As we head towards WWDC 2014 we thought it would be fun to look back at Apple World Wide Developer Conferences past, what they introduced, and what impact they made. Today let's take a look at WWDC 2012, where Apple took the wraps off of Mountain Lion, iOS 6 and new MacBook models...

While WWDC 2011 had been something of a disappointment for hardware mavens, 2012 roared back with a vengeance. It was at that show that Apple introduced the first MacBook Pros equipped with Retina displays. The new MacBook Pros were a revelation, mixing the best of the MacBook Air — flash storage, thinness and lightness — with the power of a MacBook Pro, all mated to the highest-resolution display ever seen in laptop history.

Speaking of the MacBook Air, that also got a makeover in time for WWDC. Ivy Bridge processors made the cut for the new generation of MacBook Airs, with 4 GB RAM as a bare minimum and SSDs up to 512 GB, giving more RAM and more storage than before. USB 3.0, a higher-resolution FaceTime camera, and other features made the lightweight laptops ideal for road warriors looking to shave a couple of pounds off their backpacks and messenger bags. The "old" MacBook Pro wasn't ready to go in the dustbin yet, either. Apple also updated that device with faster processors, better graphics chips and more.

Apple also took the wraps off of OS X Mountain Lion, the last of its "big cat"-themed operating systems. Interoperability between iOS and OS X had become a key issue for Apple product owners and Apple was anxious to reduce the pain points therein. Apple also replaced the long-in-the-tooth "iChat" messaging service with the rebranded "Messages" app, instead. And Notification Center, up until then an iOS feature, found its way to OS X for the first time.

Other features included support for AirPlay mirroring on an Apple TV, Power Nap (to enable Macs to update even while in sleep mode), improved social media integration and more.

iOS 6 was also introduced at the show. Apple ditched Google Maps - until then the service it had integrated into its Maps app - with other data, a move that would initially prove disastrous as people got wrong directions, map data was rendered incorrectly and more. Passbook promised easier transactions using your iPhone. Facebook integration was improved and Siri saw a makeover too.

Give it a watch and let me know — what do you think of WWDC 2012 and what, if anything, does it make you hope for at WWDC 2014?

While pretty much every other iOS device released since 2010 is getting iOS 7.0.4, the not-qualified iPod touch 4 is getting the same FaceTime call bug fix but in retro iOS 6.1.5 form (2010 original iPad had not camera, so no FaceTime).

And no, even if iOS 7 still hasn't won you over, you can't jam this update onto your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch 5. Sorry.

You can grab it by going to General > Settings > Software Update on your 4th generation iPod touch, or by hooking up to iTunes over USB and hitting check for updates in iTunes. Let me know how it works for you!

Since the dawn of time, BlackBerry smartphones have been the mobile communicator of choice for the United States federal government. The federal National Institute of Standards and Technology has been approving hardware and software to meet the FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) since 1995, and today iOS 6.0 was granted FIPS 140-2 certification. Specifically, the iOS CryptoCore Kernel Module 3.0 was assured to to meet the security requirements of the government.

Now having FIPS certification means that both the iPhone and iPad can be used in federal agency applications and as well as in private enterprises that access those networks. It's worth noting that FIPS certification doesn't apply to the military - the Defense Information Systems Agency is working to certify iOS 6.0 on their own security standards. Though it is likely that iOS 6.0 will get that approval soon.

The slowness in getting BlackBerry 10 to market proved to be detrimental to their previously all-but-guaranteed business with government agencies. With Apple and Samsung having already conquered the consumer market, they've turned their attentions towards lucrative government contract business. While BlackBerry 10 has had FIPS certification for a while and recently received Department of Defense DISA approval, they're already looking at competition from the approval of Samsung's Knox software just a few days ago. iOS 6.0 reportedly isn't far behind.

Personally, I've been a member of the Ohio Army National Guard for nearly a decade, and during that time has witnessed mounting frustration with the aging fleet of BlackBerry devices currently deployed and the back-end services supporting them. Demand for modern handsets - specifically those running Android or iOS - has been running high for some time from the employees of the DoD. It's only going to be a matter of time before they start finding their way into the hands of federal government employees across America.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology

Whether you've got a new iPhone 5 and have been waiting patiently to get your jailbreak on or you've been waiting to update your older iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch for a working iOS 6 jailbreak, the wait is now over. The evasi0n jailbreak for iOS 6 and iOS 6.1 is now live and ready.

The evasi0n jailbreak supports all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models running iOS 6 through iOS 6.1. Yep, you heard that right. That means if you've got an iPhone 5 or iPad mini, you too can jailbreak.

evasi0n supports an untethered jailbreak which means you won't have to plug in your device each and every time you need to reboot. To download the evasi0n jailbreak program, hit the source link below.

Whether you have questions about whether or not you should jailbreak or run into issues during the process, our jailbreak and unlock forums are a great place to start. Also make sure you check out the helpful links to guides and resources below, especially if you're new to jailbreak.

If you've run the process, let us know what your results were either in our forums or in the comments below!

Source: evasi0n.com

Additional resources:

• How to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on iOS 6.0 or 6.1 with evasi0n
• Jailbreak basis: Everything you need to know
• Top 5 must have jailbreak apps
• Jailbreak terms A - Z
• Best jailbreak apps for iPhone
• Even more jailbreak tips and tricks

Apple released iOS 6.1 to the public yesterday which includes the ability to buy movie tickets with Siri, better LTE support, and more. Since the introduction of iOS 5, Apple has allowed us to update our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches over-the-air instead of having to plug into iTunes.

Normally your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will alert you when an update is ready, but if it hasn't, we can walk you through how to manually trigger the over-the-air update.

Note: Apple requires your battery to be at 50% or better in order to install a software update over-the-air without being plugged into a charger.

1. Make sure you have your iCloud password on hand. This update is different from previous ones and will ask you to provide your iCloud password upon completing the update. Make sure you have and know that before proceeding any further.
2. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
3. Tap on General.
4. Now tap on Software update.
5. Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will check to see if there's an update available.
6. You'll either have the option to Download and Install or Install Now if you're device has already downloaded the software. Tap on it.
7. You may be prompted to plug your device in to save battery. Just tap Continue.
8. Let your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch do its thing. It'll reboot and once it does, you should now be on the newest software version.

iOS 6 brings a couple of new options to the built-in Phone app, including the ability to Respond with Message to incoming calls. Basically, if a call comes in and you can't answering right then and there, with a swipe and a couple of taps, you can quickly send an iMessage or SMS instead of answering. It's a great feature for when you're busy or in a meeting and want to let someone know you will contact them later.

1. When you receive an incoming call you'll see the addition of a telephone icon to the right of slight to answer. Slide it upwards.

2. You'll now see some more options appear. Tap the Reply with Message option.

3. At this point the call will be declined and you'll see some options for pre-made messages you can send or you can choose custom to create your own.

4. Tap the message you want and you're done. The caller will be notified via text message.

iOS 6 brings some welcome new features to the Phone app, including Remind me Later, which lets you safely avoid answering calls when it's inconvenient without having to worry you'll forget to return them later. As the name implies, Remind me Later ties the Phone app straight into the Reminders app, so it's really quick to use. Like the new, quick text-message replies, Remind me Later is accessible right from the Lock screen, and is only a swipe away.

How to set a location based alert with Remind me Later

1. When a call comes in, tap and hold the phone icon to the right of Slide to Answer control, and slide it upwards to reveal the new options panel.

2. Tap the Remind Me Later option.

3. Tap one of the location-based options, When I Leave, When I get Home, or When I get to Work.

4. If you haven't used location-based alerts before, you might get a popup requesting access to your location. Give your permission, or the alert can't work.

How to set a time-based alert using Remind me Later

1. When a call comes in, tap and hold the phone icon to the right of Slide to Answer control, and slide it upwards to reveal the new options panel.

2. Tap the Remind Me Later option.

3. Tap In 1 Hour.

iOS will now set an alarm and when one hour has passed, your alert will go off, reminding you to return the missed call.

Do not Disturb mode

iOS 6 also comes with a new Do not Disturb mode. If you're in a situation where you don't want to be bothered by calls for an extended period of time, don't want to have to dismiss them all manual, and don't care about being reminded to return them beyond the usual missed call notifications, Do not Disturb can be the better choice.

• http://www.imore.com/how-enable-do-not-disturb-notification-center-iphone-and-ipad

Good news, iOS 6.0.1 has been released! It promises fixes for a bunch of annoying bugs, but if you're brand new to the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you might be wandering how you can get it? iOS will popup an alert to tell you iOS 6.0.1 is available, but if you miss it, or you simply don't want to wait, you can start the update process manually as well.

iPhone 5 users only

Before updating to iOS 6.0.1, you'll be asked to install the iPhone 5 Updater which fixes a bug that prevents iPhone 5 users from being able to update over-the-air. If you are updating a device other than the iPhone 5, you can skip this section and continue on to the next one.

1. Go to Settings on your iPhone 5.
2. Tap on General and then Software Update.
3. You'll be asked to install iPhone 5 Updater. Tap on Learn More.

4. Now tap on Download and Install.

5. A popup will come up asking you to confirm the install. Tap Install.

6. Once the install is complete you can go ahead and move on to the next section.

How to manually update to iOS 6.0.1

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Software Update.
4. Tap Download and Install

5. Agree to the Terms and Conditions
6. Watch the progress bar (This part depends on the speed and quality of connection. Don't be alarmed if it takes a long time, speeds up or slows down, or appears to jump around -- be patient.)

7. Once it's finished downloading, you'll be prompted to instal (and restart) your device. If you don't explicitly hit Later or Install within a few seconds, it will install on your behalf.
8. Apple will verify the install.

You're done! Once your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch reboots you should now be on iOS 6.0.1.

Since the release of iOS 6, our forums and tip lines have been buzzing with issues relating specifically to iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match. Issues seem to range from iTunes Match expiration notices, sync issues with ringtones and text tones via iTunes, and slow performance when it comes to streaming music.

iTunes Match issues

• iTunes Match sending out expiration notices to iOS devices even though their computer still says the subscription is valid. I've personally been experiencing this issue myself. Devices running iOS 5 seem to not have the issue. While my iPhone 5 will not load iTunes Match and tells me it's expired, my iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1.1 works flawlessly with Match. After quite a bit of time on the phone with Apple, they still weren't able to pinpoint the issue.
• iTunes Match streaming slowly or many users experiencing a lot of lag when switching between songs.
• Album artwork missing or not showing up on certain albums, even purchased from iTunes content.

iTunes specific issues

• Syncs hanging up on Waiting on items to copy or Waiting for sync to start. We've had many users experiencing this issue, perhaps even before iOS 6. We aren't exactly sure what's causing the issue, but if you're experiencing it, let us know.
• iTunes removing ringtones and text tones from devices and not syncing them back. This is another one I've personally experienced and have found many others in the same boat not only in our own forums but in Apple's support forums as well. Once iTunes removes the text tones and ringtones they don't seem to want to sync back over. The only way I've found to deal with the issue is to restore my iPhone as new and restore from an iCloud backup that contains the ringtones and text tones iTunes deleted.

We're going to start trouble-shooting them in the forums, so head on over and either start a thread with your specific issue or, if a thread already exists, add what you're seeing into it. We'll keep track of the problems and start sharing solutions. Pick a forum below, add you post, and lets crush this.

• iTunes & iTunes Store forum
• iOS 6 forum
• iCloud forum

iOS 6 brings with it granular privacy controls so you can now fine tune exactly what built-in and App Store apps can access your location and share it on a pre-app basis. If you prefer not to have any apps accessing your location, you can disable location services altogether. If you don't want your favorite Twitter app to locate you, you can turn it off while still allowing your Weather app or the Camera access.

How to grant or deny location access the first time you launch an app

Apps have to ask you to use your location the first time you use them. If you would like the app to have access to your location, choose the OK button. If you don't want the app to use your location at anytime, tap the Don't Allow button.

If you ever need to change these settings you can do so easily.

How to enable or disable location services altogether

When you first set up iOS 6 or a new iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you'll be asked if you want to globally enable location services. You almost always want to do that, otherwise things like Maps or turn-by-turn navigation could never work, local time and weather wouldn't function, and other services would have to be set up manually or simply not used. If for some reason you later decide you want to turn off any and all access to location, you can do so at any time.

1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

2. Tap the Privacy tab.

3. Tap Location Services.

4. At the top there is a tick box for Location Services. Toggle it to the Off position.

Now no app or system service will be able to use your location.

How to enable or disable location services on a per-app basis

It's almost always a better idea to leave global location on and disable any apps or services you don't want to have that access. The new iOS 6 Privacy controls let you do just that on a per-app and per-service basis.

1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

2. Tap the Privacy tab.

3. Tap Location Services.

4. Toggle the On/Off slider to the Off position for any apps or services you want to keep from accessing your location.

That's it. And if you change your mind, or you find a specific service won't work without access -- for example, Instagram won't work without access to location due to geo-coded information in your photos -- you can always return to the Privacy controls and turn the appropriate app or service back on.

One of iOS 6's hidden gems is the ability to use a song from your music library as an alarm to wake you up. Before iOS 6 was released, you could only use ringtones or one of the default alarm tones as your wakeup call, which was less than thrilling, but now you can set anything in the Music app to jolt you up out of bed. Progress!

1. Launch the Clock app on the home screen

2. Tap the Alarms tab

3. Tap the + sign to create a new alarm
4. Select the time for your alarm

5. Tap on Sound

6. Tap on Pick a song and all of your songs on your iPhone will be available to choose from

7. Tap on your selected tune
8. It will start to play so hit Back to stop it
9. Tap on Save

That’s it, you’re are all set! When your alarm goes off in the morning it will no longer play that awful tone but now it will play your selected song instead.

So the question is, now that you can set a song as an alarm, which song will you use?

iOS 6 brings a lot of new features with it, including granular Privacy controls in Settings. Given previous controversies surrounding apps accessing your contacts, it's important to make sure that only apps you specifically allow have access to your contacts, and only for as long as you allow it. With Privacy, you can grant and revoke permission to access your contacts at any time.

How to grant an app access to your contacts

If an app is requesting to access your contacts, it'll normally present you with a pop-up. Some apps legitimately require access to your contacts to function properly. For example, Skype needs to access your contacts to place calls to the people on your contact list. If you deny access, you may find a time later on that you need to grant it. Y

1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on Privacy.

3. Tap Contacts.

4. Find the app that you'd like to be able to have access to your Contacts app. Tap the slider next to the app name to the On position.

How to restrict an app's access to your contacts

If you accidentally granted an app access to your contacts or decide later on that you don't want that app to have access, you can easily disable it as well.

1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Find the Privacy section and tap into it.

3. Tap into Contacts.

4. Find the app that you'd like to revoke access to your Contacts app from. Tap the slider next to the app name to the Off position.

That's all there is to it. You now have very good, very granular control over your contacts and the private information contained therein.

UPDATE: iOS 7, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c have shipped, so we've made a new version of this article:

• How to fix battery life issues with iOS 6 or iPhone 5s or iPhone 5c

Every time Apple releases a new version of iOS or a new iPhone, it seems battery life becomes an issue. On the positive side, that also means we're getting really good at troubleshooting it and helping everyone get back to good battery life. If your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad on iOS 6 suddenly losing charge far too fast, or if your brand new iPhone 5 is draining before your eyes, here are some things you can try.

First: Are you using it more?

The first thing you need to do is make sure you simply aren't using your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad more than you used to. I know it sounds silly, but when you have new features like Flyover or turn-by-turn navigation to play with, or when you have a brand new iPhone you just can't put down, your battery might be draining because you're using it a lot more. With iOS 6 there are more notifications, location features, and other battery consuming features than ever before, and the iPhone 5 has a bigger screen and an LTE radio to really put the drain on.

Before you do anything drastic, put your device down for a minute make sure you're not the battery drain cause, because that's the easier thing to fix.

Second: Is there a problem with the OS or the device?

If, in general, your battery life is consistently short and you're basically just watching the indicator drain down before your eyes, here are some things to try, in order of how easy they are to do.

