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iOS 5: Reminders

 

With iOS 5, Apple has decided to tackle the to-do and reminder app market by offering its own solution that’s tightly integrated with iCloud, calendars, and Address Book. Reminders, a new system app in iOS 5, allows users to easily and quickly jot down their to-dos and organize them in “lists” that are stored and backed up to the cloud in real-time. Reminders are constantly pushed across devices and the web on iCloud.com, and they come with a series of options to give them date-based alarms, a location, or notes.

Reminders is a straightforward app that can’t be compared to more complex to-do and project management solutions like OmniFocus or Things, but it doesn’t need to achieve or aspire to such complexity as it’s a utility aimed at making it extremely simple to quickly create a reminder, and forget about the existence of the app itself. You won’t spend time “tweaking” or “customizing” Reminders; you can’t assign “tags” to to-dos and move them around between folders. The app has got a single theme (as per Apple’s recent skeuomorphic trends, the app resembles an old leather-bound agenda with the heavy use of textures) and two functionalities besides reminder creation: lists and search. Read more

iOS 5: Twitter Integration

With iOS 5, Apple is officially acknowledging the existence of external social networks besides Ping and Apple ID (one of the authentication options for iOS 5’s iMessage) and the result is direct Twitter support, unveiled after much speculation at the WWDC in June, and now available inside Apple’s Settings app. Twitter integration in iOS 5, however, goes beyond a couple of preferences and options to tweak – it’s a systemwide framework that will allow developers to build “official” Twitter support in their apps, as well as let users forget about having to log in with Twitter every time they want to try a new Twitter app.

Twitter is expecting a massive growth in the upcoming months thanks to integration with Apple’s devices, and rightfully so: with the new Twitter preference panel available in iOS 5’s Settings, users are able to sign in once with their Twitter account, and use that “single sign-on” to authorize other apps downloaded from the App Store to access their Twitter credentials. With this method, not only is Apple giving users support for Twitter at a system level, they’re also leveraging iOS technologies to make the experience of downloading and configuring Twitter apps (admittedly, quite many) as frictionless as possible. Read more

iOS 5: Notification Center

 

Notification Center is one of the key features of iOS 5, one that will profoundly change the way iPhone and iPad users approach the incoming stream of data and notifications on mobile devices. There is no doubt Notification Center is among the most anticipated new functionalities to land on iOS, but before we delve deeper into its advantages over the old notification system of iOS 4.x and its (very few) shortcomings, here’s a bit of background history that should better put Notification Center into context.

Looking at Notification Center now – and playing with it for at least a day – it’s clear the system is indisputably better than what we used to have on our devices in the pre-iOS 5 era. Criticized both by the tech press and average users alike, the old notifications had, really, one main problem: they became annoying with time. And by “became” I mean that they began to show their utter nature of a system built for non-connected applications as soon as the App Store turned into a platform for the always-on individual who’s constantly connected, even when he plays Angry Birds or is eating a new meal at a restaurant a friend suggested.

The old notifications were built for a different set of apps. Read more

Thoughts On iOS 5

iOS 5, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch released today, comes with more than 1,500 new developer APIs and over 200 new user features. In our iOS 5 coverage, we have chosen to focus on the key functionalities of the OS, while leaving room for the most visible subtle improvements that have made it through Apple’s new release as well.

On a simple checklist, iOS 5 is the widest, most extensive software update ever released by Apple for mobile devices since the original iPhone OS in 2007. Not even iPhone OS 3.2, then iOS, which shipped with the iPad in 2010 could claim to have the same amount of new technology, user interface, APIs, cloud features and overall reassessment of the platform that iOS 5 presents today. But in the past four years, we’ve come to learn a new Apple product – be it a device or a major software update – isn’t strictly about the number of new functionalities a user can spot, or the APIs a developer can implement in his code. Those things certainly contribute to the concept of “major release” by adding their sheer number of updates – they just don’t form the full picture.

In iOS 5, the 200 new features Apple’s Senior VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall announced at WWDC in June are the consequence of an operating system completely re-imagined around speed, efficiency and interconnectedness. These three principles, intrinsic foundation of Apple’s vision for iOS going forward, define iOS’ independency as a platform, and ecosystem.

