Earlier this week, Apple released iOS 9 to the world. While some issues have sparked controversy, the overall response is mostly positive. It runs on the vast majority of Apple's existing mobile devices, the performance is solid, and the upgrade process is relatively painless. At first glance, it is not drastically different than iOS eight, but a handful of the strategic changes will have to use your iPhone and iPad considerably easier.
So now let's, jump, and explore what exactly iOS 9 has to offer.
Content Blockers
Regardless of the ethical and business aspects of ad blocking, the introduction of the content block extensions for Safari in iOS 9 is a good thing. Giving the end user more control over what content is loaded, and how they are followed, is an incredibly smart move for Apple as a company focused on the user experience.
Keep in mind, this is not all about removing advertisements. In fact, Marco Arment's $ 2.99 Peace content blocker actually use the database Ghostery block detect trackers. And if reading comment sections makes you sick to your stomach, you can simply switch it off completely.
Although this addition is certainly controversial, the implications for a better mobile privacy are too great to ignore. Good on Apple for prioritizing its customers more than advertisers.
Improvements battery
This time around, Apple has a strong focus on the improvement of battery life. The built-in apps and core technologies are optimized to draw less power, so you have a longer battery life on your existing devices after the jump to iOS 9. It is certainly not going to double your battery life, but Apple estimates that you can use to be able to squeeze in an extra hour charge.
Even better, Apple also introduced a new low-power mode that will help you save battery power until you find a way out. Go to Settings> Battery and switch to the "Low Power Mode" switch. Background activities such as retrieving e-mail and notifications will cease, fancy home screen animations will be disabled, and the CPU clock actually fall dynamically. It's not something you want daily use, but it will probably come in handy during emergencies.
Siri and search improvements
Since its introduction in 2011, Siri has continually improved. This year the big changes around context awareness. When you reference what's on your screen, Siri will actually know what you're talking about. Need a reminder about a particular e-mail? Tell Siri "Remind me to read this e-mail when I get home." It will set an alarm, and when you return home, a message will appear with a link to that specific post.
Want to show your colleagues some pictures of your family reunion? You can tell Siri "Let me take pictures in Pennsylvania," or "Let me photos taken on September 13th." The same is true for e-mail as well. Want to find your receipt? Tell Siri "Let me emails from Amazon in the past week." Better yet, simple conversions are now processed locally instead of Wolfram Alpha API, so the results faster than ever will come.
Prefer to search with your thumbs instead of your voice? iOS 9 has also covered it. Swipe right on your home screen, and you'll be greeted with a fully functional search bar, touch and app recommendations and dedicated search keys nearby (restaurants, gas stations, etc.).
Back To Last App
iOS has long allowed for an app to launch another app with custom URL handlers, but getting back to where you started has been something of a hassle. If your Twitter app kicked to load Safari on a page, you'd have to double-click, tap the home button, swipe, and launch the original app.
With iOS 9, you will now have a small piece of text in the upper left corner. Give it a tap, and it will immediately take you back to the app for your use. Combine this with an improved method for loading web pages within iOS apps-9s, and you'll see that Apple is slowly moving towards the merging of dedicated apps and the open web in one seamless experience.
iPad keyboard improvements
If you type a lot on your iPad, you're in for some big improvements. Selecting text is much easier to pull the shortcut bar at the top of the software keyboard allows for easy editing, and support for Bluetooth keyboards shortcuts is even better. Now you have no excuse not to write that novel you've been kicking around in your head.
Side-by-side multitasking
On newer iPads, various forms of side-by-side multitasking are now possible. Split view - effectively two iPad apps running side by side - is available on the iPad Pro, iPad 2 and iPad Mini Air 4. Slide then - a function as snap mode on the Xbox One - works with the iPad Pro, the original iPad Air (and higher), and the iPad Mini 2 (and higher). And as a nice bonus, picture-in-picture mode allows you to continue to watch videos while you surf. Older models have to get none of these advantages, but it is not particularly surprising. Frankly, I'm just surprised that the iPad 2 is supported at all.
App slimming
"Fat binaries" a legitimate neat concept. Instead of compiling developers and upload different versions of their applications for each device, all the different resources can be bundled into one application that works on all supported devices. Unfortunately, that also means that if more supported platforms, how to grow taller grading. And because Apple refuses to stop shipping devices with only 16GB of storage space, mass apps are a serious problem for the consumer.
Fortunately, iOS 9 now supports a suite of features called "app thinner." Only the assets necessary for the app on your device are stored locally run, and the cruft is cut. If you are running on a non-retina device like the iPad 2 or the first iPad Mini, you need some significant savings to see here.