• Restart/reset your device. If you haven't rebooted in a while, give it a try. There could be a rogue process or something else doing what it shouldn't be doing, and a restart can often fix that. (Here's how to reboot](/2010/12/17/beginner-tip-power-reset-ios-device-hit-problem))
• Power cycle. About once a month, and certainly if you're having problems, you should completely drain your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad's battery -- drain it until it shuts down on its own -- and then charge it back up to full.
• Restore your device as new. The single biggest cause of battery life problems with iOS devices occurs when they are restored from backup and not set up as new devices. Whether it's cruft or corruption, a clean install as a new device -- incredible pain in the butt though it may be -- is usually the best fix for any battery life issues. This is the nuclear option. You will have to set up absolutely everything again, and you will lose all your saved data like game levels, but in most cases your battery life will be better than ever. (Here's how]
• Check your cell signal. If you're in an area of weak signal, or at the edge of LTE or 3G support, your iPhone's radio could be screaming away on full power just trying to stay on the network, or switching between connection types, and wasting a lot of power. If you have bad reception, consider a micro-cell at home or at work. If you're at the edge of LTE, turn it off in Settings and stick with 3G until you get to a place with better coverage.
• Go to the Apple Store. Sometimes you do get a lemon, or your iPhone or iPad develops a real problem that only Apple can solve by either swapping it for another device or otherwise figuring out a fix.

Third: Are you plugging it in?

Like our friend Phil Nickinson from Android Central always says, don't be ashamed to plug in your device! If you're using your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad a lot, plug it in to recharge whenever you can. At home, at work, in the car, there are plenty of opportunities to top up your battery.

Sure, it's a bit trickier with the iPhone 5, since it uses the new Lightning connector and that means you need new cables, and/or you old cables need pricy new adapters, but if you work on the road or in an office, the price is easily worth it.

Fourth: Have you turned off what you aren't using?

Anything running on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad uses up the battery. So if you've tried everything else and it turns out you're just using your device more than the battery will allow for the length of time you need to use it, you'll need to make some hard choices. You'll need to stop using some of the features you don't really need in order to keep using the ones you do. The more you turn off, the longer your batter will last -- but of course the less you'll be able to do. It's a balancing act but one that can help you squeeze out a little extra juice when you really need it.

• Turn off Siri's Raise to Speak. Go to Settings, General, Siri. Readers keep telling us this has helped them with battery life due to accelerometer issues.
• Turn off Location Services. Go to Settings, Privacy, Location Services, and turn off any app you really don't need tracking or using your location.
• Turn off Push Notifications. Likewise, go to Settings, Notifications, and turn off any app you don't care to be alerted about.
• Turn of Notification Center widgets. Stocks, and particularly weather in Notification Center seem to be causing our readers some battery grief. Since weather can be location-based now, the potential is there for more battery abuse.
• Kill power hungry apps. Double-click the Home Button to activate the multitasking dock, hold your finger on an app to enter "jiggly" mode, and kill any apps that might be running in the background, especially VoIP (like Skype), streaming audio (like Pandora), or navigation (like TomTom). (Here's how)

Here are some old standbys as well:

• Set Auto-Lock to 1 minute
• Turn off any extra sounds, like keyboard clicks
• Turn off the iPod EQ
• Use headphones instead of the speaker if you have to listen to audio or music
• Turn down the screen brightness
• Turn off Bluetooth when not using it
• Turn off Wi-Fi when not using it
• Turn off LTE when not using it
• Turn off cellular app and media downloads.
• Set all email, calendar, and contacts accounts to "Fetch" (turn off Push)

Bonus tip: If you're really desperate, put your iPhone or iPad in Airplane Mode and save the radios for when you need them. If you're really desperate, you can also turn your device completely off until you need it (it will still use a tiny amount of power but far, far less than anything else).

How to get more help with your iOS 6 or iPhone 5 battery life

Be sure to let us know how what you're seeing with your iPhone 5 and iOS 6 battery life, and if any of these tips, or any other tips, help you improve it, make sure to tell us!

• iPhone 5 Forum battery life thread
• iOS 6 Forum battery life thread

With iOS 6 Apple has rebuilt the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad Maps app from the ground-up. They've also switched away from exclusively using Google data to using data from TomTom and others. However, like any new endeavor there will be problems, frustrations, and straight up errors and omissions that need to be fixed. In iOS 6 Maps, Apple has provided a way to do just that.

How to report a problem with iOS 6 Maps

• Launch Maps from the Home screen.
• Tap the page curl at the bottom right.
• Tap the text that says Report a Problem above the Print button, middle right.
• Tap the type of problem you want to report: Search results are incorrect, street or other label is incorrect, location is missing, problem with directions, problem with satellite image, or if none of those fit, my problem isn't listed.
• Tap Next.
• Choose the search result, street label, etc. that's giving you the problem.
• Tap Next.
• Add any comments, if asked.
• Tap Send.

That's it. Your report will be sent to Apple, and hopefully addressed in the mapping data base.

How to add a location or business to iOS 6 Maps

If an important location is missing in iOS 6 Maps you can use the same process to suggest it.

• Launch Maps from the Home screen.
• Tap the page curl at the bottom right.
• Tap the text that says Report a Problem above the Print button, middle right.
• Tap location is missing.
• Tap Next.
• Drag the purple pin to the right location on the map.
• Enter the location information.
• Tap Send.
• Add any comments, if asked.

Apple will receive your suggested location, and if it meets their criteria, add it to the data base.

Don't forget, iOS 6 Maps ties into Yelp, so you can also add your location or business to Yelp, and that will give Apple access to that data as well.

Why reporting problems matters

This is basic crowd-sourcing at work. With hundreds of millions of iOS users hammering at the new Maps app, Apple and their partners will have a tremendous opportunity to iterate and improve quickly. And they'll need to.

• iOS 6 review and feature guide
• iCloud: The ultimate guide
• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Photography: The ultimate guide
• More guides and how-tos
• iOS 6 help forum

The iPad is a fantastic, big screen devices with a great web browser and amazing games, and anyone who sees it is likely going to want to borrow it to use or just to try out. If you need to lend your iPad, however, all your personal content, messages, email, etc. get lent out with it. And that cause problems because unlike traditional computers, the iPad doesn't support multiple accounts, or even a restricted "Guest User" mode.

But with iOS 6, you can use the brand new Guided Access mode (or single-app mode) to simulate it.

If you've ever wished your iPad -- or iPhone or iPod touch -- or be locked down into Safari web browsing only, or that you could let someone run a presentation or try a new game without snooping through your personal business, now you can.

How to turn on Guided Access

1. Launch Settings.
2. Tap General.
3. Scroll down and tap Accessibility.

4. Scroll down and tap Guided Access.

5. Toggle Guided Access to On.

6. Set a Passcode you'll remember.

If you don't set a Passcode immediately, iOS will have you set one the first time you use Guided Access.

How to use Guided Access to simulate "Guest User" mode.

1. Launch any app you want to share.
2. Triple-click the hardware Home button.
3. Tap Guided Access on the popup menu.

4. Configure any specific options you might like.

5. Tap Start

The Home button will automatically be disabled so no one will be able to press it to exit the app you give them and go poking around your device. You can also use your finger to trace a circle around any additional controls you want to disable (for example, you can trace around bookmarks to prevent someone accessing your personal bookmarks).

How to exit Guided Access and your simulated "Guest user" mode

1. Triple-click the hardware Home button.
2. Enter your Passcode.
3. Tap the **End button* at the top left.

Bug note: iOS 6 Guide Access on the iPad currently has a bug that causes disabled controls to re-enable when the device is rotated from portrait to landscape or vice versa. However, you can go into Settings and make orientation lock accessible only in the fast app switcher (and not the hardware switch on the side), thereby preventing that bug from occurring. Hopefully Apple fixes this in the next update.

So that's it, with iOS 6 and Guided Access you've now created a faux-"Guest User" mode for your iPad (or iPod touch or iPhone) and can rest easier if someone wants to borrow it, at work, at school, or at Home.

• iOS 6 review and feature guide
• iCloud: The ultimate guide
• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Photography: The ultimate guide
• More guides and how-tos
• iOS 6 help forum

If you're a jailbreaker trying to weigh the benefits of updating to iOS 6 versus staying on iOS 5.1.1 and keeping your jailbreak, we can help you make that decision. Do the features of iOS 6 bring enough to the table to make you hang up your jailbreak, at least for now?

While it'll come down to personal preference and what functionality you just can't live without, follow along and we'll give you a rundown of your options.

Jailbreak and iOS 6

While it is already possible to jailbreak iOS 6 if you've got an A4 device (iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th gen users), it's meant to be a developer build and should only be used as such unless you desperately need to update and jailbreak.

It'll be a tethered jailbreak and it won't come with Cydia. You'll have to manually install it. It's also not compatible with many devices yet. If you've got an iPhone 4 or 4th generation iPod touch, you can check out our how to and weigh out your options.

As with any major iOS update, iOS 6 may render a lot of jailbreak applications useless or buggy until they're updated to support it. So keep in mind even if you decide to update and jailbreak, many of your favorite apps may not even work.

• How to tethered jailbreak iOS 6 and install Cydia

Should you update to iOS 6

iOS 6 brings with it a ton of new features that may outweigh the reasons you currently jailbreak. If you heavily rely on apps such as LockInfo or IntelliscreenX, you may want to hold off. The same goes for your favorite quick reply messaging apps. iOS 6 still has not integrated a quick reply feature so if that's on your must have list, iOS 5 is where you'll want to stay for now.

Again, carefully weigh out what features iOS 6 brings with what you depend on daily with your jailbreak under iOS 5 before making the jump. If you need help deciding, check out our comprehensive guide to everything iOS 6.

• iOS 6 review

iPhone 5 and jailbreak

Considering the iPhone 5 will run on Apple's new A6 chipset, it'll create a new set of hurdles that jailbreak developers will have to tackle. If you plan on picking up Apple's latest and greatest device, you'll most likely have a while to wait before a jailbreak will be compatible.

The iPhone 5 will come with iOS 6 stock and you'll have to stay that way for as long as it takes the jailbreak community to release a tool that supports it.

Older iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models

Unless you've got an iPhone 4 or an iPod touch 4th gen, there's currently no option when it comes to jailbreaking the official release of iOS 6. If you're still on iOS 5.1.1 you're better off staying there if losing your jailbreak is out of the question.

The bottom line

iOS 6 is a pretty large update and whether or not you should update is your decision. It'll take a while for jailbreak developers to update their apps with iOS 6 support and many of them will not work in their current state. Consider this before making your final decision.

As for our recommendation? If you're on iOS 5.1.1 and jailbreak is super important to you, stay where you're at for now. If you're jailbroken but don't take advantage of too many tweaks and hacks and can part with it for a while, update to iOS 6. You won't be disappointed.

iOS 6 is a software update divided against itself. Apple claims over 200 new user-facing features, which is the same if not more than previous versions of iOS. Many of these are good and solid, reducing the friction and increasing the functionality of iOS, and delightfully so. But a lot of it them are also about Apple and the future of their platform.

In that regard, iOS 6 is nowhere near as audacious as iOS 2, which brought the App Store, or iOS 5, which cut the iTunes cord, took us to the iCloud, and brought Siri along for the ride. It doesn't remove user and developer pain points the way iOS 3 did with cut/copy/paste or iOS 4 did with multitasking. iOS 6 is more of a soft-reset and a way to set the stage for iterations to come. It strips Google almost completely out of iOS and introduces an all-new Maps app and increased Siri intermediation. It introduces Passbook, which isn't a digital wallet, but does provide a single repository for tickets and balances, and starts to make mobile transactions convenient and comfortable. It abstracts and outsources sharing with new Facebook and enhanced Twitter integration, so Apple no longer has to worry about creating awkward new networks of their own. And it increases support for China, which has become a hugely important market for Apple.

But if iOS 6 is about Apple and the future, what does that mean for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users today? Is there still enough here, individually and in sum, to make it a compelling and competitive update?

Let's find out...

iOS 6 in 6 minutes

If you don't have time to read all the words below, but you still want to see all the highlights -- Maps, Siri extensions, Passbook, Guided Access, Shared Photo Streams, and more -- then here's everything you need to know about iOS 6 in just 6 minutes.

iOS 6 preamble

Before we get to the good stuff, and break down all the features of iOS 6 from iCloud and Lock screen, and app by app in the order in which they appear on the iPhone 5 Home screen, there's some house keeping to get out of the way first.

iOS 6 is the latest in a series of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad updates going back to the original iPhone OS released in June of 2007. Rather than cover previously released features again, you can find full reviews for earlier versions here:

• iOS 5.1 for iPhone and iPad
• iOS 5 for iPhone and iPad
• iOS 4.3 for iPhone, iPad
• iOS 4.2 for iPhone | iOS 4.2 for iPad
• iOS 4.1 for iPhone
• iOS 4 for iPhone
• iOS 3.2 for iPad
• iOS 3.1 for iPhone
• iOS 3.0 for iPhone
• iPhone 2.2 for iPhone
• iPhone 2.1 for iPhone
• iPhone 2.0 for iPhone

iOS 6 is available as an over-the-air (OTA) update right on your iOS device, or as a tethered update over USB Dock cable via iTunes on the desktop. OTA is typically faster as it updates in place. iTunes, however, allows for a clean install if you worry about a bad backup restore causing battery life or other issues.

• How to update to iOS 6 with OTA Software Update
• How to update to iOS 6 with iTunes

iOS 6 is compatible with the following iOS devices. Not all features are available for all devices, especially older devices, but they'll all be able to run iOS 6 apps (binary compatible) which is a huge advantage going forward.

• iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS
• iPad 3, iPad 2
• iPod touch 5, iPod touch 4

Not all iOS 6 features are available in all countries or regions. For example, standard maps are available in 177 countries as of this writing, while Siri movie showtimes are only available in 3. Some features will be added to additional regions in October, while it's likely data availability and partnership deals will mean longer waits for many others. Apple provides the following feature-by-feature, region-by-region availability breakdown:

• iOS 6 feature availability

iCloud

Alongside iOS 5, Apple introduced iCloud to not only cut the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad computer cord, but take iTunes into the cloud. With PC-free set up, back up, and restore features, mail, contacts, and calendar sync, iTunes in the Cloud for apps, books, music, movies, and TV shows, Documents in the Cloud, Photo Stream, Find my iPhone, and Find my Friends, Apple in large part succeeded. Some of it was slow, some of it was rocky, and some of it still has occasional outages, but for the most part it works.

Recently Apple expanded deep iCloud integration to the Mac with OS X Mountain Lion and the forthcoming iTunes 11. They also added Notes, Reminders, and banner-style notifications to the iCloud.com website.

Bringing all that feature parity to the rest of the ecosystem means there's not much new to iOS this year.

You do get the ability to set up iMessage and FaceTime as part of the new device set up process on all devices, and to enable Siri not just on the iPhone, but all compatible devices. iCloud will also sync your custom dictionaries, and your Safari tabs across devices (see Safari, below).

The biggest new feature, however, is Shared Photo Stream. (See the Photos sections, below.)

• iCloud: The ultimate guide

Siri

Siri, the natural language interface that serves as Apple's virtual personal assistant, was introduced with iOS 5 as an exclusive feature for the then-new iPhone 4S. With iOS 6, Apple is increasing support to the iPad 3 (which only had Dictation at launch) and the new iPod touch 5 and iPhone 5. Apple is also increasing language support to include Canadian (English/French), Spanish (Spain/Mexico/US), Italian, Swiss (German/French/Italian), Korean, Mandarin (Mainland China/Taiwan), Cantonese (Hong Kong/Mainland China)

In addition, Apple has expanded Siri's feature set to provide sports information, restaurant reservations, movie listings, social sharing, and app launching. There's also a driving mode called Eyes Free.

At the time of this review, Apple stated that they were working with select car manufacturers to integrated Siri Eyes Free with on-board voice control systems, which would allow drivers to easy initiate Siri, ask questions or give instructions, and results back without the screen turning. Since I wasn't able to test it, I'll update this section when it Eyes Free becomes more widely available.

