Earlier this week Apple introduced iOS 5.
I installed the beta yesterday. Here are my observations so far:
0. Its fairly stable. It hasn’t crashed or stalled out yet. I do feel like every now and then the keyboard is a bit funky or inaccurate. Earlier today it took me three tries to hit the “s” key. I never had that problem with iOS4.
1. Notifications are sweet and pretty much a direct copy of Android’s notification system. Long overdue and I’m thankful for this feature.
2. Camera. Making the camera accessible on the locked screen is awesome. Built in cropping is very helpful.
3. Keyboard shortcuts. One of my favorite things about the blackberry was the ability to create keyboard shortcuts. Now when I type in “sig”, I get my full signature. I also have shortcuts for “i’ll call you later today” and my mobile number. I’ll set up more later for sure.
4. Some of my favorite apps arent working yet with iOS 5. It’s to be expected since this build is a day old! Right now I can’t get tumblr or ex.fm working.
5. iCloud. I can’t get this to work. When I try to sign in with my Apple ID, I get an error message saying something like “your MobileMe account isn’t ready for iCloud”. I’ve seen others having success with iCloud so I’m wondering if i’m doing something wrong. Any help here would be great.
6. Twitter integration is so smooth. It’s built right into iOS.
7. I haven’t tried iMessage. I’m not sure why I would since it’s not cross platform with Android users. My favorite SMS 2.0 app remains Kik (disclosure: we are investors in Kik).
8. There aren’t any wallpaper items in this beta.
9. I haven’t tried iOS 5 on my iPad yet. I’m interested to see what the split keyboard feels like.
10. The notes section in Calendear entries is improved. Before it would cut it off after a short number of characters from a desktop sync. Now you can see full notes.
That’s it for now. Have you tried it yet? Find any goodies?
Update: just got a tweet tip on how migrate to iCloud for existing mobileme users. thanks!