A key term in Apple’s iOS 5 parlance is “quick”. In iOS 5, you can quickly tweet thanks to systemwide Twitter integration; create a new to-do from the Reminders app; activate the Camera from the Lock Screen; even access all your missed notifications with a single swipe on any screen. Speed is key to iOS 5: as Apple devices gain faster processors and more RAM, an OS that’s equally responsive and lets you perform common tasks in seconds is functional to the user experience. A device can get an infinite amount of hardware upgrades, but an OS that’s not meant for speed will never feel fast when it comes down to regular usage. Luckily, that’s not the case with iOS 5.

Alongside speed, Apple focused on making iOS a modern operating system that doesn’t require a PC to accomplish certain goals or perform functionalities usually associated to desktop computers. At WWDC, Forstall said they looked in every corner of the OS, and asked themselves how they could make iOS better by adding new powerful functionality, while keeping it fast and intuitive.

“There is a feature for everyone out there”.

So, for instance, iOS 5 gained the capability of managing calendars directly on the device: users can now add, rename, and delete calendars, as well as view event attachments and share calendars with friends and family through iCloud. Previously, a Mac or PC was required to do this. Looking at the various apps that come bundled with iOS, it’s clear Apple’s intention was to add functionalities in a way that wouldn’t compromise the overall experience’s ease of use. Safari received a substantial update, adding tabs on the iPad for better web browsing and Reading List to save webpages for later; Mail can now compose rich text styles and indent/outdent lines in a message; with iCloud documents & data for developers, Apple has paved the path towards a massive increase of apps that will be able to effortlessly push documents across iOS devices. A first example of this can be observed in Apple’s mobile iWork suite, which comes with iCloud support out of the box. There’s more: iOS devices can now sync wirelessly to iTunes, and they support over-the-air (OTA) software updates, meaning you’ll be able to download and install iOS 5.1 when it comes out directly from your iPhone or iPad. Users who sign up for iCloud can buy new storage (for a price) on device, choose which app libraries to back up to the cloud, and set up a new device without needing to activate it through iTunes on a Mac or PC. iOS 5 now lets you delete songs manually from the Music app, change a device’s name without iTunes, and even edit photos. On top of these new options, iOS 5 devices automatically back up and share the most recent photos with each other through iCloud’s Photo Stream, and it’s now possible to create and manage photo albums without having to switch to iPhoto on a Mac.

What’s worth noting about iOS 5 – basic concepts and 200 new features aside – is that while a general trend on desktop operating systems seems to be a heavy focus on removing functionalities, iOS keeps adding new ones. In fact, if you take Lion into consideration, iOS 5 is where Apple keeps adding features to the checklist, whereas Mac users have been found lamenting the removal of several of their favorite features on the latest OS X upgrade.

And, really, the reason is extremely simple: iOS is a different paradigm, one that gave Apple a fresh start four years ago and that is still allowing the company to experiment. The checklist doesn’t matter when an OS that keeps gaining features still doesn’t feel like it should be simplified.

If anything, iPhone and iPad users will start asking for more tomorrow.

What’s even more obvious to me is that iOS is starting to feel like a “connected OS” in its fifth version. Apple is “cutting the cord” under the large “PC Free” marketing umbrella that defines iOS’ independency from desktop computers, and for the first time iPhones and iPads are acting as devices fully aware of each other’s apps and data. The emblem of this renewed interconnectedness is iCloud: Apple’s new cloud service enables apps to push documents back and forth between devices, and it allows iPhones and iPads to manage their own cloud storage and the data that gets backed up to the cloud. Photo Stream connects a device’s recent photos with others’ camera rolls, and iTunes in the Cloud makes sure new and past purchases are immediately pushed on all your devices and always available for re-download, respectively.

For the first time in years, using and installing new apps doesn’t feel like adding new data silos to a confined environment. There’s still a long road to iOS apps’ full capability of “talking” to each other, but with iCloud now up and running, the task doesn’t seem as complex as it did yesterday.

iOS will never be “complete”.