All the other features worked as promised. Indeed, a lot of them live completely inside Siri, as though it's the beginning of a new OS all unto itself. When it does hand off to built-in apps like Maps, Safari, or Phone, there isn't even the usual multitasking carousel animation. You're just there. (Getting back is another story -- you still have to re-activate Siri and repeat your query.) Now you can also be taken to third-party App Store apps like Yelp and Open Table as well (and those do carousel.)

That's an interesting twist. Apple knows that for end users, the interface is the app, and the more they can do with Siri, the less people will default back to Google. That means we get better natural language search, and Apple gets to intermediate data away from Google and broker it to select, best of breed providers like Yelp and Open Table.

But only if Siri works. Technically, Apple still lists Siri as being in beta, but their commercials haven't reflected the reality of many users, and indeed set false expectations that might have done more harm than good. Over the course of the last year, the Siri servers kept going down, results took forever to load, and in general, the experience was bad enough that some people simply stopped using it. Siri in iOS 6 still isn't perfect, but it's been much better for me than it ever was before. I use it constantly to hear and reply to texts while travelling, to quickly get information about movies or book tables at restaurants, and even to dictate portions of articles like this ones while on the go.

If Apple can nail reliability and win back confidence -- a big if -- Siri and natural language interfaces could be a big part of their future.

In the meantime, it would be nice if Apple let you access the Siri back end via Spotlight. If voice isn't working, or you're someplace where voice would be rude or inappropriate, being able to quickly type a query and get back the same quality of response would be valuable.

• Siri: The ultimate guide

Siri now knows sports. Or at least, Siri knows quite a few sports, in quite a few places around the world. Those mainly consist of the most popular sports in the most popular markets, like MLB, NBA, and NFL for the U.S. and soccer/football for Europe. If you prefer CFL in Canada, cricket in India, or even NASCAR or the UFC in the U.S., there's nothing for you yet, but it's easy to see Apple adding more sports and leagues in the future.

Here's what's available now.

• Soccer: Italian Seria A, English Premier League, Dutch Eredivisie, Major League Soccer, French Ligue 1, Spanish La Liga, and German Bundesliga
• Baseball: Major League Baseball
• Football: NCAA Football, NFL
• Basketball: NCAA Basketball, NBA, WNBA
• Hockey: NHL

You can ask questions like:

• "What was the score of the last Buffalo Bills game?" and get a new scoreboard widget showing the results.
• "What are the Italian Seria A standings?" and get a scrollable widget with up-to-date team standings.
• "When is the Montreal Canadians first game of the season?" and get a new schedule widgets giving you the data and time for the appropriate game.
• "Who's on the New York Yankee's roster?" and get a list of all the players.
• "Who scored the most points in the NBA last season, Labron or Kobe?" and get a comparative answer showing each players stats card.

The sports information comes from Yahoo! but is presented by Apple in clean, Siri-style widget form with well designed sports themes. That should make them a surefire hit for those who want to keep up with games while on the go, or just win bar bets in impressive fashion.

Siri in iOS 6 can not only find a place to eat or drink, but make sure you have a table waiting for you when you get there. While ostensibly, you can ask Siri to make a reservation at a specific restaurant for a specific time and place, in my experience the system has trouble handling non-English names (or names in languages other than the one currently selected in Settings). Since most large metropolitan areas will have a mix of European and Asian restaurant names at the very least, that's a problem.

What works better is just asking for a reservation at a specific time, and then choosing a restaurant from the list Siri returns. To help you choose, Apple has partnered with Yelp! to provide the following information:

• Type of food: Asian, vegetarian, American, etc.
• Price: Average cost of a meal, from $ (cheap) to $$$$ (expensive)
• Location: Street address
• Distance: In miles/kilometers
• Rating: Average, 5-star Yelp rating and number of ratings
• Operating hours: Days of the week and times of day
• Reservations: Bookings available through OpenTable
• Contact info: Phone number, website address
• Map info: Where it's located and how to get there

That allows you to ask Siri for restaurants in numerous ways, from general to granular.

• "Find me a restaurant within 1 mile", "find me an Italian restaurant", "find me a 5-star restaurant" will all return widgets containing all the places that fit the criteria, sorted by proximity and quality.
• "Make me a reservation for 7 o'clock", "Make me a reservation for a table for 4 tonight" will both return a list of restaurants with the availability you requested.

From the restaurant widget, you can tab to call, email, or see location information, all of which will send you to the appropriate built-in app. (If you want to go back to Siri after, you'll need to re-ask your question.) Details and reservations, however, are provided and handled by Yelp and Open Table (and are clearly labeled as such). Photos and ratings information are available inside the widget, but if you want more, or you want to check in or leave a tip, Siri will push you into the Yelp app. Likewise, if you want to complete a reservation, Apple will punt you into the Open Table app (where it'll behoove you to have an Open Table account already set up).

If you don't have the Yelp or Open Table apps installed, Siri will prompt you to install them first.

I've used Siri to make reservations several times now, and while having to move into the Open Table app to complete the process isn't seamless, it is workable. Yelp ratings, on the other hand, are a mixed bag at best. It'd be nice to see Apple aggregate both professional and crowd sourced reviews to give a better result (like Rotten Tomatoes does for movies).

The touch targets within the widgets, for example, for adding a photo, aren't great even given the limited real-estate afforded by the widget. Overall, however, the ability to you ask for anything from a type or quality of food, to table and time availability, to making a reservation, to being shown just exactly how to get there, is an excellent addition to the Siri service.

Siri in iOS 6 can also tell you about movies, provide you with information about their cast and crew, showtimes and synopsis, tell you their MPAA and Rotten Tomatoes rating, run their trailer, and show you where they're playing, or what their availability is on iTunes. More precisely, Siri can fetch:

• Studio: Who produced the movie
• Title: What the movie is called
• Director: Who directed the movie
• Actors: The 3 top highest billed stars of the movie
• Rotten Tomatoes rating: The aggregated percentage review rating of the movie
• Content Rating: The MPAA rating for the movie (G, PG, R, etc.)
• Runtime: The length of the movie in minutes
• Description: A brief teaser about the movie, including plot, characters, and actors.
• Showtimes: If the movie is still in theaters, where and when it's playing.
• iTunes availability: If the movie is no longer in theaters, but is on iTunes, purchase and rental information.

This allows you to get information about, help finding movies, at either a general or fairly granular level.

• "What movies are playing nearby?", "what G-rated movies are playing nearby", or "what movies starring Milla Jovovich are playing at 7pm tonight?" will all return a showtimes widget containing any and all movies that meet the criteria you set.
• "What movies were directed by George Lucas" will both return a list of movies. "Who directed Marvel's the Avengers?", "When is the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey coming out?" or "is the Matrix a good movie?" will return that specific movie's information widget. "Play the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises" will find the movie information widget and immediately launch the in-Siri trailer player.

You can tap on a movie theater to see its location, tap on a movie to learn all about it, tap a rating to see Rotten Tomatoes reviews (you can't tap into the Rotten Tomatoes app to get more reviews and information like you can with Yelp, because there's no standalone Rotten Tomatoes app in the App Store), and tap on the trailer button to see the trailer.

You can, however, tap right into the iTunes app to buy or rent a movie if it's available there. There's no Netflix or any 3rd party integration, however, which would be a nice-to-have. So would the ability to buy tickets with Siri the same way you can make restaurant reservations. Given Apple's new Passbook system (see below), it seems like a natural fit, perhaps waiting only on the partnership deals.

For now, though, Siri's movie listings worked well in my tests. Siri really can help you find a movie, tell you where it's playing and who's in it, and show you its trailer and ratings to help you make your ticket-buying choice.

Rounding out the base new feature list, Siri in iOS 6 has gained the ability to post to Twitter and share to Facebook, as well as launch apps. Basically:

This is strictly an input only solution, however. You can't check anyone's Facebook status or have anyone's latest tweets read out to you, all you can do is send a brief status update to Twitter or Facebook. Launching apps is exactly what it sounds like.

• "Post to Twitter: To find out what I'm doing, check app.net!" will pop up the Siri Tweet widget with the text filled in and ready to post.
• "Post to Facebook: To find out what I'm doing, check Twitter." will pop up the Siri Facebook widget with the text filled in and ready to post.
• "Launch Netflix" or "Play Field Runners 2" will switch you out to the appropriate apps.

Siri already took dictation for Messages and Mail, so updating Facebook and Twitter is both familiar and a good extension to the functionality. It would be nice if you could also share any other information Siri pulled up for you. For example, if the answer to your question was a sports or movie widget or Wikipedia snippet, and you could say "post to Twitter" or "send via email" -- basically the Siri equivalent of a Share Sheet -- it would be even more useful.

Being able to launch apps is okay too, though in situations where your hands are too busy to tap an icon, they're probably too busy to tap whatever you need to tap inside an app once Siri's done launching it.

The interface on the iPad is slightly different in the same way the interface for Notification Center is slightly different, allowing it to avoid looking silly on the much bigger, less orientation-sensitive iPad display. Siri on the iPad supports all the same features as Siri on the iPhone, past and present, with the exception of those requiring the Phone app. (Obviously.)

Accessibility

Something that Apple absolutely does not get enough credit for is their longstanding -- and outstanding -- support for accessibility features, and iOS 6 is no exception. To the already impressive list of accessibility features, Apple is adding Guided Access, a way to lock the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into a single app, to help people with autism or similar challenges work independently, without having to worry about accidentally closing an app. It also provides single-app mode functionality for everyone, which makes the iPad in particular far more useful for everything from school tests to mall kiosks.

And they're not stopping there. AssistiveTouch has been improved as well.

Guided Access allows you to put the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into single-app mode. Once enabled in Settings, a triple-click of the Home button brings up the Accessibility menu, and Guided Access is the new top option. Tap it and whatever app you're in shrinks down and you're provided with the ability to turn off the Home button (so the app can't be exited), turn off multitouch (so controls won't work, and, for example, a slide-show couldn't be interrupted), and turn off shaking. What's even better, you can trace your finger around any arbitrary group of controls and iOS will auto-detect the touch targets in them, surround them in an editable marquee, and selectively disable them for you.

Hit start, set and confirm a passcode, and you're locked. Triple click Home again, enter the Passcode, and you can change the configuration or hit End to turn it off. It's simple, understandable, and flexible.

Taken by itself, Guided Access is just another in a long line of excellent accessibilities features for iOS. Combined with single-app, and on the iPad specifically, it becomes a powerful tool for any school to give tests, stores to run kiosks, or institutions to provide everything from exhibit information to menu selections. It lets anyone provide highly specific applications, in highly controlled environments, keeping things simple yet still powerful for users and customers.

Although not ideal, Guest Access, can even be used as a work around for the lack of a proper guest mode in iOS. Simply launch Safari, lock it in Guided Access, and hand it to family member, friend, colleague, or anyone who needs it, and you don't have to worry about the hitting the Home button and digging through your personal content.

Introduced last year as part of iOS 5, AssistiveTouch as a way to provide functionality, via a single screen tap, to anyone for whom hardware buttons or multitouch gestures were difficult or impossible to perform. With iOS 6, Apple has added a few more default AssistiveTouch actions:

• Siri: Launches Siri as if you held down the Home button.
• Device: Shake is removed and the icons redistributed to allow room for More icon, which then provides Gesture, Shake, Screenshot, and Multitasking (brings the fast app switcher interface).

You can also still create your own, custom AssistiveTouch commands as well.

Notification Center

iOS 5 gave us Notification Center, a better organized, less obtrusive way to handle the growing number of iOS alerts. But notification can quickly turn into interruption, and the banner, popup, badge, beep, and buzz that makes sure you don't miss an important email or meeting during the day and quickly make you want to smash your phone when Game Center trumpets you out of sleep at 3am.

Apple addresses that in iOS 6 with Do Not Disturb. It also, somewhat awkwardly, adds buttons to let you quickly post to Twitter or Facebook directly from the Notification Center shade.

Apple does not address banners rolling down over top bar buttons just before you're about to tap them. Sadly.

When Do Not Disturb is enabled, in addition to a greater sense of peace and sanity, you'll see a small crescent moon icon in the status bar. That means no beeping, no buzzing, no screen lighting up with Lock info alerts.

You can choose to flip Do Not Disturb on manually at any time, or schedule it for your normal sleeping hours, and if being completely out of contact is more stressful than relaxing, you can create exception for people on the Favorites list, or people who call back twice within three minutes. (See the section on Settings, below.)

Nothing is lost or missed, however, and if you go and check the Notification Center shade, all your alerts will be right there waiting for you.

Do Not Disturb isn't full on profile system that can switch dozens of settings between work, home, and beside mode at the touch of a button or simple change of GPS location, but it's a start. And it works well enough that you may "forget" to turn it off...

The original Notification Center shade contained widgets for Stocks and Weather that provided useful information at a glance, from anywhere, without having to stop what you're doing and launch the built-in apps. While many hoped for new, addition widgets in iOS 6, or better still, an API to let App Store apps plug into the Notification Center widget system, we got no such thing.

Instead, we got Twitter and Facebook. And nothing that pulls and displays your latest @mentions or Facebook posts, of course (giving back makes social networks cranky, it seems), just a couple of buttons -- Tap to Tweet and Tap to Post.

It is helpful in that it lets you send a tweet or update your Facebook status with switching apps, from anywhere (would that Messages and Mail could be sent so). It also has good, basic functionality like auto-completing some Twitter usernames (@l gave me @leolaporte, @lexfi, and @lorenb but not @llofte, for some reason?). It doesn't seem to auto-complete #hashtags, however. You can also tap the subtle Friends button on the Facebook sheet to select your audience, but there's no @friend completion. Both allow you to tap Location to share where you are as well. Neither allows you to paste in or otherwise insert photos.

But the buttons do seem misplaced in Notification Center. Apple would be better off creating a proper quick send/reply system, perhaps as part of a larger, actionable notification update for the future...

Facebook integration and Share Sheets

Where iOS 5 brought us Twitter integration, iOS 6 brings us Facebook integration. More than that, however, it brings us a new Share Sheet interface for hooking into not only Facebook and Twitter, but Messages and Mail, AirPrint and the clipboard, and more.

iOS 6 has "deep" Facebook integration, which either makes your year or makes you want to run screaming, depending on how you view the world's largest, most pervasive, most invasive social network.

Firstly, you can post your Facebook status directly from Notification Center (see Twitter and Facebook quick-post buttons, above). You can also share websites, photos, Game Center stats, Maps locations, and App Store apps and iTunes and iBooks media via the Share Sheet (see Share Sheet, below).

Facebook contact information, events, and birthdays are integrated into Contacts and Calendars, though you can turn it off in Settings. Annoyingly, I can't find a way to turn it off in Notification Center without disabling it completely.

Again, there's no Facebook widget to help reading instead of writing, so for everything else you still need to go to the Facebook for iOS app proper.

Previously, the Action/Share button in iOS brought up a drab list of things you could do with your content. It looked especially bad in landscape mode which, given the iPhone 5 will have a 16:9 aspect ratio, would have been a big problem. But with iOS 6 Apple has switched to a new, icon-and-grid-based Share Sheet that not only looks better, it holds up better in landscape mode.

Icons associated with apps use their associated app's icon, of course, which makes them easily recognizable and identifiable. Utilities use new, gray metal icons that blend together enough that they take a little longer to visually sort.

The system-wide Share Sheet is accessed via the same Action/Share button as before, and the icons will vary depending on which services are available given the content you want to share.

For example, Photos will let you Mail, Message, Photo Stream, Twitter, Facebook, Assign to Contact, Print, Copy, or Use as Wallpaper (or Mail, Message, or YouTube videos). A Safari web page will let you Mail, Message, Twitter, Facebook, Add to Home Screen, Print, Copy, Bookmark, or Add to Reading List. Tapping an icon won't take you out of what you're doing and send you to the associated app, however. Instead, it will bring up a simple, embedded version of the app, let you do your sharing or printing or change your wallpaper, or whatever, and then let you get back to whatever you were doing. Non-displacing awesome.

Facebook, as mentioned above, is the big new addition here. It works using the same interface as the Notification Center quick-post button (see above), but attaches whatever content it is you wish to share. Depending on that content, you'll get additional options as well, for example the ability to tap a photo and choose which of your Facebook albums it gets posted to.

