stylist and goes on many photoshoots, and he often has to review and slightly edit photos. He told me recently he wanted to buy a laptop because he needed to do more with photos and his iPad couldn’t really pull do it simply. I told him about all the new features and we determined he didn’t need to buy a new machine. The ability to iCloud photosets and handle basic image edits all in one app made it enough for him. Thank goodness Apple put this in, because they are going to make a happy customer (although I guess technically they lost a laptop sale).

Reminders

Really, Apple? It took five operating system updates to get to a to-do list? ‘Nuff said.

Okay, I will say the location-based level of this is spot on, and it reminds me of the reason Apple is successful. They don’t always innovate. They do observe and come out with something that is an “ah ha” moment for users. Location-based to-do lists? I never have to remember anything ever again.

Camera

Adding the “open camera” button to the home screen is long overdue. As an iPhonographer, I’ve missed many a shot because I had to swipe, tap, wait. I found myself “queuing up” my Camera and then lock-screening it so it’d be ready with a swipe. This “new” feature is great to finally have quick-access. Plus, the tactile button addition is a nice move.

Mail

Like the ability to copy/cut/paste, the ability to bold and italicize is long overdue. It’s a no-brainer, especially after they worked out the highlight function. This will finally make the iPad (and to a lesser degree, the iPhone) a viable “computer” solution, giving a user the ability to mark up an email or document in a familiar way. Even though it’s late, it shows Apple’s approach of truly integrating the iOS devices into our lives and pushes their idea of being PC-free.

That said, I’m still excited to add iOS 5 to my iPhone and iPad.

Which “new” features have you saying “Well, it’s about time”?