Tech bytes for tea?

The new version of iOS for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch includes Notification Center, iMessage, Newsstand, Twitter integration among 200 New Features.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2011 today, Scott Forstall – Apple’s senior vice president of iOS – paraded 10 of the promised 200 new features for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Although customers will only be receiving the update in autumn, developers will get their version of iOS 5 today.

Main new iOS 5 features

Notification Center, a new way to easily view and manage notifications in one place without interruption.

iMessage, a new messaging service that lets users easily send text messages, photos and videos between all iOS devices.

Newsstand, a new way to purchase and organise a user’s newspaper and magazine subscriptions.

PC Free feature, iOS 5 users can activate and set up their iOS device right out of the box and get software updates over the air with no computer required.

“iOS 5 has some great new features, such as Notification Center, iMessage and Newsstand and we can’t wait to see what our developers do with its 1,500 new APIs,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Perhaps iOS 5’s paramount feature is that it’s built to seamlessly work with iCloud in the Post PC revolution that Apple is leading.”

The details

With iOS 5 and iCloud, you just enter your Apple ID and password and iCloud will seamlessly integrate with your apps to automatically and wirelessly keep all of your mail, contacts, calendars, photos, apps, books, music and more, up-to-date across all your devices without ever having to connect to a computer.

Notification Center provides iOS 5 users with an innovative way to easily access all notifications―text messages, missed calls, calendar alerts, app alerts and more, all in one place, from anywhere in iOS 5. When they arrive, notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen without interrupting what you’re doing. With one swipe you can see all your notifications, and a simple tap will take you right to its app for more detail. Notifications also appear on the lock screen, with the ability to be taken to the notifying app with just one swipe. This is similar to the consolidated notification alert bar and window on newer BlackBerry devices like the Torch.

Newsstand is an easy-to-organise bookshelf displaying the covers of all your newspaper and magazine subscriptions in one place. A new section of the App Store features just subscription titles, and allows users to quickly find the most popular newspapers and magazines in the world. For subscribed titles, new issues appear in the Newsstand and are updated automatically in the background so you always have the latest issue and the most recent cover art.

Safari sees new features for the browser in iOS 5. Safari Reader will strip down poorly formatted pages into an RSS-like view, and provides a link that allows you to e-mail the entire text of a story from within Safari. Reading List lets you save articles to read later and they automatically show up on all your iOS devices. Tabbed browsing is now available on the iPad making it easy to flip between multiple web pages on the tablet.

iOS 5 includes built-in Twitter integration, so you can sign in once and then tweet directly from all your Twitter-enabled apps, including Photos, Camera, Safari, YouTube and Maps with a single tap. New APIs give third party developers the ability to take advantage of the single sign-on capability for their own iOS 5 apps.

iMessage in iOS 5 brings the functionality of iPhone messaging to all of your iOS devices―iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Built right into the Messages app, iMessage allows you to easily send text messages, photos, videos or contact information to a person or a group on other iOS 5 devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. iMessages are automatically pushed to all your iOS 5 devices, making it easy to maintain one conversation across your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. iMessage also features delivery and read receipts, typing indication and secure end-to-end encryption.

The new Reminders app helps you manage your tasks; create and group related tasks together; and set time or location-based reminder alerts, priorities and due dates, so you can be reminded of a task as its deadline approaches, or when you arrive or depart a given location. Reminders can also be viewed in iCal and Outlook and are updated automatically.

New features in the Camera and Photos apps give you instant access to the camera right from the lock screen, and you can use the volume-up button to quickly snap a photo. Optional grid lines help line up your shot and a simple tap locks focus and exposure on one subject. The new Photos app lets you crop, rotate, enhance and remove red-eye, and organise your photos into albums right on your device to share them on the go.

With the new PC Free feature, iOS 5 users can activate and set up their iOS device right out of the box with no computer required, and iOS software updates are delivered over the air and installed with just a tap. Wi-Fi Sync in iOS 5 transfers and backs up your content securely over SSL and wirelessly syncs purchased content from your device to your iTunes library.

Additional new features in iOS 5

• Game Center, now with the ability to add photos to your profile, purchase new games from within the Game Center app and easier ways to find friends and new games.

• Mail enhancements which include the ability to compose messages using draggable addresses, and a new formatting bar with bold, italics, underline and indention controls; and

• a system-wide split keyboard to make it even easier to type on your iPad.

Availability

The iOS 5 beta software and SDK are available immediately for iOS Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iOS 5 will be available as a free software update for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch (fourth generation) and iPod touch (third generation) this autumn. Some features may not be available on all products.