If a file can be opened in other apps, including App Store apps, for example a PDF file that can be opened in iBooks, Kindle, GoodReader, PDF Expert, etc. then the Share Sheet will display their icons as well. Tapping one will, of course, take you out of where you are and send you to the App Store app.

There are still no Android-style intents or Windows Phone-style contracts, however, so Share Sheets don't enable any real inter-app communications. You can use built-in apps to perform quick content pushes, or App Store apps to open associate files, but that's it.

Likewise, you can't change default apps or register your own apps in iOS, so you can't get Google+ or LinkedIn to show up in the Share Sheet, or an IM client or 3rd party photo sharing app like Instagram.

I get that iOS wasn't made for geeks but for the mainstream, but some flexibility here would be good to see in the future.

Lock screen, Home screen, and system-wide services

Both the iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5 support a new, 4-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio, 1136x640 screen. That means you get 176 extra pixels on the Lock screen, Home screen, and in apps. Apple has also made some system-wide tweaks to the default interface look, most prominently tinting the status bar across the top of the screen. They've also made iOS feel faster thanks to an interesting expansion of their embedded sheet system. Last, but certainly not least, Apple has addressed privacy with granular settings to rival Notification Center.

For the Lock screen you don't get anything more than room for more Lock screen notifications. On the Home screen, you get room for an additional row of icons. If you're keeping count, that's 24 (including the Dock), up from 20 on previous generation iPhones and iPod touches.

All of Apple's built-in apps have also been updated to support the new screen size. App Store apps will have to be updated to support the new screen size. For apps that use lists (UITableView) or grids (UICollectView) it could be a relatively simple process. Just make sure everything is working, add a Default-568h@2x.png so iOS detects your support for the new resolution, compile under the iOS 6 SDK, upload, and await approval by Apple.

For others who need to re-design interfaces to support both wide and standard displays, or who want to add different rather than just more content, it could take longer.

When you search for apps, Spotlight will now show you the folder, if any, that contains the app. That makes it easier to find the app next time without Spotlight, if you want to.

In iOS 5 there were three types of status bar -- translucent, black, and light gray. The first two remain. The first, the light gray, has been replaced by a tinted color based on the that of the menu bar -- or more exactly, a color averaged from the bottom row of menu bar pixels.

This raises an interesting design question: Should the status bar be part of the app interface, or should it disappear into the casing?On a black iPhone, the black status bar almost becomes part of the device itself. Even on a white iPhone, due to the black border around the screen, the black status bar becomes more device than interface element.

The tinted status bar doesn't do that right now. In default Apple apps, it sticks out in a more obvious shade of blue. Arguably that's because it's new. But given its potential to change colors, Skittles-like, from app to app, it'll be hard pressed to fade into unobtrusiveness any time soon.

I'd prefer to see Apple go pure black across the board in iOS (and let developers overwrite it if they choose to). Even on a white iPhone, a consistent status bar becomes part of the device, there when I need it, gone when I don't.

Apple has cleverly expanded their use of in-app embeds to make iOS 6 feel perceptively faster. Since iOS 4, when you switch between apps, you get a carousel effect that helps spatially orient you and cue you to the change. But leaving one app and going to another is slow, and using the fast app switcher, or worse, Home button and searching for the app again, to return to where you were before is cumbersome.

Apple hasn't added a better Home screen app switching metaphor in iOS 6, but they have reduced the amount of times you'll have to switch apps for mundane tasks, instead increasing the amount of times those apps can come to you. It's not actionable notifications by any stretch, its just an expansion of what Apple's been for a long time already.

In Photos, you can share a photo via email without having to switch to, and find your way back from, the Mail app. iOS 6 does even more of that. In addition to the Share Sheet implementation already mentioned above, for example, if you tap an App Store link in an email, instead of being sent to the App Store, an App Store sheet comes up, you can tap to get the app, and then resume reading your mail. It's not everywhere, and it's not appropriate everywhere, but thanks to Share Sheets and the new, non-ejecting App Store (see App Store, below), it's enough to take a few more edges off the overall experience.

After a year of controversy, and many years of neglect, Apple has introduced good, granular privacy controls to iOS. They're a good compromise between informing and annoying.

Privacy is now a top-level tab in Settings, which is excellent. Much like Notification Center controls, you can enabled or disable privacy on a per-app basis for Location Services, as in iOS 5, but also now for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos, Bluetooth Sharing (hello!), as well as Twitter and Facebook.

The lockouts are bi-directional, so you can stop apps from accessing your Contacts, for example, but also stop Facebook from accessing the App Store, for example. This is a big deal.

The downside is, of course, when you launch a new app it'll ask to access your Twitter accounts, then your Location, then your Contacts... and so on, one after the other, which might cause some people to just start tapping without reading. In that regard I still think a Privacy Sheet might be a better alternative.

Apple has also removed UDID (Unique Device IDentifier) access from developers and created new, better controlled API that provide properly limited functionality. Taken together, this is a massive, and necessary step forward.

One look at Apple's quarterly earnings reports, and the attention given to the greater China market in the conference calls that follow, should leave no doubt as to how important China is to Apple. iOS 6 reflects that reality.

That's why, in iOS 6, China gets better Chinese text input and dictionary support, Baidu, YouKu, Tudou, and Sina Weibo support, and Siri in Mandarin and Cantonese. Apple in return gets a more compelling product offering for the greater Chinese market, which will be huge for their future.

Messages

Previously, you could iMessage someone at their iPhone phone number or Apple ID, but only iPhones would receive the phone number iMessages, not iPod touches, iPads, or Macs. Now Apple is unifying the service so all your iMessages will go to all your devices.

When you log in to you Apple ID on an iPod touch or iPad, Apple will fetch any associated iPhone phone number and ask you if you want to add it to your iMessage send/receive list. Once you tap okay, Apple will alert you that the phone number (or additional email address, it works the same), has been added to your device, and list the device by name. As a security and privacy measure, Apple will also send the same alert to your iPhone and any other devices registered to the same AppleID. If FaceTime hasn't been likewise unified already, it will be registered as well and you'll get alerts for both of them.

Once that's done all your iMessages are unified (if not pacified).

Also, for those occasions when iMessage isn't working, or you simply don't want to use it, iPhone owners can now hold down on a message bubble, trigger the pop up menu, and choose to send as old-fashioned SMS instead.

iMessage still isn't as feature-filled as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), but it doesn't need to be. It lets iOS users communicate without involving the carrier, and now it does it in an even more simple, unified way.

Calendar

With iOS 6, the Calendar app reaps the benefit of Facebook integration, allowing you to view your Facebook events and Facebook birthdays right alongside your iCloud, Google, and other calendars. Facebook events are marked with a small Facebook icon, and events you've been invited to but haven't accepted are outlined just like any other as-yet not accepted event invitation.

You can turn Birthdays and Facebook Events off inside the Calendar app by tapping the Calendars button at the top left and then unchecking them, but sadly that won't remove them from Notification Center (which can quickly fill with Birthdays -- as though they were breeding in there...) You can also turn the sync off completely in Settings, but that's the nuclear option. Apple should just kill notifications if they're turned off within the Calendar app.

Photos

One of the big additions to Photos in iOS 6 includes the only big addition to iCloud -- Shared Photo Streams. Another is the built-in Facebook posting. Both use the new Share Sheet, which Photos gets along with the rest of iOS, along with Mail, Message, Twitter, Assign to Contact, Print, Copy, and Use as Wallpaper.

For videos, the options are constrained to Mail, Messages, and YouTube. Yes, even though the Apple YouTube app is gone, its icon lives on in the Share Sheet. That's important because, as of this writing, the Google YouTube app for iOS didn't support uploads.

Posting to Facebook from the Photos app is quick and easy (see Facebook Integration, above). Shared Photo Streams have a few more options.

To share a photo, tap it, then tap the Action/Share button, and tap Photo Stream (looks like the Photos app icon) in the Share Sheet. You can choose to add the photo to an existing shared Photo Stream, or to create a new shared Photo Stream. If you create a new shared Photo Stream, you'll have to enter the email addresses of the people you want to share it with and choose whether or not you want to leave it public for anyone to see on iCloud.com. Then just add a comment (as you would on Facebook or Twitter), and tap the Post button.

Anyone sharing the Photo Stream with you will get a notification about the new image and any new comments added to it. You'll get a notification about anyone accepting a sharing invitation as well. Likewise, the Photos app will now show a badge if you have any new Photo Stream activity.

To see the Photo Streams you're currently sharing, simply tap the Photo Stream tab at the bottom of the Photos app. To see a photo, tap the photo. To see comments, add a comment, or like the photo, tap the comment bubble at the bottom right. You can change the sharing options of, or delete completely, any Photo Stream you shared by tapping the blue arrow to the right of the Photo Stream.

Given that Apple integrated Facebook and Twitter, it's interesting that they also chose to create Shared Photo Streams. There will be people, however, who don't want to join a social network but do want to easily, privately share photos with friends and family. As long as everyone is all-in on the Apple ecosystem, Photo Stream allows for just that.

Camera

The Camera interface has gotten a slight interface tweak, with a black bar on iPhone and iPod touch, and a subtler, more finished camera button on the iPad. On the iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5, you can even take a picture while shooting video now. There's also an all new Panorama mode.

• iPhone photography: The ultimate guide

iOS 5 had a Panorama mode buried deep in the code that Apple chose never to release. Well, they've chosen to release it now, and it's pretty much as auto-magic as I'd been led to believe. Just tap options, tap Panorama, tap the Camara button, and start panning in a steady, level motion, and... That's it. iOS will take the stream and turn it into an up to 23 megapixel panorama.

It's incredibly easy to use, much easier than apps that take multiple shots and stitch them together, and it produces perfectly fine results. Other platforms, and variants of other platforms have had it for a while. As usual, Apple's approach isn't as flexible or configurable, but for many people that trade off will be just fine.

Videos

The Videos app loses video podcasts, which have moved to a standalone Podcasts app launched alongside iOS 6 (see the Music section, below, for a look at the new Podcasts app).

Although you can go to the iTunes Store app (see iTunes Store, below) to view a list of previously purchased iTunes videos, including Movies, TV Shows, and Music Videos, and re-download them to the VIdeos app, it'd be nice if Apple surfaced that here as well. I have on music video with an iCloud button next to it, but no Movies or TV Shows, so the functionality is there, it's just not consistent.

iTunes Match for movies is likely a non-starter with Hollywood, but an embedded version of the Purchased tab would be far more user friendly and efficient, and could co-exist nicely with the Shared (Home sharing) feature.

YouTube (Removed)

With iOS 6, YouTube is no longer a built-in app. The old app was developed by Apple but pulled data from YouTube. Apple didn't updated it aggressively and Google wasn't able to show ads in it, which is their core business. So, instead of it continuing to languish, far behind both the Android YouTube app and the mobile web app, Apple and Google let it die.

And now Google has released their own YouTube app for iOS. As features go, it has more of them. You can't upload from the Google YouTube app, but you still can from iOS via the ShareSheet, so it's not a functional problem. The only real problem is Google's abysmal support for AirPlay. If you try to enable it in-app, you get audio only and a popup telling you to use AirPlay mirroring instead. Then you get a slow, cropped, horrible, stammering experience that sends you running back to the web app.

If you just want to watch videos (with ads) on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, however, it's great.

• Free - Download Now

Maps

With iOS 6, the old Google-powered Maps app is gone and in its place is an all-new, all-Apple Maps app, with data supplied by TomTom and others. Making a new Maps app solved a problem for Apple -- getting their biggest competitor, Google's, data hooks off of their platform and taking control of their own location destiny -- but did it solve anything for users? Did it result in a better Maps experience for us?

Google reportedly wouldn't let Apple have turn-by-turn, and now we have turn-by-turn. But we lost things as well, like StreetView. We gain Flyover, but we lose transit directions. If all of that sounds like one and a half steps forward and two steps back, you're not wrong. Re-building a Maps app from the ground up, especially one with custom made vector maps, fancy 3D models, and almost all the features users have become accustomed to is non-trivial. The engineering and design effort Apple had to devote to this, the companies they had to buy, and the integration they had to perform had an equally tremendous opportunity cost. The effort Apple put into replacing something came at the expense of that effort going into entirely new features.

This isn't iMovie or Final Cut Pro, however. This isn't a niche app that a segment of users will complain about until Apple has a chance to re-implement all the features the radical redesign was initially forced to shed. Maps are mainstream. Maps are serious. Maps are my mom and my sister not being able to find where they need to go.

Apple has a lot of currency with their user base. They're spending some here. The new Maps is beautiful, smooth, and at times, breathtaking. But it's not fully baked. Not yet. And it will be painful for everyone, Apple, users, and developers until it's done.

(Google is reportedly going to release a standalone Google Maps app into the App Store, and one far more competitive with the Android version of their Maps app, which could provide a strong alternative until, and even after, Apple has iOS Maps fully up to par.)

Apple is licensing the raw map data from TomTom and others now, but they've redrawn all the map art themselves using resolution-independant vector graphics. Google did this for the Android version of Google Maps, but Apple hadn't for the old version of iOS Maps. The difference is striking. They scale quickly and accurately and look great from any angle. Apple also renders labels and iconography separately, so no matter which way you turn the maps, you can easily read and understand what's on them.

You can search for locations, just like before, though points of interest are better singled out, as are current location and current pin location. You have the same three basic modes as before -- standard, hybrid, and satellite. You access them, as well as Drop/Replace Pin, Print, Hide/Show Traffic, and List Results via the same page-curl button at the bottom right as before. If you zoom out far enough in standard mode you get a map of the world like you'd find in an atlas. If you zoom out far enough in hybrid or satellite mode, you get a 3D rendered Poly9 style globe that you can spin around.

The Arrow button at the bottom left will still pull you back to your current location, and a second tap will still orient you according to your current direction. Now, however, any time you're not pointing north, a new compass icon appears at the top right. Tap it and your orientation is returned north (and the compass icon will disappear until needed again). If you're in standard mode, you'll see a 3D button to the right of the Arrow button. Tapping it will give you a non-exciting angled view of the area. If you're in hybrid or satellite mode, however, the 3D icon becomes a building icon and tapping it will put you into Flyover mode (see Flyover, below).

Mapps includes local search and over 100,000,000 points of interest, everything from schools, to restaurants, to museums, to hotels, to Apple Retail stores, right on the maps, ready for tapping. In most cases, tapping brings up the popup menu for that location, in the case of traffic problems, like construction, however, you're given more precise details about the problem.

You can hide the popup menu by tapping it, and show it again by tapping the pin or icon that spawned it. The popup is labeled with the location name and Yelp rating, if any. On the right is a blue Arrow button. Tapping on the blue Arrow button brings up an information page on that location. If there's no Yelp data, Apple will show you whatever it standard data it has. There's a large, hero image spot on the information page that will get a static satellite photo if that's all Apple has. If there's Flyover for the location, you'll get a subtle pan of the 3D model. If there's Yelp data, you'll get a Ken Burns-style photo montage.

Yelp reviews, and photos. You can tap to read more reviews or see more photos, or you add your own, but you'll get sent on over to the Yelp app to do it. Likewise if you want to check in or write a tip.

On the left of the popup label used to the StreetView button. Now it's the Navigation button. Tap it and you're on your way. You can also enter into routing mode by tapping the new Right Turn icon at the top left. That's where Driving, Walking, and Transit (with a huge caveat) have moved to (see navigation and traffic, and transit, below).

All of this works very well, depending on where you live. In the United States, it's excellent. In Montreal where I live, it's been near flawless. However, different people in different parts of the world have reported less accurate data and results. Apple is continuing to bring better data to more locations, but there will likely be turbulence while they do (see Availability, below).

Turn-by-turn navigation is hugely competitive market with well established players like Gamin/Navigon, TomTom, TeleNav and others, as well as free alternatives from the likes of Google on Android and Nokia on Windows Phone. You have to have some serious resources, not to mention mapping stones, to get into it, and that's exactly what Apple is doing in iOS 6. Navigation works for both driving and walking directions, and you can enter it turn-by-turn mode in one of three ways:

• Ask Siri to take you somewhere: "Take me home", "show me how to get to Yerba Buena Gardens", etc.
• Tap the Navigation button on the right of the location popup menu.
• Tap the Right Turn button and search for a route.