In his WWDC keynote in June, Steve Jobs said: “You know, if the hardware is the brain and the sinew of our products, the software in them is their soul”. In Apple’s vision, a modern software – the “soul” of a device – is able to evolve and fit to the circumstances and change its behavior accordingly to new user requests, the app market, and third-party developers. The flexibility of iOS – and the reason Apple doesn’t care about legacy software as much as other companies do – can be easily spotted looking back at the original iPhone, or the first version of the App Store from 2008. iPhone OS was never “done”. The App Store itself was never 100% complete – the Store is just a showcase for an ever-changing landscape of mobile applications built on top of new technologies offered to developers. Yet sometimes those developers come up with new solutions to existing problems and better ways to improve the functionalities Apple gave them out of the box.

iOS, the App Store, the mobile ecosystem, the cloud, third-party developers – they’re all connected and, at the same time, independent from each other in a way that ensures evolution is consistent, but resilient.

That’s why iOS 5 is both a milestone and a starting point: it sets a new standard for developers who are now given access to thousands of new APIs, but it still lacks some functionalities that many will begin requesting tomorrow and, probably, Apple will deliver at its next WWDC keynote. You will hear about things such as better podcast and document management, streaming of music and movies through iCloud, iChat for iOS and Notification Center widgets throughout the next year. It’s just the way the iOS ecosystem works: as new technology comes around and it’s adopted by the users and developers, it’s time to start wondering about what’s next. About the direction the ecosystem needs to take to be stable, flourish, allure third-party app makers and, more importantly, evolve.

Today, there’s iOS 5. It’s fast, efficient and connected in a way that iOS 4 never was, and perhaps didn’t need to be – because it was too soon. As Apple begins to roll out its iCloud services and developers start writing new software that takes advantage of modern APIs and technologies, the next few months will prepare the road that will lead us to the introduction of iOS 6 next year. At the same time, users will get accustomed to the new functionalities of iOS 5, and a new breed of quick, productive and connected applications will rise on the App Store, eventually finding its way back to the Mac as it’s always done in the past years.

iOS 5: it just works - and now it does more.

“Keep Looking, Don’t Settle”

Three years ago, I didn’t know what to do with my life. University wasn’t really for me, and I had just been fired from a job I didn’t like anyway. As I stood for weeks at a point where I needed to figure out how to survive without going back to my parents asking for help, it hit me: I could try writing about Apple for a few months and maybe someone was going to like the things I had to say and maybe I could make a living out of that. I decided I was going to do what I always loved: discussing technology.

I’m 23 now, and I write about Apple products every day. I don’t run a huge news site, my English is far from perfect, and I never met Steve Jobs. I never will. Yet somehow, I feel like I must thank him for making it possible for a guy with an iPhone in his pocket to turn a passion into a business that seems to be enjoyed by a few readers every day. Something I do believe in. That gets me out of bed in the morning. That makes me fight with my girlfriend sometimes, because I should care less about news reporting and spend a little more time with her in the evening.

Steve Jobs was – is – a visionary genius of our time, a leader, an artist and a man who firmly believed in what he loved, as well as the things he didn’t like.

This personal, brief and sincere “thank you” isn’t about the qualities of Steve Jobs. We all know those stories. For those who don’t, now it’s a good time to start reading.

I thank Steve Jobs for creating products that let me stay up at 5 am, writing. I thank Steve Jobs because he was right: the only way to do great work is to do what you love. And I know I am.

Thank you Steve.

iPhone 4S: An Interplay of Hardware and Software

Here’s a quick thought about the new iPhone 4S. There really isn’t much to say about the iPhone 4S as a device: it’s the iPhone 4, only faster. It looks like an iPhone 4. It weighs just like an iPhone 4 (unless you’re going to feel a 3-gram difference). It’s got the same Retina Display of the iPhone 4, and its glass back is just as likely to break as the iPhone 4’s. The iPhone 4 is the foundation of the new iPhone 4S.

But the iPhone 4S is undoubtedly better than the iPhone 4. Thanks to the dual-core A5 CPU and dual-core graphics Apple put into it, the 4S will deliver snappier navigation between apps and webpages, up to seven times faster graphics and an overall more responsive experience. In practical terms, this means the multitasking tray will open faster, launch apps in less time, and Safari will load webpages faster. Game developers will be able to create more impressive games with more complex graphics and texturing techniques; app makers will take advantage of the iPhone 4S’ A5 to develop software with more elaborate actions and architectures.

