iOS 6 – Upgrade or Downgrade (It's evolution rather than revolution)

I was eagerly waiting for iOS 6 upgrade on my iPhone. It has come just 3 days after new iPhone 5 release and I immediately upgraded (??) my iPhone 4S with iOS 6. I was about to write about it immediately after the up grade was done but decided against it. I decided to wait till I had gone through all the changes and new features of iOS 6. This is the one of the things that Apple talked about as their landmark success in this year. So is it a really landmark success for Apple? Can iOS 6 alone give Apple what they lack in iPhone 5? Is there any break through feature in iOS 6? Let’s discuss it in details.


iOS 6:

Okie!! My first impression about iOS 6 is the same as iPhone 5. It is a plain upgrade of iOS 5 nothing more than that. There is no out of the world innovative feature or facility. There was a time when all other companies tried to catch up with features launched by Apple. But recently Apple is trying to catch up with the market, be it hardware or software and iOS 6 is not an exception. Apple claims that they’ve added 200 new features in this but I can tell you their much talked and hyped feature their own map service is a big failure just after it launch. It failed so miserably that Apple had to come out with a public apology and asked its patrons to use Google map instead of there own map app.

Speed:

One more highlighted feature of iOS 6 is speed. Believe me I have not seen any speed difference in iPhone 4S. Actually it feels a little slower especially if you have lot of photos stored, it takes little more time than iOS 5 to show the preview. iOS 6 may be faster on iPhone 5 but then it is not iOS but it is the hardware that is doing the trick.

MAP:

It is better not to talk about their biggest “new” feature, Apple own map app. So

much has already been talked and wrote about that Apple CEO come out with a public apology. Simplest of the things don’t work. For eg:  If you ask route from Mumbai to Pune it says “Directions Not Available”. They talk about so many enhancements like 3D view, flyover view etc in their map over Google map, but it looks like they’ve completely forgotten about the most basic and necessary features in navigation application like showing correct route between two locations.

Siri:

Siri, another application that I’ve never been able to use practically, has got little better in iOS 6. In iOS 5 I’ve not been able to run a single command using Siri, but in iOS 6 I was able to open music and start and stop it. So definitely it is improving but still there’s a lot of scope for improvement.


Passbook:

This is one of the features that Apple is trying to catch up with the market. There are many
mobile wallet solutions that have come in market in last year or two, Apple has come up with an answer to that with Passbook. With passbook you can store you e-vouchers, boarding passes, movie tickets and many more. Currently very few retailers are supporting passbook and all of them from USA and near by country. So if you are in India then you have to wait for someone to start supporting passbook.

Email:

Some real features have been added to email. First and most important feature is that you can attach file from the Compose mail screen itself. Don’t be surprised but it is true that all earlier versions of iOS didn’t have this feature. In older versions if you wanted to attach a file then you had to select a file and click on send as mail to send as an attachment. Biggest disadvantage in this is one mail can have only one file attachment. So finally they have given the facility, but currently you can attach only image or movie using this feature. Other enhancement in email is the introduction of VIP. You can define VIP contacts from your contact list and mail coming from all these contacts will be grouped under VIP inbox in mail. Also you can define custom notifications for VIP group.

Safari:

Safari has always remained the best browser on smart phones. It just gets better and better with iOS each iOS upgrade. In iOS 6 Safari feels faster in loading the page panning or zooming it. iCloud is now integrated with Safari.

Facebook Twitter:

Facebook and twitter are now integrated in iOS. Now you can share images on Facebook from preview itself. Also tweeting is much easier as it is always available on information bar. Only problem with Facebook integration is that all the Facebook friends get added as contacts. So chances of contacts getting duplicated after Facebook integration are high.


Camera:

For me the biggest feature of iOS 6 that is added to camera is the Panorama view. It is simple straight forward and works very well unlike the Panorama in any other third party app. Just start Panorama view and sweep iPhone horizontally and you have Panorama snap. Processing of Panorama image is quick considering it creates almost 28MP image.

Other:

Just like the dumped Google map they also dumped integrated Youtube app. So don’t be surprised if your Youtube app icon disappears after upgrade.  App is available in App Store but it is not the same. Now you can reject incoming calls with SMS. You can get reminder after particular time interval or location change. DND (Do Not Disturb) is another handy feature added in iOS 6. You can set specific time period in which phone will not disturb you with any kind of notifications. You can allow your favourite contact list as an to exception to this.





As I mentioned at start of my article, Apple claims that they’ve added more then 200 new features in iOS 6 over iOS 5 but there is only handful that we can count of. Rest all may be so minor or so much needed that it has simply gone unnoticed.

GadgetDost verdict:
iOS 5 – excellent map Application – excellent Youtube + Panorama = iOS 6.
If you ask me, you should not upgrade to iOS 6 unless you can’t live without Apple Panorama snap. (It is available in many third party apps if you want it)