Siri is fast. Just ask for a place, you'll get sent right into the Maps app, briefly shown routes, and then automatically started on your way. Tapping the Navigation button only slightly less so -- if there are multiple routes you'll be presented with them, and you can tap to switch between them, or tap Start to begin. The Right Turn button gives you the most options. It allows you to switch between Driving and Walking directions with the Maps app, Transit directions in a third party app (if there is one), and switch between routes if multiple ones are available.

Once you're on your way and navigating, tap anywhere to exit full screen mode and get menus and buttons back. Tap End to stop navigating and return to Maps. Tap Overview to switch back to routing at the beginning, or to see your current location during the trip, and Resume to return to navigation. Tap the 3D button to switch between the standard and a slightly angled view. Navigation stays in standard mode, though, so not satellite imagery or fancy Flyovers here. If there's construction, you can tap the icon to get more information about it. Based on crowd-sourced traffic data, iOS will also alert you to any changes in traffic and offer alternative routes, along with an estimate of the time you'll save, if available.

If you exit the maps app, a green bar stays at the top of your screen to remind you navigation is ongoing (similar to the on-call, tethering, and other colored bars in previous versions of iOS). Voice navigation continues when you're outside the Maps app, and the green bar will even change to a sign overlay when turns are immanent. Navigation also persists even on the Lock screen. That's the advantage of a first-party solution.

Navigation gives good, clear instructions using Siri's voice. The animation is fantastic, with cinematic pans between sections and for changes in direction. Everything is beautifully illustrated, with faux sign posts for directions. I've used iOS Maps navigation frequently and it's worked well. On several occasions it's even worked better than well-known third party navigation apps, providing proper directions when they sent me in circles. Again, however, the quality of mapping data in your area will be the determining factor in how useful it is for you.

Flyover uses 3D modeling to literally let you "flyover" cityscapes, from Sydney to Montreal, Cupertino to Paris. It looks absolutely amazing. It's not available in all cities yet, but a growing list of major ones. (Apple has to literally fly around and shoot the cities, then clean up and assemble the models.)

To enter Flyover mode, tap the 3D button at the bottom left of the screen when in hybrid or satellite mode (i.e., looks like model buildings rather than simply saying 3D. Then you can use one finger to move the screen around and two fingers to control the camera angle.

To call Flyover a demo or a commercial isn't fair, but neither is calling it a mapping service, at least not yet. It's more of a simulator, like an open world, but real world, game where, absent bosses to fight you can simply let yourself explore. Let yourself wander and wander. It's like a ride at California Adventure. I've lost hours to it.

But I've not once found it as useful for real-world location orientation as Google's StreetView was.

Transit is less a feature in iOS 6 than it is a casualty. Rebuilding Maps from the ground up was no doubt a Herculean task and getting it done in time for launch no doubt required compromise and came at a cost. Collecting transit information sounds like an arduous task with multiple, fragmented, fractious stake-holders. Google did all the heavy lifting for this previously, and as of now, Apple hasn't been able to replicate that effort.

So they're punting. In iOS 6, the Transit button remains in maps, but will now ship you off to a 3rd party App Store app to provide that service. When you search for directions, and choose Transit, a list of installed transit apps comes up and you can tap to launch one and get your routing information. If there are additional apps in the App Store, Maps will show those to you as well. Then it's between you and the 3rd party app.

This might be a boon for 3rd party transit apps, but it's reduction of service for users. Instead of one, unified, consistent experience, everything from quality to interface will vary from app to app -- if an app is even available in their area.

Whether or not Apple leaves it this way, or whether they introduce their own transit directions in a future update remains to be seen. For right now, I'm lucky, I have a great transit app available to me. But if you don't, that doesn't help you one bit.

The advantage to having hundreds of millions of users on your platform is that anything like Maps will get pounded on, relentlessly, by those users. There's immense value in crowd-sourcing all of that data and feedback, and using it to improve the system. Apple, to their credit, is making that easy in iOS 6.

To inform Apple (and presumably their partners) of any problems, inaccuracies, or omissions in their mapping data and points-of-interest (POI), just tap the page curl at the bottom right, tap Report a Problem above the Print button, and then select the type of problem you want to report: Search results are incorrect, street or other label is incorrect, location is missing, problem with directions, problem with satellite image, or if none of those fit, my problem isn't listed.

The rest is up to Apple. If they take advantage of the potential feedback pool here, they'll have tremendous opportunity to iterate and improve iOS 6 Maps quickly. And they need to.

Weather

Weather in iOS 6 is unchanged when it comes to functionality, but the interface has been redesigned and the weather images redrawn to be sleeker and more modern.

Passbook

Passbook is a brand new, built-in app for iOS 6 designed to serve as a one-stop repository for all the tickets, coupons, gift cards, and other vouchers provided by third-party App Store apps. That means all the stuff in your Apple Store app, Starbucks app, Delta app, Fandango app, and more is easily accessible via a single Home screen icon. Apple contrasts this with the pre-iOS 6 experience of having to fumble for an app then fumble for a pass inside it. If you remember you have a pass. Since Passbook knows what time it is and where you are, it can put whatever card you need right on your Lock screen, right when you need it.

The way it works it simple. Passes are JSON files with bundles resources that can be presented to you in apps, or as links on the web or in email messages. Tapping them inserts them into Passbook. That means you don't need to have the Starbucks app installed to used Starbucks gift cards in Passbook, or any 3rd party app for that matter.

When you get to the airline gate, the Starbucks line, or the movie theater, however, instead of having to find the appropriate app, launch it, and then find the appropriate pass in the app, Passbook collects them all together for you in one place. (And Apple has gone to some length to make their passes good looking, and to help developers make their passes good looking as well.)

To use a pass, tap it and it will come up out of its slot and take over the screen. If you have more than one pass for the same thing -- 2 tickets for Amtrack, 3 coupons for Target, etc. -- you can swipe between them. If the pass is a gift card, it can show up-to-date balance information right on the front. If the pass is a ticket, and something like the gate changes, that will also be displayed right on the front.

To see additional information about a pass, tap the info button at the bottom right and it'll flip over, just like the Weather or Stocks apps. On the back, you can pull to refresh, toggle Lock screen notifications on or off, and see additional information like confirmation numbers, locations, and other details about the specific pass.

And if you don't want the pass anymore, you can tap the trashcan button, confirm the deletion, and Apple will turn it into skeuomorphic shreds right before your eyes.

Passbook can also present Lock screen notifications so, when the right time comes, or you arrive at the right place, your passes pop up. If something changes, like the gate information, you'll get a notification as well. And multiple notifications stack up, just as you'd expect.

On the negative side, while Passbook itself is excellent, some of the apps that feed passes to it are still dreadful, thin website wrappers with horrible user experiences that make selecting, paying for, and getting to the point where you can add the pass to Passbook an arduous and annoying process.

Passbook is interesting in that a) instead of making a repository for something traditional, like documents, Apple is doing it for something still on the horizon, digital vouchers; and b) unlike Google and Microsoft, it's not yet a real mobile wallet with built-in payments.

That makes Passbook stuck in both the past and the future. It has QR and bar codes, not NFC or other wireless transaction processing. It leaves payment in the hands of 3rd parties, not Apple's massive iTunes cash register. in those regards it feels like a first step, a testing of the waters -- a way to make the mainstream comfortable and want more of the convenience.

The only question is how long it takes mainstream users to decide those waters and fine, and want to dive in, and for Apple to get the partnerships in place to take that next step. For now, however, Passbook trumps apps, and makes it easier than ever to swipe, scan, and go.

Clock

The iPad has a clock app! It works the same way as the iPhone and iPod touch clock apps that predate it, but with an interface better suited for the bigger screen.

Sadly, the iPad still does not have built-in Stocks, Weather, Voice Memo, Compass, or Calculator app like the iPhone and iPod touch.

You can also now pick any song in your Music library to serve as your alarm sound. Just pick an alarm, tap Edit, tap Sound, and then tap either of the pre-loaded songs or tap Pick a Song to choose something else. Simple, but a great addition.

Reminders

Reminders remains much easier to add to with Siri than it is to add to with the tap-heavy app itself. However, with iOS 6 you do gain the ability to re-orders tasks in a list using the same Edit and drag process other apps have enjoyed since the early days of iOS.

iTunes Store

The iTunes Store, first launched as part of iOS 1.1 (iPhone OS 1.1) alongside the original iPod touch now get a new, darker makeover. The functionality really hasn't changed, nor has the search taken on the new App Store interface.

The iTunes Store also remains an HTML5-filled app, which even Facebook has now abandoned for their iOS app. That means it's slow and subject to the whims of network connectivity. There's likely no helping that for now, though. iTunes needs to be updated so often, it's the only way to do it.

One thing that does help, though, is iOS' extended use of embedding as mentioned in the Home screen section (above). If you tap on something that has an associated app, like the iTunes Music Festival, you don't get sent into the App Store. The App Store page comes to you, and once you're done you can keep on browsing media.

App Store

The App Store gets the same new, darker look as the iTunes Store, but the interface has gotten an even greater overhaul. Especially search. Apple has also fundamentally changed the way the App Store handles password requests, and how they handle the download process in general.

Apple has been messing with the App Store search algorithms for several months now, in some cases making things better and more logical, in others seemingly breaking them completely. It's likely a work always in progress and right now the results themselves seem okay. It's the new interface that's problematic.

Gone is the drab of informationally dense list view that let you see a large selection of apps at once and choose the one that caught your fancy. Now you get a card-based view (not dissimilar to Safari Pages) which really on shows you one app at a time. This means you have to swipe a lot more to see options, and developers face a tougher time than ever getting noticed -- unless they're the first or second search result.

So it looks better but it doesn't work better. If anything Apple should be exploring metaphors like this for the fast app switcher, not App Store search. To get an idea of the loss of efficiency, imagine if Google worked this way...

A better solution might be to restrict card view to landscape mode, like CoverFlow in Music, and either go back to list view for portrait mode, or use the new category format to show differently sorted search results, like most relevant, highest rated, most "liked", most recent, etc.

• How Apple could improve App Store search in iOS 6

App Store pages themselves get a new layout, the Share Sheet, and the ability to Facebook Like (and Unlike) right from the Reviews tab. There's also a tab that shows you Related apps, both from the same developer and based on what customers who downloaded the app have also download.

Overall, it's a more finicky layout but it does provide more information on the apps themselves. There are still no demo videos, but there are tabs to see more apps by the same developer and to get the app's update history. Also, if you already have the app installed, instead of a price-tag Buy button or Download/Update button, you get an Open button that sends you straight to the app.

On the hugely positive side as well, Apple has solve two long-standing annoyances with the store itself. First, you no longer have to enter your iTunes password to update apps. Just tap and install. And installing an app no longer boots you out of the App Store. They install while you stay in the store. If you remain on the app's page or the update page, a progress bar at the bottom of the app icon will tell you the download progress. This does come at a cost for brand new users, who may be left wondering where their new app went (since they're no longer taken out of the store and forced to watch it install on the Home screen, where they can find it again later). To help mitigate that, Apple is wrapping a tiny "New" ribbon around freshly installed apps. While this compromise is slightly worse for the uninitiated, it's far, far better for the vast majority. How many real stores take you home and make you watch as they hang your new trousers, after all?

There are still no vides, still no upgrades, still no demos, still no children's section, still no so many things. But the App Store, being an HTML5-fed app like the iTunes Store can enjoy some small level of update whenever Apple wants. And iOS 6, if nothing else, shows Apple is still working hard on the App Store experience.

Game Center

Game Center gets Challenges, so you can tap scores or achievements and trash talk your friends even more than previously. Speaking of friends, with your permission the new Facebook integration can try to hook you up with the people you already know. And yeah, you can swipe and delete Game Center entries for games without having to delete the games anymore. Nice. Fine.

But the really big news for Game Center is, thanks to OS X Mountain Lion, it now goes across Apple's entire product line. That's right, you can challenge and play your friends not just on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, but Mac as well. And vice versa. And thanks to AirPlay Mirroring now being ubiquitous on all the latest devices, you can all push your games through an Apple TV and onto the big screen HDTV if like.

We're not there yet, not by any stretch, but if Hair Force One and Faux Stig (see WWDC screenshot, above) are any indication, we're witnessing the death of the dedicated, non-portable console box. The future of gaming mobile and projected. Casual gaming is already there. More will follow.

FaceTime

FaceTime now unifies iPhone phone numbers with Apple IDs, just like Messages (see Messages, above). It can now also be used over the cellular network, if your carrier chooses to allow it, and if you're on an appropriate plan, if your carrier chooses to restrict it.

(Skype has been doing this for a while. It's utter garbage that the carriers try to prevent iOS from doing the same.)

Phone

The Phone app gets an all new, very silver dialer. I wasn't a fan when I first saw it and while it doesn't bother me as much as it used it, I still don't find it visually pleasant. Your tastes will of course vary. Phone also enjoys all the benefits of Do Not Disturb (see Notification Center, above) but also gains a few additional features all its own. The first lets you decline a phone call while replying with a canned or custom iMessage or SMS message. Reply with Message options all begin with "Can't talk right now..." and you can choose from:

• I'll call you later.
• I'm on my way.
• What's up?
• Or a custom message of your choosing

The second lets you decline with the Remind Me Later feature. Options here include both timed and geofenced, location-based reminders:

• In 1 hour.
• When I leave.
• When I get home.
• When I get to work.

To get to these options, Apple provides a variation of the fast Camera access system they introduced in iOS 5 and improved on in iOS 5.1. When you get a call, you're shown a phone icon to the right of the usual Slide to Unlock control. Swipe it up and you're shown both the Reply With Message and Remind Me Later options. Tap the one you want, and you're done -- your Message is sent or your Reminder is set up.

Interestingly, neither option showed up when I received Skype calls, but did when I received land-line calls that don't have messaging capability.

Reply With Message harkens back to when Bill Gates shocked the mobile world by taking the CES stage with Ed Colligan to announce the first Windows Mobile Palm Treo. It seemed like genius magic back then. It seems like practical feature now. Tying location into call reminders is smarter, but Apple still isn't pulling the trigger on contextually predictive features. If my iPhone knows I have an appointment across town in 15 minutes, and it knows traffic and timing is such that I can't make it, why not alert me and give me the option to message or call my predicament and reschedule?

That'll be one of the next competitive battlegrounds, and Apple has all the pieces in place to execute on it, if they so choose.

Lastly, 5 years later and Apple still hasn't given us a simple Setting switch to turn off alert beeps and buzzes when we're on phone calls. If the proximity sensor can turn off the screen and the touch sensor, we should be able to tell it to turn of notifications if we don't want them rattling our skulls when our phones are at our ears.

• How Apple could allow us to mute alerts while we're on the phone

Mail

Mail gets in-app App Store embeds, as mentioned previously (see Home screen, above) and a host of other small but convenient features that as a whole greatly enhance usability.

Loren Brichter-inspired pull-to-refresh is now in Mail, and is also now a standard control developers can use in iOS 6 apps. Unlike the original Tweetie version that inspired it, iOS refreshes at the apex of the pull, and doesn't wait for you to release first. Even in an era of push email, pull-to-refresh is therapeutic and empowering, if nothing else.

There are two new, specialty inboxes in iOS 6 mail -- VIP and Flagged. Anyone you add as a VIP in Contacts gets put in the special VIP inbox, and any messages you flag in Mail, get put in their respective, dedicated inboxes so you can more easily find them later.

You can now attach photos or videos to an email already in progress without having to leave the Mail app, go copy the photo, and come back. Just tap and hold to get the menu popup, tap the arrow to step through the menu options, and tap Insert Photo or Video, and voila. Sadly, it doesn't help with any other kind of file you might want to attach, like an iWork document. But: baby steps.

Each email account can now have its own email signature, so your work email and home email, for example, don't all have to be stuck with the same "Sent from my iPhone" if you'd rather they not be so stuck.

You can also tap and hold the Compose New Mail button at the bottom right to get a list of saved draft emails, if you want to continue writing something previously started.