And because developers can now choose to download dynamic or remove specific resources within the app, you will not always need a full installation when you use only a small part of what a app offers. It will probably take some time to see widespread adoption of this functionality, but it has plenty of space capabilities for games or versatile apps like GarageBand.
So now let's, jump, and explore what exactly iOS 9 has to offer.
Content Blockers
Regardless of the ethical and business aspects of ad blocking, the introduction of the content block extensions for Safari in iOS 9 is a good thing. Giving the end user more control over what content is loaded, and how they are followed, is an incredibly smart move for Apple as a company focused on the user experience.
Keep in mind, this is not all about removing advertisements. In fact, Marco Arment's $ 2.99 Peace content blocker actually use the database Ghostery block detect trackers. And if reading comment sections makes you sick to your stomach, you can simply switch it off completely.
Although this addition is certainly controversial, the implications for a better mobile privacy are too great to ignore. Good on Apple for prioritizing its customers more than advertisers.
Improvements battery
This time around, Apple has a strong focus on the improvement of battery life. The built-in apps and core technologies are optimized to draw less power, so you have a longer battery life on your existing devices after the jump to iOS 9. It is certainly not going to double your battery life, but Apple estimates that you can use to be able to squeeze in an extra hour charge.
Even better, Apple also introduced a new low-power mode that will help you save battery power until you find a way out. Go to Settings> Battery and switch to the "Low Power Mode" switch. Background activities such as retrieving e-mail and notifications will cease, fancy home screen animations will be disabled, and the CPU clock actually fall dynamically. It's not something you want daily use, but it will probably come in handy during emergencies.
Siri and search improvements
Since its introduction in 2011, Siri has continually improved. This year the big changes around context awareness. When you reference what's on your screen, Siri will actually know what you're talking about. Need a reminder about a particular e-mail? Tell Siri "Remind me to read this e-mail when I get home." It will set an alarm, and when you return home, a message will appear with a link to that specific post.
Want to show your colleagues some pictures of your family reunion? You can tell Siri "Let me take pictures in Pennsylvania," or "Let me photos taken on September 13th." The same is true for e-mail as well. Want to find your receipt? Tell Siri "Let me emails from Amazon in the past week." Better yet, simple conversions are now processed locally instead of Wolfram Alpha API, so the results faster than ever will come.
Prefer to search with your thumbs instead of your voice? iOS 9 has also covered it. Swipe right on your home screen, and you'll be greeted with a fully functional search bar, touch and app recommendations and dedicated search keys nearby (restaurants, gas stations, etc.).
Back To Last App
iOS has long allowed for an app to launch another app with custom URL handlers, but getting back to where you started has been something of a hassle. If your Twitter app kicked to load Safari on a page, you'd have to double-click, tap the home button, swipe, and launch the original app.
With iOS 9, you will now have a small piece of text in the upper left corner. Give it a tap, and it will immediately take you back to the app for your use. Combine this with an improved method for loading web pages within iOS apps-9s, and you'll see that Apple is slowly moving towards the merging of dedicated apps and the open web in one seamless experience.
iPad keyboard improvements
If you type a lot on your iPad, you're in for some big improvements. Selecting text is much easier to pull the shortcut bar at the top of the software keyboard allows for easy editing, and support for Bluetooth keyboards shortcuts is even better. Now you have no excuse not to write that novel you've been kicking around in your head.
Side-by-side multitasking
On newer iPads, various forms of side-by-side multitasking are now possible. Split view - effectively two iPad apps running side by side - is available on the iPad Pro, iPad 2 and iPad Mini Air 4. Slide then - a function as snap mode on the Xbox One - works with the iPad Pro, the original iPad Air (and higher), and the iPad Mini 2 (and higher). And as a nice bonus, picture-in-picture mode allows you to continue to watch videos while you surf. Older models have to get none of these advantages, but it is not particularly surprising. Frankly, I'm just surprised that the iPad 2 is supported at all.
App slimming
"Fat binaries" a legitimate neat concept. Instead of compiling developers and upload different versions of their applications for each device, all the different resources can be bundled into one application that works on all supported devices. Unfortunately, that also means that if more supported platforms, how to grow taller grading. And because Apple refuses to stop shipping devices with only 16GB of storage space, mass apps are a serious problem for the consumer.
Fortunately, iOS 9 now supports a suite of features called "app thinner." Only the assets necessary for the app on your device are stored locally run, and the cruft is cut. If you are running on a non-retina device like the iPad 2 or the first iPad Mini, you need some significant savings to see here.
And because developers can now choose to download dynamic or remove specific resources within the app, you will not always need a full installation when you use only a small part of what a app offers. It will probably take some time to see widespread adoption of this functionality, but it has plenty of space capabilities for games or versatile apps like GarageBand.
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