In day to day usage, the iPhone 4S will be the iPad 2 of hardware upgrades: when compared to an old iPhone 4, it’ll look amazingly fast. Even if I haven’t tried an iPhone 4S yet, this is pure math. The iPhone 4S is faster. Perhaps not every corner of the OS will show that, but the hardware will allow for faster operations out of the box.

The A5 processor (and faster graphics, and presumably more RAM) doesn’t simply make games more powerful and apps quicker to open and use. The A5 processor – a custom-made silicon designed by Apple – has repercussions on a variety of software-related functionalities, and this has enabled Apple to come up with new features that won’t make it to the iPhone 4 once iOS 5 comes out next week.

The iPhone 4S is the finest example of Apple’s interplay of hardware and software yet.

Take the new camera for example. Thanks to a new 8 MP sensor, wider aperture, new lenses and backside illumination, it shoots better, sharper, more vibrant pictures. They look good. The new optics inside the iPhone’s camera have allowed Apple to improve on one of the most popular aspects of the iPhone, which is taking photos everywhere you go. Yet the new camera isn’t just about the optic hardware itself: because of the A5’s processing power, Apple has added face detection for better exposure and focus when a subject is recognized, as well as better white balance. The iPhone 4S’ A5 comes with a new Image Signal Processor designed by Apple. On top of that, the faster 4S also happens to record 1080p video with image stabilization and noise reduction.

This is fairly technical stuff, but you see where this is going. In a demo of the iPhone 4S posted by the BBC earlier today, I noticed something odd about the 4S camera: the swiping animation to switch from the camera view to the Camera Roll (a new feature of iOS 5) looked strangely fast and smooth. I’ve been testing iOS 5 on my iPhone 4, and I can tell you that animation isn’t as nearly as responsive and immediate as the BBC’s demo video. Throughout the day, I’ve looked at other hands-on videos (not many of them are around this time, unfortunately), read first impressions from journalists who were in Cupertino and yes – everyone reported the camera was faster and more responsive. A simple functionality like swiping back to your Camera Roll to see the picture you’ve just taken has been improved thanks to new hardware. These are the details the make the experience better, more balanced and enjoyable as the months roll in and you get used to a device.

At this point, it’s starting to feel like iOS 5 was specifically designed for the iPhone 4S. The most technologically advanced features of iOS 5 are now available on the iPhone: improved camera and HD video recording, AirPlay Mirroring, Siri. That’s not to say Apple didn’t exclude some of these from the iPad due to design compromises (the thinner iPad 2 wouldn’t probably have room for the 4S’ camera) or obvious impracticality (Siri on a tablet?), but on a checklist comparing Apple’s devices running iOS 5, the iPhone 4S gets more. The iPad 2 still has Photo Booth on its side, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the iPhone soon.

The importance of “hardware that enables better software” and “powerful software based on advanced hardware” is best explained by Apple’s own slide. Four hardware-related features (A5, new wireless system, new camera, 1080p HD recording), four software-related functionalities coming to the 4S. And that’s not to count the 200+ features of iOS 5, which will benefit from the improved specs of the iPhone.

The iPhone 4S is a good phone because it’s based on the iPhone 4. But the 4S has got some new stuff that has been made possible by its new hardware, and it will make for a more pleasant experience thanks to iOS 5, for a simple reason: Apple understands that hardware and software together drive innovation and customer satisfaction, not specs alone.

“Let’s Talk iPhone” Event Rumor Roundup

Tomorrow morning, Apple will hold a press conference in Cupertino, where CEO Tim Cook is widely expected to introduce the next-generation iPhone, a new iOS 5 feature called “Assistant”, and a refreshed line-up for Apple’s iPod family. However, speculation has been running wild in the past months as to whether Apple will announce not one, but two different iPhone models, or perhaps even an iPhone 4 revision to target the low-end market. With rumors of upcoming Facebook integration, voice-recognition features and cheaper iPhone 4 models, Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” may turn out to be bigger than expected. Or, as the name of the event suggests, perhaps the company will only focus on the iPhone, leaving other announcements for press releases and minor store updates in the next weeks.