Again, nothing jaw-dropping in and of itself, but some good updates to an already usable mail system. Now we just need some hot mark-all-as-read action...

Safari

Safari has been on the iPhone since the first version launched in 2007, and has been steadily improved, year after year, version after version, ever since. iOS 6 follows the same, steady, evolutionary pattern, addressing perennial user pain-points like image uploads, and providing parity with features from other browsers, like Chrome's tab sync. It also makes Reading List more robust, and provides an interesting way for websites to alert users about, and move them into, apps.

First off, Safari gets the new Share Sheet, with options for Mail, Message, Twitter, Facebook, Add to Home screen, Print, Copy, Bookmark, and Add to Reading list.

Safari on iPhone and iPod touch also now have a similar Full Screen button to the Videos app. Tap it, and the content fills your screen and only ghosted back/forward and exit-full screen mode controls remain. This was likely necessitated by the new 16:9 aspect ratio of the iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5. Landscape navigation bars were long enough on the old devices, they'd make the new ones look ridiculously vertically stunted.

iCloud tabs let you see pages that are open on any other iOS or OS X device you have logged into the same account. So, if you start reading a page on your MacBook, you can instantly open it on your iPhone while you take the bus, and iPad while you sit at the coffee shop, and never lose your place. (If other people have access to your devices, make sure you exercise discretion about which pages you leave open -- nothing like NSFW content popping up for others at work, or at home, to stumble upon...)

On the iPad, iCloud tabs have their own, iCloud-shaped button. On the iPhone and iPod touch, they can be found via the Bookmarks button.

What's more, you can tap and hold the back/forward navigation buttons to reveal a history selector for the current tab.

Reading List, introduced in iOS 5, has been extended with an offline mode. Now, when you save pages to Reading List, Safari will download a copy of the contents and keep it available to you, even if you don't have a connection when you want to read it (for example, if you're on the subway to or from work).

Photo uploads fix one of the longest standing problems with iOS. At long, long last, Safari will now intercept buttons on web sites that try to access your file system, and present you with the Camera app or Photos app image picker instead. So adding avatars and putting pictures on social networks can now be done directly in Safari. Hallelujah.

If you go to a website that also has an App Store app, like Yelp! -- or iMore eventually! -- the website can tell you about the app with a Smart app banner, and give you a button to view it in the App Store. If you already have the app installed, the Smart app banner will give you a button to open the app, and take you to the same place in the app that you were looking at on the website. (Likely not automatically, but using some form of URL scheme.)

As much as Apple added, they also took away -- just like OS X Mountain Lion, they've removed built-in support for RSS and, if you want to keep reading them, will now politely direct you to the App Store to buy an app. I found Safari RSS hugely convenient on both iOS and OS X, and it's annoying that it got floppy disked. But that's Apple's way.

Broken down, it's taken so long to get image uploads into Safari that almost every popular website has already created an app to provide that functionality. Still for sites that haven't, it's a welcome addition, long past due. iCloud tabs can be handy for someone who has a lot of Apple devices. The Instapaper inspired Reading List still won't be enough for power users, but it's finally beefy enough to be useful for most casual users. Smart banners once again show Apple's prioritization of apps over web content, and given how much of a better user experience native apps remain, that's not a bad thing.

Taken together, the Safari update is very good. There are the usual enhancements to the Nitro JavaScript engine so performance is excellent, and no doubt on the new iPhone 5 hardware will be even better.

Music

Music gets a new, silver-style interface in iOS 6, at least for iPhone and iPod touch. (iPad had it already.) Like Videos (see Videos, above) Music loses podcast content to the new, dedicated Podcasts app available in the App Store.

If you have iTunes Match enabled, you can no longer swipe-to-delete songs in the Music app. iTunes Match manages storage automatically, deleting locally cached music when storage runs low. If you turn off iTunes Match, you can again manually delete music.

Podcasts

Shortly after Apple unveiled iOS 6 at WWDC 2012, they released the standalone Podcasts app into the App Store. They've now updated it to support both iOS 6 features and the iPhone 5's taller screen. I originally intended to include all of this in my iOS 6 review but due to size and time constraints, I'm posting it separately, and belatedly.

Before the release of the dedicated Podcasts app, podcasts were downloaded via the iTunes app and could be played back in either the Music or Video app, depending on whether they were audio or video podcasts. That split, along with with the lack of any ability to subscribe to podcasts, made it a less than ideal experience, which numerous third party apps tried to solve).

Apple's attempt to solve it themselves is similar in structure to iBooks or Newsstand. It has a place to find your existing content and a place to get more content, in this case the Library and Catalog views. (Since podcasts are all free, it's not called a "Store" as it is in other, similar Apple apps, but it's functionally similar.)

The Library view organizes your shows in either a grid view, featuring album art, or a list view. To see the episodes of a particular podcast, tap it. There's pull-to-refresh support so you can check for new episodes at any point. From the episode view, you can tap an episode title to start streaming it immediately, the white downward arrow button to start downloading it (the 50MB limit applies if you're on cellular), or the the blue arrow button to get more information, including episode descriptions (which should include show notes, but since links don't function, they're essentially useless). You can also hit the share button to access the Share Sheet so you can Mail, Message, Twitter, Facebook, or Copy the podcast link.

Tap the podcast artwork or the arrow to the right of it to see options for that podcast. Options include the ability to toggle the podcast subscription on or off, auto-download on or off, the sort order (oldest or newest first), the play order (oldest or newest first). You can also mark all episodes as played or unplayed.

When an audio podcast episode is playing, you get full screen album art that, unlike the Music app, is properly centered. Tapping the list view button at the top right gives you a list of additional episodes, so you can easily switch between them. Tapping the album art, which replaces the list view button at the the top right, takes you back to the main player screen. This is pretty much the same behavior as the Music app, and the consistency is appreciated.

Basic controls are also consistent in behavior if not in look. In Podcasts the buttons are big, gray, industrial, and almost old-school looking. You have play/pause and skip back/forward, and if you hold down on skip back/forward, you get rewind and fast forward. There are also two new controls, a 15 second skip back and skip forward. They're useful if you missed something and want to quickly re-listen or re-watch it, or if you want to hurry through a segment you don't enjoy. De-emphasized beneath them are the volume scrubber and the AirPlay button (if an AirPlay device is detected).

Unlike the Music app, if you tap the album art you aren't taken to list view. Instead, the album art lifts up to reveal a heavily skeuomorphic options panel that fills much of the screen with an old-style reel-to-reel tape player. It also provides controls for sharing (with the same sheet as above), for listening speed (1/2x, 1x, 1 1/2x, 2x, and 3x), and a sleep timer (off, 5, 10, 15, 30, or 45 minutes, 1 hour, or when the current episode ends.) There's also a positional scrubber with a tiny red line indicating your current time index in the podcast. While the touch-point appears tiny, it works just like the positional scrubber in the Music app. You can also reveal the options screen by using the small "gripper" control at the bottom of the album art to pull it up. To return to the player screen, grab the gripper -- now at the top -- and pull it back down. Strangely, you can't tap the tape deck to pull it down the way you can tap the album art to pull it up. No consistency points there. (or fit and finish points.)

Also, even though Podcasts is an App Store app, it does seem to enjoy certain privileges not afforded other App Store podcast apps. Namely, Podcasts gets to use its special controls on the Lock screen and in the fast app switcher. Instead of the standard skip forward/back buttons, which annoying skip entire episodes for other players, the 15 second forward and backward buttons are presented instead. If other players do have access to the same controls, hopefully they'll implement them. If they don't, Apple should make them available so everything in the App Store stays as fair and functional as possible.

The video player interface is different than the audio player interface. Unlike the audio player, the video player isn't given the same character or style, and there's no skeuomorphism in sight. Instead, it's almost identical to how podcasts used to be played in the Videos app. It does add a playback speed button, however, but without the 3x option. There's a fullscreen/widescreen toggle, which is more important on previous 3:2 iPhones and iPods than it is on the 16:9 iPhone 5 or iPod touch 5. Also missing are the new 15 second back/forward buttons, and in their place the single, old 30 second back button. It's also the only part of the Podcast app that supports landscape orientation (though you can watch in portrait as well if you really want to).

Unlike iBooks or Newsstand, Podcasts also has a strange hybrid area that's in the Library section but provides Catalog content. It's called Top Stations and it's another way for Apple to display featured or recommended content, but using a radio dialer metaphor rather than the usual iTunes Store list display. It's accessed through a huge tap at the bottom of the screen, and given equal waiting to the podcast library itself, which is interesting.

At the top, you can toggle between audio and video podcasts. On the "tuner" band you have the basic iTunes podcast categories on top and under them, the sub categories. Under that you have large-sized album art for 5 shows, one on top of the other. Swiping horizontally moves you through sub-categories and then categories. Swiping vertically takes you through the recommended podcasts. Horizontal and vertical scrolling is independent, so if you swipe down to the fifth podcast in one category, you'll still be shown the first one if you swipe over to a different category. Tap the artwork and the latest episode will start to play. Otherwise, if you linger for a momentarily, an info icon will appear to the bottom right of it. Tap it and you'll get a list of episodes and a Subscribe button.

It's a visually dynamic way to suggest new shows, and a novel way to bring "Store/Catalog" content into the "Library" part of the app. It'll be interesting to see if we get analogs to this in iBooks and Newsstand (racks?), and the other player apps like Music and Videos.

The Catalog section is what used to be the Podcasts section in the old iTunes app, but all done up in the new iTunes app style. Tap the Catalog button and you get the iBook's style revolving door animation. Inside, there are tabs for Features, Audio, Video, Charts, and Search. If you tap Charts, you start off with an audio and a video chart combined on one page with horizontal scrolling, along with a Categories button at the top left to get more specific charts. If you you tap "See All >" you get a proper vertical list view of either audio or video podcasts. The Categories button, however, gets awkwardly re-prositioned next to the the back button for Charts, which squishes the screen title between it and Library (which sometimes appears and sometimes doesn't), and truncates it beyond the point of usefulness.

There's also a lack of consistency for audio icons, with the toggle using the fairly common speaker icon, and the tab bar using a chunkier, rounder speaker glyph, which is odd.

Search bifurcates between episodes and podcasts. The episode results page is the more chaotic of the two, presenting stacked vertical lists of 4 episodes each that you can scroll through horizontally, as well as a large set of album art for related podcasts that isn't vertically stacked but can also be horizontally scrolled. For the episodes, tapping on the downward arrow beside a specific episode starts it downloading that episode. Tapping on the album art or the episode title, or anything else for that matter, takes you to the podcast page. In the podcast results tab, you're simply given a list view of shows that match the search results. Tap on any one of the podcasts and you're taken to its information page.

On the individual podcast pages you get general information about the show, including the artist, rating, category, and can hit the Subscribe button to add it to your library. You also have tabs for the show's Details, which includes the description and episode lists, Reviews, which lets you Like a show via Facebook, along with the regular iTunes reviews, and Related, which shows you more podcasts from the same artist, and more podcasts in the same sub-category.

If you have more than one iOS device, iCloud support will sync your subscriptions between them, as well as maintain your last position.

Overall, the Podcasts app adds a lot of features that were sorely missing from Apple's original iTunes app podcast implementation. It isn't perfect, and indeed a lot users are finding it buggy and frustrating at times. Episodes mark themselves as unplayed. Interaction with iTunes on the desktop is unfinished to say the least. The Podcasts app is also plagued by a general bug in Apple's audio API that causes audio playback to re-start after using Siri or placing a call.

Hopefully Apple continues to polish and improve it, though given what's happened with the App Store app recently that's a double edged sword at best.

The feature Podcasts needs most now is background downloads. If Newsstand can fetch your periodicals every morning, Podcasts should be able to fetch your podcasts when you're plugged in and connected to Wi-Fi. However, Apple doesn't allow other App Store apps to do that, so either it would be an unfair competitive advantage, or Apple would finally have to make a background downloading API available to everyone. I've heard rumors of the latter, so lets hope it's coming, and sooner rather than iOS 7...

Power users may want to stick to a power client, of which the App Store has several, but for those who simply want to enjoy the occasional podcast, as well as iCloud sync and Apple-style integration, Podcasts is a great choice.

• Free - Download now

Bottom line

iPhone OS 1.0 was all about delighting users with a an enthralling multitouch interface and a fresh new take on the smartphone. iPhone OS 2.0 to iOS 4 were about filling in and rounding out features and functionality, and making the iPhone, and later the iPad, an ecosystem. iOS 5 was about taking the iPhone and iPad to the iCloud.

iOS 6 is all about preparing for what comes next, and unfortunately for users this time around, a lot of that has to do with Apple. There's never a good time to go back and rebuild things users don't think need rebuilding, like Maps, or set up things that won't be fully realized for another generation or two, like Passbook. Yet Apple is choosing to do all of those things, and more. And they're choosing to do them now, in iOS 6.

Android remains a relentless competitor, but Google is being forced to go back and work on user experience, cohesiveness, and consistency, something Apple nailed in iPhone OS 1. webOS has been murdered by HP. Windows Phone is as much held back as it is supported by a Microsoft obsessed with Windows everywhere, and is yet to find a clear story or market. BlackBerry won't even have a shot at a relaunch into early 2013. And the Facebooks and Amazons are still more vapor than ware.

Apple seems to believe they have an opportunity, right now, to fix some of the problems they themselves have been facing. They seem to believe the tock in their product update cycle that includes the Retina iPad, iPhone 5, and perhaps iPad mini give them the chance to repatriate and reforge the vital elements of their platform.

In a perfect world, Apple could do everything all at once. But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world of opportunity costs, where even one of the richest, most successful companies on earth has to face certain realities. Namely, engineering talent is as limited as time itself. The money and effort expended on redoing Maps and expanding Siri couldn't be spent on actionable notifications, inter-app communications, new fast app switching metaphors, or any of the other higher hanging fruit iOS arguably still needs.

Compared to previous versions of iOS, and compared to competing platforms, iOS 6 doesn't have the same level of customer facing pizazz this year. Sure, there's Do Not Disturb and the new Privacy features, FaceTime over 3G, Siri for iPad and iPod touch, VIP mail, Panorama photos, Safari image uploads, single-app-mode, and many small, satisfying gems, but making a new Maps app was a huge amount of work for Apple that couldn't be spent elsewhere. And positioning Siri and Passbook for the future compromised Apple's ability to deliver on the present.

So yes, iOS 6 is a software update divided against itself. But taken as a whole, as the sum of all its new and better features, it's still strong enough to stand. Now that they've positioned the platform for the future, however, the bigger challenge Apple faces is nailing what comes next.

Leanna Lofte and Ally Kazmuch contributed photography for this review

iOS 6 is here -- read our complete iOS 6 review! -- and if you're itching to get your hands on it but your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch isn't yet alerting you that it's available, you can manually update over-the-air.

Follow along and we'll show you how!

How to manually update to iOS

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Software Update.
4. If there's nothing new, you'll be told just so. Otherwise, you'll be presented with all the details about the update.
5. Tap Download and Install

6. Agree to the Terms and Conditions

7. Watch the progress bar (This part depends on the speed and quality of connection. Don't be alarmed if it takes a long time, speeds up or slows down, or appears to jump around -- be patient.)

8. Once it's finished downloading, you'll be prompted to instal (and restart) your device. If you don't explicitly hit Later or Install within a few seconds, it will install on your behalf.

9. Apple will verify the install.

You're done! Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is ready to go on iOS 6!

iOS 6 was previewed at Apple's WWDC 2012 and has been in a closed developer beta ever since. While Apple has promised some 200 new features, we've only seen them show off 10 major ones to date. Still, there's a lot within those 10 for us to sink out teeth into. We've compared them to previous iOS flagship features, and to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10 flagship features, and explained why the focus this year might be more on Apple's platform than user-facing features. We've also broken them down feature by feature, looked at what Apple's has said about them, and analyzed what they have to offer.

Now we're rounding all the up here, and we'll keep it updated here through the Gold Master (GM) seed we expect on September 12, and the release we anticipate sometime around September 19.

