iOS 5 Coming Soon

I had read about Apple's iOS 5 not too long ago and now it's already been released. Well don't go running to your iTunes and updating your phone that fast. Cause Apple had released the iOS 5 Beta (build 9A5220P) to developers of iOS Developer programmers. So unless you are one of those apps programmers, you won't be having it anytime soon. But let just run through the new features of the upcoming iOS 5. It seemed that they are 200+ new features bundled in the new update. Apple revealed the new iOS 5 features recently during their WWDC 2011 keynote. The main features would be the Notification Center, iMessage, Newstand, Reminders and Twitters integration to your iDevice. The new iOS 5 also enhanced the existing apps like the Camera, Photo Album, Safari, Mail and Calendar. And you know what's the coolest thing? You don't need a computer for the new iOS 5. 

Here are some of the features found by BGR on their test run of the new iOS 5.

• Preference to open pages in Safari in a new page or in background (amazing!).
• More alert choices for emails, calendar, and the ability to buy more.
• Ability to create keyboard shortcuts (autotext) to replace custom phrases. The default entry is “omw” which is replaced with, “On my way!”
• Software update option in settings to check for the latest OS.
• Sync now button to wireless sync to iTunes
• Ability to customize how notifications in Notification Center look — you can customize how many recent ones to show, 1, 5 or 10, if it’s showed in the lock screen, if it’s in Notification Center, and also the alert style, banner or alert style.
• Twitter installs directly from the settings page if it’s not installed directly, you aren’t even taken to the App Store.
• FaceTime button in iMessage messages at the top now
• Tweeting photos is, so so slick. It displays on Twitter as powered by Photobucket, and it’s from iOS.
• There’s a new option to print out from the Maps app… hilarious.
• You can make new albums right from the device itself in Photos.
• You can move and add photos to albums.
• Doesn’t look iMessage is fully baked in here yet.
• You can customize the default alert times. This is so needed — so now when you enter a calendar entry, you don’t have to set the default alert time you like — I’m a 15 minute calendar alert type of guy.
• You have to go into the message and tap “mark” for Email flagging.
• It seems that Reminders sync with Exchange (Tasks basically), but you can’t set location-based reminders if you’re on Exchange, just with iCloud. You can selectively choose where to sync the reminder though, it’s just not streamlined if you use Exchange.
• You can set the caller ID for FaceTime calls, so if you call someone, you can choose it to display your cellular number or email address.
• In the weather app, there is a new pane for a current location which will show you weather for wherever you are.

Some other features courtesy of FeedGoodChicken are:

• The iPod app on iPhone is split up into music and video like on iPod touch. 
• There are a few new accessibility options, some audio controls, such as fading left or right, and something about gestures in menus I'm not quite clear what it does yet. 
• You can actually see the amount of local storage taken up by specific apps, organized by size. 
• Also it may be worth mentioning that the Newsstand cannot be placed in a folder.

I am particularly interested in their Camera apps and here's some of the features about it.Lock Screen 

• Shortcut - When you double click the Home button, you will get a new Camera icon next to Slide to Unlock button, you can tap on it to launch the Camera app from the Lock screen. 
• You can access the Lock Screen shortcut to take new photos even if you have a passcode set, but you won’t be able to access the camera roll without entering the passcode. 
• Grid lines has been added as an option to help you align your photo. 
• Gets pinch-to-zoom gestures, which will make the zoom feature a lot more intuitive. 
• Single-tap focus and exposure locks to compose a picture on the fly. 
• You can use the volume-up button to take photos rather than the on-screen button.

Some other new features would be the ability to create an album in your phone picture album which is so needed and waited for so long. Yes, I do have a 3rd party software to do that but I believe an in-build feature from Apple would be more preferable. You are now able to do cropping and rotate your pictures which is really good. You can also remove red-eye effect finally from your phone. I know some of these features comes standard with some other smartphone, but we are glad that finally Apple do the same with theirs. Here are some of the pictures for the new features. 

And you can even Sync with other iOS devices through iCloud if your Photo Stream are Enabled. These updates isn't super cool but does give us some real neat update to play with. There are other enhancement like the Safari, Mail and Calendar but I am not so into that section for now since it's more towards iPad users. But you can check it out yourself online if you want to know more. Hopefully we will have it soon. I will say it will mostly be out within 2 months or so. Can't wait to test it out. 

On the side note, iOS 5 had been successfully Jailbroken by the Dev Team. haha! Although it's a tethered JB but it shows that it's possible to exploit the new iOS. You are also able to Sync to your PC WIRELESS. Yup, no more cables. iTunes 10.3 is out but you can't update it directly from your iTunes. You can download it from their website link or HERE.