In this post, we’ve rounded up the most recent October 4th rumors and predictions, some old rumors that haven’t been reported in a while, as well as last-minute speculation on what Apple will introduce tomorrow.

Come back tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific on MacStories for our coverage of Apple announcements.

iPhone 4S: This is the device that Apple is rumored to unveil as the “next-generation iPhone” tomorrow. Initially described as an “iPhone 5 inside an iPhone 4 case” for developers’ testing back in April, the iPhone 4S with codename N94 should pack an A5 processor, 1 GB of RAM, SGX 543MP2 GPU (same as iPad 2), GSM-CDMA dual mode, HSPA+, same 3.5-inch screen and design of the existing iPhone 4. The device will come with a new software featured called Assistant for voice-recognition, and possibly a new panoramic photo functionality, likely related to the (rumored) new 8 MP camera. The iPhone 4S name has been spotted on packaging for third-party cases, carrier websites and even Apple’s iTunes 10.5 beta. In the past months, several leaked parts and components have suggested the 4S will share the same design of the iPhone 4, only with largely improved specs.

iPhone 5: The confusion caused by the “iPhone 5” name is due to the fact that it’s been widely used to generally indicate the new iPhone (iPhone 5 comes after iPhone 4) as well as a “completely redesigned” device, as opposed to the iPhone 4S. In fact, several analysts and industry sources believe Apple will announce two new iPhones tomorrow, a 4S for the low-end, and a “real” iPhone 5 as top-line device. The iPhone 5 was rumored to feature a new design months ago, although over time some of its alleged specs have overlapped with the iPhone 4S (improved camera, A5 CPU, 8 MP camera). The distinctive rumor about the iPhone 5 is a new “teardrop” design with tapered edges and thinner form factor, possibly a bigger screen with edge-to-edge LCD and a new “elongated” Home button.

No parts or internal components of the iPhone 5 have been leaked, suggesting such device hasn’t entered production yet and won’t be announced tomorrow.

More iPhone 4S/5 rumors in our roundup.

Read more

Sandboxing and App Culture

Andy Ihnatko and Jason Snell have published two articles on Macworld over the weekend, covering the upcoming sandboxing restrictions that Apple will begin enforcing this November for Mac App Store apps (with its possible implications for Apple’s own technologies like AppleScript) and the broader subject of app culture, which in a way is related to sandboxing and might lead to an overly simplified software environment that some people imagined a year ago.

Ihnatko:

But I fret about AppleScript. I’ve come to think of it as a brilliant and infinitely-resourceful friend who’s been working for twenty years at a company that doesn’t seem to appreciate all of his or her contributions. I’m not worried about Apple killing AppleScript outright; I’m worried that the company doesn’t collectively feel like system automation is a feature that’s worth rescuing if the building ever caught on fire. Some day, Apple’s OS engineers will come up with an idea for a new system architecture that delivers a long list of benefits but which will require tons of work to prevent it from breaking AppleScript. And at that point, scripting on the Mac will finally die.

Snell:

Apple getting serious about app security is a good thing. Unfortunately, many of the apps we Mac users have come to know and love over the years require a broad amount of access to the system for a lot of their key functions. Not as much as SuperDuper, say, but still quite a lot. What I’m hearing from some Mac developers is that they may actually have to remove features from their apps, or reduce their functionality, in order to fit them inside Apple’s new sandbox.

Whilst after the Back to the Mac event in October 2010 we feared the Mac App Store’s lack of trials and license migration options for existing customers would kill the ecosystem and, ultimately, cause the Mac App Store to never take off, that hasn’t been the case. Apple is betting heavily on the Mac App Store as the future of digital distribution for desktop software, and it’s doing so by releasing Lion on the App Store, alongside several other apps (at a discounted price). Since January 6, when the Mac App Store opened for business, third-party developers have rushed to release their apps on it (most of the times with discounted prices) and Apple awarded those who did in time at last June’s WWDC. Some developers needed, obviously, to rethink how their apps would work with Apple’s Mac App Store rules.