Maps

With iOS 6, Apple is replacing the previous, Google-powered Maps app on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, with a completely redesigned, re-rendered, and re-imagined Apple Maps app. The data itself is supplied by TomTom and others, but Apple has created all-new vector map art, and while they've lost some features, like Street View, and are handing off transit date to App Store apps, they're adding a dramatic new Flyover mode, traffic data, and turn-by-turn navigation. And if you miss the old app, good news, a Google Maps app should be headed to the App Store as well.

• Turn-by-turn navigation preview
• Flyover preview

Siri: Sports, restaurants, movies, status sharing, app launching, and iPad support

Siri, as introduced in on the iPhone 4S, is an able if not particularly well-rounded personal assistant. With iOS 6, however, Siri is adding several new services to its repertoire. Soon, with Siri, you'll be able to find out everything about your favorite sports teams, make reservations at your favorite restaurants, find out where your favorite movies are playing, share it all to Facebook and Twitter, and... do it on the new iPad as well.

• Siri and sports preview
• Siri and restaurant preview
• Siri and movie listings preview
• Siri and Facebook and Twitter sharing, app launching preview
• Siri for iPad preview

Facebook integration

Facebook integration for iOS has been rumored for a couple years now, buy iOS 4 shipped with nary a Like in sight, and iOS 5 with only Twitter and tweets to show for itself. With iOS 6 Facebook hits the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in full force. We're talking built-in status sharing, content sharing, calendar and contacts integration, and a whole lot of stuff you can Like, built-in.

• Facebook integration preview

iCloud: Shared Photo Streams

Photo Stream debuted in iOS 5 as part of iCloud and while it offered some nifty automatic backup and sync store and push features, it lacked a lot of the sharing and gallery features that made Mobile Me so family friendly. Now, with iOS 6, Apple is adding sharing back to their cloud photo solution, and while it's not the same as before, it could be just as social.

• Shared Photo Streams preview

Passbook

Passbook is a brand new, built-in app for iOS 6 designed to serve as a one-stop repository for all the tickets, coupons, gift cards, and other vouchers provided by third-party App Store apps. That means all the stuff in your Apple Store app, Starbucks app, Delta app, Fandango app, and more is easily accessible via a single Home screen icon, and what's more -- Passbook knows what time it is and where you are, so it can put whatever card you need right on your Lock screen, right when you need it.

• Passbook preview

FaceTime over cellular

FaceTime over cellular -- the ability to place Apple's version of video calls using 3G and 4G networks -- is coming with iOS 6. Thanks to the carriers being insane, it took 2 years to happen, and even now might be painful, but it's coming. Also coming is the ability to unify your iPhone FaceTime phone number and iPad/iPod touch FaceTime email address, so you no longer have to try and guess which one to reach a multi-device user at.

Phone: Do Not Disturb and Remind Me Later

While Apple improved their alert system with Notification Center in iOS 5, they're finally bringing some sanity and serenity to it with iOS 6. Too much notification turns into interruption, especially if your only options are to answer or hang up, to leave everything on or turn everything off. It makes us the single-points of failure in our memory chain, and let's face it, why bother having these fancy devices if we're the ones who have to remember to call back, or remember to activate and deactivate alerts every morning and night. Which brings us to Remind Me Later and Do Not Disturb.

• Do Not Disturb and Remind Me Later preview

Mail: VIP inbox and photo and video attachment

Mail is getting a little bit of love in iOS 6 as well. First off, you'll be able to designate certain contacts as VIPs, which flag their emails with stars, and collects them in a special VIP inbox, and syncs them over iCloud so your VIPs are VIPs on all your iOS devices. Secondly, the already crowded popup menu gets yet another option, and a great one, Insert Photo or Video. That's right, you can finally add items from your Camera Roll to an email already in progress without the copy/paste hack-around.

Safari: iCloud tabs, image uploading, offline reading, full-screen mode

Safari has been on the iPhone since the first version launched in 2007, and has been steadily improved, year after year, version after version, ever since. iOS 6 follows the same, steady, evolutionary pattern, addressing long standing user pain-points like image uploads, and providing parity with features from other browsers, like Chrome's tab sync. It also makes Reading List more robust, and provides an interesting way for websites to alert users about, and move them into, apps.

• Safari preview

Accessibility: Guided Access and single-app mode

Something that Apple absolutely does not get enough credit for is their longstanding -- and outstanding -- support for accessibility features, and iOS 6 is no exception. To the already impressive list of accessibility features, Apple is adding Guided Access, a way to lock the iPad into a single app, to help people with autism or similar challenges work independently, without having to worry about accidentally closing an app. It also provides single-app mode functionality for everyone, which makes the iPad far more useful for everything from school tests to mall kiosks.

• Guided Access and single-app mode preview

How iOS 6 compares to previous versions of iOS

Experiencing an iOS keynote like WWDC 2012 today, and watching Senior Vice President of iOS, Scott Forstall, lay out the new flagship features for iOS 6 -- what Apple's has called tent poles in the past -- it can be hard to weigh them against flagship features of the past, and to judge them free from expectations.

When compared side by side -- or slide to slide -- with keynotes past, the impact of each step of Apple's iOS evolution become easier to measure. Here's the full rundown:

• How iOS 6 compares to previous versions of iOS

How iOS 6 compares to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10

It's harder to compare iOS 6 to Android 4.1, BlackBerry 10, and Windows Phone 8, since they not only made different design choices and engineering compromises, they made different marketing decision about which features to showcase -- sometimes deliberately to counter-program Apple and/or each other. But for that very reason, to highlight the differences, the comparison is especially interesting. Here's the side-by-side (scroll down to the second section of the article).

• How iOS 6 compares to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10

Why iOS 6 is more about Apple than new user features

Looking at everything we just went through, some may argue iOS 6 is more of a minor point release rather than a major new OS version. Or that was inattentive to power-user interests, and a sign that Apple was slowing down. Sure, the low hanging fruit is gone for iOS, but a lot of higher-hanging fruit remains.

However, that's not Apple's focus this year. This year, there's no iPhone OS 2.0 App Store-level feature addition for iOS. No iOS 5 PC-free/iCloud-level addition either. There's not even an iOS 4 or iPhone OS 3.0 multitasking or cut, copy, and paste-level addition. No new Home screen interfaces or fast app switcher visualizations. No actionable notifications or methods for inter-app communications. What there is, is all about Apple. And here's why:

• Why iOS 6 is more about Apple than new user features

More on iOS 6

• iOS 6 feature page
• iOS 6 forum

More previews

• iPad mini preview: Imagining Apple's smaller tablet

Safari has been on the iPhone since the first version launched in 2007, and has been steadily improved, year after year, version after version, ever since. iOS 6 follows the same, steady, evolutionary pattern, addressing long standing user pain-points like image uploads, and providing parity with features from other browsers, like Chrome's tab sync. It also makes Reading List more robust, and provides an interesting way for websites to alert users about, and move them into, apps.

Here's how Apple describes the new Safari features:

And here's how it works:

• iCloud tabs let you see pages that are open on any other iOS or OS X device you have logged into the same account. So, if you start reading a page on your MacBook, you can instantly open it on your iPhone while you take the bus, and iPad while you sit at the coffee shop, and never lose your place.

• Reading List has been extended with an offline mode. Now, when you save pages to Reading List, Safari will download a copy of the contents and keep it available to you, even if you don't have a connection when you want to read it (for example, if you're on the subway to or from work).

• Photo uploads will intercept buttons on web sites that try to access your file system, and present you with the Camera app or Photos app image picker instead. So adding avatars and putting pictures on social networks can now be done directly in Safari.

• If you go to a website that also has an App Store app, like Yelp! -- or iMore -- the website can tell you about the app with a Smart app banner, and give you a button to view it in the App Store. If you already have the app installed, the Smart app banner will give you a button to open the app, and take you to the same place in the app that you were looking at on the website. (Likely not automatically, but using some form of URL scheme.)

• On the iPhone or iPod touch, if you rotate Safari to landscape mode, a new full-screen button appears. Tap it and almost all the browser interface elements disappear and you can view your content using every pixel of the display. (Semi-transparent buttons remain: one to exit full-screen mode, and one to browse back a page, if there's a previous page in the browser history.)

It's taken so long to get image uploads into Safari that almost every popular website has already created an app to provide that functionality. Still for sites that haven't, it's a welcome addition, long past due.

iCloud tabs can be handy for someone who has a lot of Apple devices. However, if you plan on using tab sync, and other people have access to your devices at home or at work, you might also want to look into iOS 5's Private Browsing mode...

The Instapaper inspired Reading List still won't be enough for power users, but it's finally beefy enough to be useful for most casual users.

Smart banners once again show Apple's prioritization of apps over web content, and given how much of a better user experience native apps remain, that's not a bad thing.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Passbook is a brand new, built-in app for iOS 6 designed to serve as a one-stop repository for all the tickets, coupons, gift cards, and other vouchers provided by third-party App Store apps. That means all the stuff in your Apple Store app, Starbucks app, Delta app, Fandango app, and more is easily accessible via a single Home screen icon, and what's more -- Passbook knows what time it is and where you are, so it can put whatever card you need right on your Lock screen, right when you need it.

Here's what Apple has to say about Passbook:

And here's what they've shown off of it so far:

• With Passbook, any properly formatting "pass" that's given to you in an app, emailed to you, or created for you to tap on in a website, can be added to Passbook. That's in contrast to the current, iOS 5 situation where tickets, gift cards, confirmations, coupons, are scattered across a variety of App Store apps.

• When you get to the airline gate, the Starbucks line, or the movie theater, however, instead of having to find the appropriate app, launch it, and then find the appropriate pass in the app, Passbook collects them all together for you in one place.

• Simply tap the pass you want to access, and it comes up full screen.

• If you have more than one pass for the same thing -- 2 tickets for Amtrack, 3 coupons for Target, etc. -- you can swipe between them in full-screen mode.

• Apple, of course, has designed them all beautifully...

• ...And has created templates to help developers make beautiful passes of their own.

• If the pass is a gift card, it can show up-to-date balance information right on the front.

• If the pass is a ticket, and something like the gate changes, that will also be displayed right on the front.

• To see additional information about a pass, tap the info button at the bottom right and it'll flip over, just like the Weather or Stocks apps. On the back, you can toggle Lock screen notifications on or off, and see additional information like confirmation numbers, locations, and other details about the specific pass.

• And if you don't want the pass anymore, you can tap the trashcan button, confirm the deletion, and Apple will shred it for you in digital form.

• Conveniently, Passbook can also present Lock screen notifications based on time and location. So you when you arrive at the right time or the right place, your passes pop up.

• If something changes, like the gate information, you'll get a notification as well. And multiple notifications stack up, just as you'd expect.

Passbook is interesting in that a) instead of making a repository for something traditional, like documents, Apple is doing it for something still on the horizon, digital vouchers; and b) unlike Google and Microsoft, it's not yet a real mobile wallet with built-in payments yet.

That makes Passbook stuck in both the past and the future. It has QR and bar codes, not NFC or other wireless transaction processing. It hooks into existing apps, not Apple's massive iTunes cash register. It feels like a first step, a testing of the waters. The only question is how long it takes mainstream users to decide those waters and fine, and want to dive in, and for Apple to get the partnerships in place to take that next step.

For now, however, if you have passes in apps, Passbook makes it easier than ever to swipe, scan, and go.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

While Apple improved their alert system with Notification Center in iOS 5, they're finally bringing some sanity and serenity to it with iOS 6. Too much notification turns into interruption, especially if your only options are to answer or hang up, to leave everything on or turn everything off. It makes us the single-points of failure in our memory chain, and let's face it, why bother having these fancy devices if we're the ones who have to remember to call back, or remember to activate and deactivate alerts every morning and night. Which brings us to Remind Me Later and Do Not Disturb.

Here's how Apple describes them:

And here's what we've seen of it so far:

• When a phone call comes in, in addition to the venerable Slide to Answer interface, there's a new Lock screen, gripper-style phone icon to the right of it.

• Similar to the iOS 5.1 Lock screen camera icon, you can use the phone icon to slide the screen up and reveal new options: Reply with Message and Remind Me Later.

• If you can't talk now and want to let the caller know, Reply with Message lets you quickly send an iMessage or SMS with boiler-plate responses like "I'll call you later", "I'm on my way", "what's up?", or if the canned replies don't suit you, create a custom one all your own.

• If you'd rather get back to then, Remind Me Later allows you to rapidly set up a time-based Reminder to call back in 1 hour, or a location-based Reminder either geo-fenced to where you are not, or set up for when you get home, or get to work.

• Do Not Disturb is more pre-emptive. It allows you to prevent incoming calls and alerts from lighting up the screen or making any sound or vibration while your iPhone is locked (they'll still appear listed, as normal, in Notification Center when you get around to checking).

• When Do Not Disturb is active, you'll see a special half-moon icon on your status bar to the left of the time.
• You have granular control over Do Not Disturb settings. You can turn it on and off manually, for example, when going into a meeting. You can also schedule an automatic time range, for example, every night during your regular sleep hours.

• You can enable exceptions to Do Not Disturb, to allow calls from certain contacts, including everyone on your Favorites list, or a specific contacts Group.
• You can also enable an exception for repeated calls, in case of emergency. That means if someone thinks it's urgent enough to call you back a second time within 3 minutes, that second call will come through.

Overall, these are terrific additions to iOS' communications and notification handling. It doesn't go as far as true profiles, for example, location-based profiles that automatically change a range of settings including notification, network, security, etc. when you're at home vs. at work, or more rounded bedside mode, but it's a start.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6, check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Back at WWDC 2012, Apple promised a new look to the on-device App Store and iTunes Store in iOS 6. Details have been sketchy since then, but changes to the search algorithm, and rumors of Apple integrating their recent Chomp acquisition have persisted. Now Carlos Henandez posts that Apple has pushed out just such a Chomp-inspired update to iOS 6 beta testers.

Now, when searching within the iOS 6 App Store, you reported sly a card for each search result (below). You can swipe horizontally, right or left, through the cards. This is in stark contrast to the vertical list view that's used now to display search results under iOS 5.

9to5Mac also reports that Genius and Purchased features have been turned back on, which hadn't worked previously under the beta iOS 6 software.

Looking at the images, while the new card-style search layout is appealing from a visual standpoint, I'm wary about how functional it will be in real life use. It's more interactive but less visually dense. Instead of long list of apps on one screen, you now see only one app per screen. Instead of being able to quickly tap the seventh app on the first screen, for example, you'd now have to swipe through to the seventh screen to get to that app.

The current list view is just as easy to scroll through, and much more efficient in presenting apps.

The fundamental problem with the App Store has never been presentation but discovery. A fancy, full screen card does very little to help discovery. The current iteration of the App Store under iOS 5 worked fine for browsing. Unlike iTunes on a Windows or Mac PC, when mobile speed and efficiency are far more important than leisurely browsing through a slow, card-like view of apps.

Instead of a smooth experience that allowed you to find what I was looking for quickly, the new version, if indeed it survives to the release version, seems slower if anything. More like CoverFlow in the music app, but unescapable even by switching back to portrait mode.

What do you think of the new single-app-per-page view? Amazing, unboring refresh to the iOS interface, change-for-change's sake, or a setp backward?

Source: Carlos Henandez, 9to5Mac

• iOS 6.1.4 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.4 - CDMA - European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA - European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA/European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1 - CDMA/European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.2 - CDMA/European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA/European GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - CDMA/European GSM{.nofollow}

• iOS 6.1.3{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0{.nofollow}

• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}

• iOS 6.1.3{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0{.nofollow}

iPad mini

• iOS 6.1.3 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.2 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}

iPad 4

• iOS 6.1.3 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}

iPad 3

• iOS 6.1.3 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}

iPad 2

• iOS 6.1.3 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.3 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1 - CDMA{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - WiFi{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - GSM{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0 - CDMA{.nofollow}

iPad 2 WiFi (2012 models only)

• iOS 6.1.3{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.2{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.1.0{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0.1{.nofollow}
• iOS 6.0{.nofollow}

Something that Apple absolutely does not get enough credit for is their longstanding -- and outstanding -- support for accessibility features, and iOS 6 is no exception. To the already impressive list of accessibility features, Apple is adding Guided Access, a way to lock the iPad into a single app, to help people with autism or similar challenges work independently, without having to worry about accidentally closing an app. It also provides single-app mode functionality for everyone, which makes the iPad far more useful for everything from school tests to mall kiosks.

