iOS 5
 

So I did the upgrade yesterday on my iPhone 3GS... and I want three hours of my life back.

The upgrade was a grueling process, as iTunes for some reason had to back up everything on the phone, write the new OS to it, and then copy all my apps and data back to the phone. Unfortunately, iTunes crashed three hours into the upgrade, having restored all of my apps but none of my media. When I tried to sync the phone to get the media onto it, iTunes helpfully offered to backup and re-initialize the phone once more. No thanks.

Anyway, here's what's different in the new iOS, as far as I can tell:

• Pull-down notifications screen. This would be nice if it were more functional -- but there are many apps which won't show up on it even though they obviously should. Mail doesn't work with it, for instance. Why the heck not? :td:
• Week calendar view. I've been using the Week Cal app for a while to get this function, and it works really well. Apple's implementation is really bad; there is no zooming, so you can only see the same three hours of three days at once. What's the point? :td:
• Newsstand. Oh joy. Now I can pay to read the MSM on my phone. :rolleyes:
• Syncing over Wi-Fi. This would be kind of cool... if my computer was willing to cooperate with my phone. :(
• Reminders app. I can't figure out how I'm supposed to use this. It can't tell whether it's a calendar or a to-do list. :confused:
• Old "iPod" app is now split into "Music" and "Videos" apps. Oh joy. Another icon I don't need on my home screen. :td:

The good news is that iOS 5 makes it possible to avoid using iTunes on the desktop entirely. The bad news is that there are many things you still cannot do without a computer that has iTunes, such as automatically updating podcasts and adding MP3s to your music library.

If Steve had a grave, I think he would be rolling in it now...

2 hours to update iPad 2. I'm largely pleased with the end result, however.

I forgot to mention iMessage, because I still can't get it to work, nor can I tell why I need it.

After upgrade, it goes through some setup screens. I couldn't get beyond find my ipad. Whatever I answered, touching next did nothing. I finally turned off, turned back on.

Are people using cloud, find my ipad, etc.?

iMessage is the one thing I didn't have any issues getting to work (after spending most of the day trying to get my iPhone updated). Since most of the people I regularly text to have iPhones, I can change my unlimited texting plan to a lesser one to save some money on my cell bill.

Its never a good idea to upgrade on the first day out. Wait a few days and you'll be a lot happier.

Any jailbreak yet?

My iPad 2 took slightly less than an hour, and I started the process within minutes of the availability of iOS5 through iTunes. No glitches or issues so far, other than the new multi-touch gestures making Fruit Ninja more challenging than it needs to be :(

Setup on my ipad2 took almost 2 hours, followed by a crash and then a restore. But we're good to go now.
Found my screen a little less responsive. Maybe it was just me.
Haven't tried iMessage yet.

Sometime before complaining it's better to have a look at what someone is complaining about...

Notifications lack apps or even mail???

Have you tried to click on "Notifications" into "Settings"? You can set up any app that send notifications to show up, including, of course mail, deciding wether you prefer a pop-up or a message on the top-bar, if you want them to show on the lock screen to or not, etc..

3 hours? There must be something wrong with your iPhone.. The whole update process took 20 minutes to me.. 9 minutes to back up, 3 minutes to update, 8 minutes to have all my data back into my phone.

Reminder app is the best reminder app out there.. You can set up reminders to show up when you get close to a place, an address, or some co-ordinates, I never had something like that before and it's really useful.
Think about "reminder to call wife when I get out of the office" and when you get out of the office, whatever time it is, it buzz. I love it.

And iMessage is going to save a lot of money to a lot of people..

I think iOS5 is the biggest firmware updated until now, second only to the 2.0 when they introduced the app-store.

I am pretty sure that I am not missing anything -- Mail (as in email) is not an option for notifications. "Messages" is an option -- but I don't use Messages much. (SMS is such a barbaric communication system; I don't know why Americans and Europeans love it so much.)

As far as I can tell, that functionality doesn't exist unless you have the new iPhone with Siri.

I'm pretty sure that you do are missing something.

If you click on Notifications into Settings there's a list of all the apps that use notifications and you can decide for each one of them the notification settings.
Mail (an in email) is the 6th one.

And that functionality does exist, and it has nothing to do with Siri.
Just click on reminder, set up a reminder and have a look around. You can choose wether to set an alarm or a "zone".

Tethered jailbreak only, though if you plan to jailbreak I'd wait a week or so.

iMessage is great. (especially if you don't have unlimited sms plan and if you do you might want to reevaluate.)

it's all good. facetime activation finally worked for me as well (unlocked iphone 4 on t-mo prepaid, no data plan). Previously, I never got the activation messages. Not sure if it was coincidental to ios5 or not, because I gave up on it before.

-David

Ah, you're right. The mail app was buried deep in the lower list of useless apps from which I would never want pop-up notifications... I would not have figured out how to get mail notifications by myself.

This I still can't find. I can choose "Remind Me," and then it asks for a date. Or I can set a priority or add notes. But those are the only options available. Nothing about "zones" anywhere.

Maybe I am just getting old and having trouble adjusting, but these new apps seem really non-intuitive.