The issue mentioned by Ihnatko and Snell isn’t a logistic problem with the infrastructure itself, it’s a real technical question that has arisen lately. How much will sandboxing entitlements affect the functionalities of existing apps? An example is the aforementioned 1Password, whose Mac App Store version won’t allow you to keep its database sync file in Dropbox if that folder is not under your User’s directory. The change wasn’t well received, but that’s just the way it works now. Starting November, it’s safe to assume other apps will need to be updated with this kind of tweaks – a restriction here, some documents can’t be accessed there, and so forth.

You can see how sandboxing, security and app culture are related in Apple’s App Store vision. The concept of “app” has evolved over time to indicate a piece of software that does one thing well, and Apple is doubling down on this new idea by enhancing security (which is a good thing) and making sure an app is limited “to just those operations that it needs to perform”. App and security have come full circle.

In the past nine months, the Mac App Store did just fine for the majority of developers without trials and demo versions. Then Apple introduced in-app purchases and delta updates. Every major change creates victims – those who couldn’t settle down in a new environment – and winners, literally. What will be interesting to observe in the upcoming months isn’t sandboxing itself of Apple’s evilness, but the trade-off third-party developers will seemingly have to come to terms with if they want to keep their apps on the Store., with the same degree of power and innovation we’ve become accustomed to in the past decades.

“Universal Save” for iOS Apps

Ted Landau at The Mac Observer covers an issue I’ve mentioned several times in the past, which Apple has partially fixed with the last releases of iOS: saving documents and moving them across apps. Specifically, Landau notes that the lack of a “universal save” option for documents that can be read by third-party apps (PDFs, text files, images) leads to an annoying and pretty much useless duplication of content. Apple has implemented an “Open In…” menu to send files to other apps, but the file that’s being sent is a copy. iOS apps can’t read and modify a source file from a single location.

Currently, iOS does not come close to matching the advantages of Mac OS X here. There is no way to have a unifying folder in iOS that contains related documents from different apps. There is no way to have a document easily opened in different apps, where any changes you make in one app are instantly accessible by all the compatible apps. You can come closer with Dropbox, but closer is not good enough here.

That’s annoying for me, too, as I constantly switch between apps to get my work done, and it’s not like I don’t enjoy trying new ones. This typically leads to some sort of geek frustration – why can’t Apple build an invisible layer that lets Elements edit a text document from Evernote and Pages access the same file?

For Ted and me, yes, being able to avoid file duplication and tedious exporting processes would be nice. But I do wonder how much does Apple care about such functionalities considering the underlying paradigms of iOS and the upcoming iCloud functionalities of iOS 5. For one, Apple really cares about application sandboxing: each app has its own controlled data environment and only a few items can be shared between multiple apps. Apple cares about sandboxing so much that they’re bringing it to the Mac App Store. Would iOS sandboxing allow for a source file to be edited and “saved” by multiple apps? Where does that file belong to, technically? Would iOS apps be able to write specific metadata to it? And what happens if, hypothetically, this “shared” file needs to be pushed back and forth with iCloud?

I’m no iOS developer, but I can see this proposed “universal save” model becoming an issue when on iOS, unlike the Mac, there’s no visible, centralized Finder location to write and read files from. In fact, Ted is right when he says that the convenience of a Mac is being able to create “a folder that will contain all the assorted files needed to put his column together”. That’s made easy by the Finder – but on iOS? Apple allows third-party developers to plug into the Music library or Camera Roll, yet there’s no Apple app to “create text file here” or “save webpage from Safari here”. Again, the lack of an iOS Finder would require “universal save” to work inside any app. iDisk could have been a centralized location for files – it could have even been Apple’s “answer to Dropbox” – but it’s not going to be supported by iCloud.

And then there’s the conceptual issue of an iOS device being the app that you’re using. When you use Pages on an iPad, the iPad is a word processor. When you browse the web with Safari, you’re holding the web in your hands. On a technical level, this app console model is represented by sandboxing and one-way “Open In” menus, and soon iCloud-based documents that allow multiple versions of the same app to access files. Would a “universal save” option somehow break the illusion that you’re holding an app, reminding us that we’re using a device with multiple layers of abstractions including a filesystem?

I don’t know. I believe I’d like this feature in theory, but I wonder if there would also be a considerable trade-off to accept.