iPhone 4S owners are poised to become members of an elite class. Their
new phones boast an improved
camera, dual antennae and an unpaid personal intern named Siri — all relevant talking points in “Who's got the
real iPhone?” one-upsmanship battles.
Luckily,
though, even 4S have-nots can enjoy the benefits of iOS 5, one of the
new phone's best features. Released Wednesday, Apple's new mobile OS is a
no-brainer download (we gave it an enthusiastic 8 verdict). It's also
entirely free, and compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, the 3rd- and
4th-gen iPod touch media players, and iPad and iPad 2.
Downloaded the new OS? Good. The
blogosphere is teeming with iOS 5
feature guides, but aside from exposing Easter eggs hidden in Siri
voice recognition,
many sites are glossing over some of the OS's most hidden or novel new
features. Here we explore some of the more notable or quirky additions
to grace our iPhone and iPad interfaces.
At first glance, iOS 5 does nothing to address the
pain and embarrassment of auto-correction mistakes.
But go to your Settings menu, and navigate to General>Keyboard.
Scroll to the bottom, and you'll find a prompt to add a new
shortcut. Just type in the word or phrase that deserves a shortcut, and then plug in the shortcut itself.
Now,
for example, when you type in “fwiw,” iOS will provide an auto-correct
prompt for “for what it's worth.” It may not be a Twitter-friendly tool
that's compatible with character count requirements, but it can help
ease the pain of constantly miss-typing (or miss-tapping, rather) long
or vexing words.
And the fun doesn't end there. I see great
potential for mischief too: Grab your pal's iOS 5 device, and begin
entering shortcuts for common words like “hi” or “siri,” as in the
screenshot above. Hilarity abounds as your friend suspects his or her
iDevice is suffering demonic possession.
You're in a high-powered
business meeting. Your phone volume is mute because you don't want to offend the client. But you
really need to receive that critical
phone call from your pilates instructor
scheduling
a rain check. By assigning a unique vibration sequence to any contact,
you can leave your iPhone on the table and listen for the sweet euphony
of a customized “zizip, zizip” as your device resonates against the
table top.
Interested? Go to Contacts, choose a contact and tap
Edit. Navigate to Vibration>Create New Vibration. You'll be greeted
by the screen above. Simply tap out a new vibration rhythm, save it, and
prepare for near-stealth notifications of when special people are
trying to reach you.
We all have different preferences when it
comes to how we receive iOS notifications. Some people like audible
alerts, some like vibrating alerts, some like no alerts at all. But the
more flamboyant among us may prefer a new visual alert buried in the
Accessibility menu in General settings. Toggling on “LED Flash For
Alerts” will prompt your iPhone to trigger your camera's LED whenever you receive a message or email when the phone is set to silent mode.
This feature
offers great utility to anyone who can't hear, but we also see great
potential for multiplayer gamers who like to create a chilly-spooky vibe
in darkened rooms. Huzzah! says the flash. Your pizza has arrived!
Much
has been made about iOS 5's new text formatting options. You can select
a word or text string, and then make it bold, italic or underline.
That's well publicized. But check out all the other options that become
available when you hold down a selection of a word.
The Suggest
function provides a list of other words you may have preferred to type.
Quote Level either increases or decreases the number of vertical lines
that appear before text — helpful when you're annotating a threaded
conversation. But one of the niftiest options is Define, shown here,
which provides a tight (but surprisingly robust) dictionary entry for
the selection, complete with a definition, usage examples, and often
information on word derivatives and origin.
The new iOS includes a
number of key features that foster more private, secure use. In
Safari's settings menu (shown above), you can toggle on Private
Browsing. Once enabled, Safari will refrain from building a history of
your browser activity (hey, we all have something to hide).
Over
in the new Message app, which provides for seamless transitions between
traditional carrier-hosted text messaging and Apple-hosted iMessages,
you can define whether to allow Read Receipts, which notify your friends
when you've read their messages. So, if you want to continue the
charade of, “Oh, did you send me a message? Never saw it,” then head to
Settings>Messages, and turn Send Read Receipts to off.
Finally,
you can put an end to those awkward conversations that occur when you
leave your iPhone on the table, and someone reads the first few
sentences of one of your text messages or emails on the lock screen. Go
to Settings>Notifications and turn off Show Preview for both Messages
and Mail.
If you fear your iDevice is approaching the limits of
its storage capacity, head on over to Settings>General>Usage, and
start surveying your worst offenders. Clicking on an app name will
provide a bit more detail — specifically, the footprint of the document
and data files associated with the app. You'll also see a button to
delete the app entirely.
Views of alternate routes have always been available in the desktop version of
Google Maps,
and now they're finally available on iOS devices too. After defining
where you are and where you want to be, just tap Route 1, Route 2, etc.,
to toggle between Google's recommended directions.
Did I leave
out any hidden features that really blow your mind? Please comment
below, or tweet me with suggestions. I, meanwhile, will be parsing
through the 190-odd other new features released in iOS 5.