Here's how Apple describes accessibility and Guided Access in iOS 6:

And here's what they've shown off of it so far:

• Even dedicated, focused apps can have buttons or controls that, if unintentionally triggered, can alter app behavior or even exit the app completely.

• By activating Guided Access, you can toggle off hardware buttons like the Home button, touch controls completely, or shake controls.

• You can also selectively disable only certain controls by circling them with your finger.

• iOS will then disable those controls so they can no longer be triggered in-app.

• With the Home button disabled, Guided Access also becomes single-app mode. So, for example, a school could provide exams on an iPad without having to worry about students leaving the app, looking up the answers on Safari, and then cheating on the test.

• Beyond schools, it could serve as a kiosk-mode for museums, stores, restaurants, and numerous other types of businesses and institutions.

Taken by itself, Guided Access is another in a long line of excellent accessibilities features for iOS, in this case the iPad in particular. Combined with single-app, or kiosk-mode, it becomes a powerful tool for any school, business, or institution. It lets them provide highly specific applications, in highly controlled environments, keeping things simple yet still powerful for users and customers.

It's not protected access mode or guest mode, but it's important and it's there.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6, check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Facebook integration for iOS has been rumored for a couple years now, buy iOS 4 shipped with nary a Like in sight, and iOS 5 with only Twitter and tweets to show for itself. With iOS 6 Facebook hits the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in full force. We're talking built-in status sharing, content sharing, calendar and contacts integration, and a whole lot of stuff you can Like, built-in.

Here's how Apple describes Facebook integration in iOS 6:

And here's what they've shown off of it so far:

• Single sign-in means, like Twitter in iOS 5, you can log into your Facebook account in the Settings app, and other apps -- including the Facebook app itself -- can simply use that login to give you access. No more signing into each app individually.

• Post to Facebook from any built-in that includes a Share Sheet. Just tap the action button, tap Facebook, and your photos, location, links, and other content get shared.

• App Store apps with Share Sheets also get Facebook integration via iOS 6.

• You can quickly get to Facebook right from Notification Center -- just pull down and post. And you can even use Siri to post to Facebook for you.

• You can share music and media, apps, and Game Center scores.

• And you can even Like music, media, apps and games right from the newly redesigned iTunes Store and App Store apps.

• What's more, both Calendar and Contacts are now integrated with your Facebook events, birthdays, and friends.

Unlike the iOS and iCloud, the local and cloud server parts of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad experience, Apple seems content to outsource social to Twitter, and now Facebook. Apple has tried social before, with the Ping music network, and not done very well. On the other hand, no single social network has lasted as long as an operating system either, with Compuserve, AOL, Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, Buzz, and many others rising and falling before Twitter and Facebook came to current dominance. Apple might simply recognize that a) they're not great at social, and b) social is migratory, and so simply be content to partner with whomever is currently hot, and provide those services to iOS users.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Complete Facebook coverage
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

With iOS 6, the Google-powered Maps app is gone and in its place is an all-new, all-Apple Maps app, with data supplied by TomTom and others. While Google-specific features like Street View are gone, new Apple-specific ones like Flyover will now be available. Based on 3D techniques Apple acquired when they purchased C3 Technologies, it looks almost cinematic.

Now some may argue that Flyover doesn't provide anywhere near as useful information as Street View -- identifying the front of a store you're looking for is more helpful than identifying its roof -- but it's early days for the new Maps app and its features.

Flyover won't be available in all cities at launch. The exact number of supported cities isn't settled yet, though Apple has shown off San Francisco, Cupertino, Sydney, and a few other places. They're likely still busy improving the quality and quantity ahead of launch.

Here's how Apple introduces Flyover:

Based on what Apple's shown off, here's what we know about Flyover so far:

• Apple (and before the, C3 Technologies), has flown through major metropolitan areas with helicopters and planes

• Using that data, they built 3D models of the cities, including buildings, roadways, and other features

• And incorporated them into the new Maps app on iPhone and iPod touch, and iPad

• The 3D models are available in both Standard and Satellite view, and the Hybrid.

• Though the Satellite view is inarguably the most impressive, and what Apple reserves the Flyover name for.

• Tap an attraction, you can whisked away to it, with Hollywood quality, cinematic camera pans. All the buildings are rendered in realtime, so you can pinch, zoom, and swipe your way around 3D space, and change camera angle just as easily as you do anything else on multi-touch.

Again, Flyover won't make up for anyone who depended on Google Street View for a curb-side look at where they were going, but nor is it meant to. This is a birds-eye view, closer akin to something like Google Earth. Sure, it makes for a great tech-demo, but it also makes for a great way to virtually explore the cities and attractions around us, near and far.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

With iOS 6, Apple is replacing the previous, Google-powered Maps app on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, with a completely redesigned, re-rendered, and re-imagined Maps app. The data itself is supplied by TomTom, but Apple has draw all the maps, and while they've lost some features, like Street View, they're adding new ones, like turn-by-turn navigation

Rumor has it, Apple's been wanting to add turn-by-turn for a while now, but Google would only give it to them if Apple took the location-tracking Latitude feature as well. Apple declined. Now, in command of their own geo-destiny, Apple will soon be providing free navigation for one and all, and thanks to Siri on the iPhone 4S and future devices, it'll have full on voice directions as well.

Here's how Apple describes it:

Based on what Apple's shown off so far, here are the features:

• From any location in the Maps app, tap on the Quick Route button to start turn-by-turn navigation.

• You can also just ask Siri to tell you how to get where you want to go, and it will launch you into Maps and turn-by-turn.

• Once Maps knows where you want to go, it will start navigating you there, with the Siri voice providing audio directions.

• You'll be able to monitor your estimated time of arrival (ETA) right from the navigation screen.

• Maps will monitor traffic and, if it slows down or a problem arrises, will try and re-route you around it.

• Turn-by-turn navigation will have access to the Lock screen, so you can keep getting directions even when out of the Maps app.

• Using Siri, you can also ask for point-of-interest information, like where gas stations and stores are located.

Apple's finely crafted, vector map tiles, exquisite turn-by-turn interface, and Siri powering it all, makes for an excellent, if online-only solution. Still, for quickly finding your way somewhere, and even more quickly finding places on the way, iOS 6 Maps should be just what the navigator ordered.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Siri with iOS 5 was a decidedly iPhone 4S-only affair, with Apple choosing not to make anything more than Dictation available, even on their 2012 new iPad. That might have been due to the challenges involved in scaling Siri up from the full, albeit small iPhone interface, to the bigger iPad screen. With iOS 6, however, Apple has done it, and Siri is fully launching on the new iPad.

Not only will the iPad 3 get almost all the Siri functionality already available, but also all the new sports results, movie info, restaurant reservations, and Twitter and Facebook sharing, and app launching, iOS 6 has to offer.

The only thing Siri on the iPad will be lacking are the phone call features of the iPhone. Because: no Phone app or voice connection. However, FaceTime works and could fill in for the phone when "calling" other iOS users.

From the mockups shown on Apple.com, it's easy to see how Apple has addressed the Siri interface on iPad -- pretty much how they addressed Notification Center. What we haven't yet seen is how they'll handle Siri's network connection requirements on non-cellular devices.

Right now, Siri is only on the iPhone 4S, which is expected to have cellular data available when Wi-Fi isn't -- so Siri can theoretically always connect to Apple's servers to bring back results (even if, practically speaking, it's a completely different story). While there are LTE 4G/3G enabled iPads, there are also Wi-Fi only iPads.

If you put an iPhone 4S in Airplane mode and try to use Siri, you get a network connection popup, similar to the one you get if you try to use Safari, Mail, or any other internet connected app. It's possible, perhaps even likely, a Wi-Fi iPad that's not on Wi-Fi will spit up the same error.

However, neither Safari nor Mail are attached to the Home button and marketed like a Pixar character, so the error could be more unexpected. Could Siri have a small, localized, canned response to stay in character while informing us it's off the network?

We'll find out soon enough. iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19.

In the meantime, for more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

Siri was a bit of a tease on iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S -- while it could send Messages and Mails, it couldn't send status updates to Twitter or Facebook, and it couldn't even open an app. With iOS 6, however, Siri is not only launching on the iPad, but it's launching you into any app on your device, and posting tweets and updates like a social champ.

Here's how Apple share's Siri's new status:

Siri's newfound social acumen and app access are only available to beta testers right now, but Apple did show it off during WWDC 2012, so we have some idea of how it works.

• Create, take dictation for, and post tweet to Twitter
• Create, take dictation for, and post status to Facebook
• Launch an app or game

Here are some examples of how it works:

• Say "play Temple Run" and Siri will launch the Temple Run game, just as if you'd tapped the app icon on the Home screen.
• Say "Post to Twitter: Shopping on Robertson... just saw whatshisname from the doctor show."

• Say "Post to Facebook: I like pina coladas. But I really hate getting caught in the rain."

Siri's an assistant who already took your Messages and Mail, so updating your Facebook and Twitter is both familiar and a great extension to functionality. Being able to launch apps is okay too, though in situations where your hands are too busy to tap an icon, they're probably too busy to tap through an app once Siri's done launching it.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19.

For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

As any good personal virtual assistant should, Siri on iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S has always been okay at finding you places to eat and drink. Now, with iOS 6, Siri is hitting the iPad, and adding even more restaurant savvy to its repertoire, including all the information you need to pick a place, and even the ability to reserve you a table.

Here's how Apple teases it:

Siri restaurant assistance is only available to beta testers right now, but Apple did show it off during WWDC 2012, so we have some idea how all the services will work together.

Here's the kind of information Siri will be able to present:

• Type of food: Asian, vegetarian, American, etc.
• Price: Average cost of a meal, from $ (cheap) to $$$$ (expensive)
• Location: Street address
• Distance: In miles/kilometers
• Rating: Average, 5-star Yelp! rating and number of ratings
• Operating hours: Days of the week and times of day
• Reservations: Bookings available through OpenTable
• Contact info: Phone number, website address
• Map info: Where it's located and how to get there

Here's what you'll be able to do with Siri and restaurants:

• Say "Find me a great place for dinner" and get a list of close by restaurants, sorted by rating.

• You can tap into any one of them to get more information on that particular restaurant.

• You can tap on reviews to see individual reviews, and tap on a review to go right to the Yelp app for even more.

• You can also tap on reservations to go the Open Table app and secure your spot.

• Say "Make me a reservation at Luce tonight" and get a list of spaces and times available. Choose your spot, and go straight to the Open Table app to confirm it.

When you tie that together with what Siri already provides under iOS 5, it becomes even more interesting. Add Siri's Pixar-like charm and natural language, context aware search capabilities, and you ask for anything from a type or quality of food to a specific restaurant, find out all about it, make a reservation, and be shown just exactly how to get there. All with the tap-and-hold of the Home button.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19.

However, using Siri's existing location services, and the Yelp and Open Table apps, you can play around and get a taste of the potential right now:

• How to find locations, businesses, and restaurants, and get directions using Siri
• Download Yelp
• Download Open Table

For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

We've talked about iOS 6 and it's unusual focus at length already, but it's been in bits and pieces, scattered across a range of articles, and tangential to other points. I think it's valuable to collect it all together, though. Unlike any full point release before it, iOS 6 is more about Apple, their platform, and its future, than it is present user attraction. And it's worth collecting that, exploring why it is, and looking at what it means for iOS users.

At WWDC 2012, Apple senior vice president, Scott Forstall, introduced iOS 6 and showed off 10 of its over 200 new features. The response was decidedly mixed. Many saw it as more tick than tock -- a minor point release rather than a major new OS version that was inattentive to power-user interests, and a sign that Apple was slowing down. And it didn't help that Google's minor point release, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, shown off the very same month, seemed to pack just as much punch as Apple's major new OS version, if not more.

Sure, the low hanging fruit is gone for iOS, but a lot of higher-hanging fruit remains. Yet clearly that's not Apple's focus this year.

This year, there's no iPhone OS 2.0 App Store-level feature addition for iOS. No iOS 5 PC-free/iCloud-level addition either. There's not even an iOS 4 or iPhone OS 3.0 multitasking or cut, copy, and paste-level addition. No new Home screen interfaces or fast app switcher visualizations. No actionable notifications or methods for inter-app communications.

What there is, is all about Apple.

Removing Google's data hooks

iOS 6 will excise the Google-powered Maps app from the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and replace it with an Apple-powered Maps app. It will remove the Google-powered YouTube app, and replace it with nothing. It won't remove Google search, but it will increase Siri's scope, and Siri's ability to intermediate and broker even more search queries away from Google.

That's not a coincidence.

While the exact numbers are hotly debated, it's long been said Google makes more money off iOS than they do off their own Android operating system. The reason for this is simple -- mainstream iOS users tend to use the web and apps more than mainstream Android users, and iOS is currently filled with Google services. The built-in iOS 5 Maps app is powered by Google and provides sponsored search results and a huge amount of location data to Google. The built-in iOS 5 Safari web browser defaults to Google Search, serves Google Search ads, and can provide even more varied types of data. When iOS users use those services, Google makes money and gets more data.

That's Google's business. It doesn't make money when you search its index, it makes money recording your information, aggregating it, and brokering deals for it. Search isn't the product it sells. We are. If Apple steps in and makes the queries on our behalf, and returns them on Google's behalf, Google is cut out of the important parts -- the money.

Apple won't be replacing YouTube with an iCloud Video app (now featuring 100 videos!) any time soon, but they will be making people go to YouTube.com or download a Google-made YouTube app from the App Store when it ships. Both require more from a user than simply seeing and tapping a built-in icon.

Maps and Siri, however, are a different story...

Taking control of iOS location data

Both Apple and Google used to use Skyhook for Wi-Fi router location mapping, and both have now switched to in-house databases. Google used to license map tiles and has since re-mapped the world themselves. Apple has bought 3 mapping data related companies, and with iOS 6, has re-licensed map data from TomTom and created an all new, Google-free iOS Maps app.

That puts Apple, and not Google or anyone else, firmly in the drivers seat when it comes to location on iOS. The current iOS 5 maps are nowhere near as good as the current Android maps. Google, reportedly, wouldn't give Apple turn-by-turn navigation unless Apple also embedded Google's location-tracking Latitude service, which Apple didn't want to do. Likewise, Apple either didn't get, want, or implement Google's better vector maps. (Not only in the built-in Maps app, but in the APIs developers use for embedded maps in App Store apps.) Update after update, Android Maps outpaced iOS Maps.

Now Apple takes the mapping data from TomTom, draws their own vector maps, and supplies or brokers their own mapping services, and makes the app they want to make. Getting to iOS 6 Maps was undoubtedly non-trivial, but now Apple has control of the experience from the moment they acquire the map data to the moment the end user calls it up.

Likewise, Apple reduces Google's access to iOS user location data. As explained above, data is what feeds Google, and now instead of it being the default, Google Maps will be a more involved, more conscious user-action away -- they'll have to rely on us going to a website or downloading an App Store app and independently agreeing to share our locations. Since many users simply use the defaults, that immediately cuts down the size of Google's trough.

Users lose Street View and some other specific features, but gain turn-by-turn navigation and 3D Flyover mode. More importably, Apple keeps control of direct location data, and they can roll out more sophisticated data overlays and surface more user-centric features in future versions.

Intermediating and brokering iOS search

Last year, after Apple announced Siri, I wrote about it's long term, potentially game-changing customer insight implications. Specifically, how Siri wasn't a voice control system, but a powerful, Pixar-coated way For Apple to both intermediate and starve their biggest rival, Google, gain invaluable business intelligence, and broker those services -- and potentially that data -- to a multitude of partners.

Right now, when you search Google, Google gets that data. They know what you're searching for, maybe where you're searching from, and they may even know who you are. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of iOS users, and that lets Google aggregate, analyze, and sell ads against a lot of data.

If, however, you search with Siri, some of those searches aren't even going to Google anymore -- they're going to Yelp!, Yahoo!, Wolfram|Alpha, and others. And when they do go to a provider, all that provider sees is Apple's servers making queries on your behalf. Not you, not your location, and not your identity. Sure, Siri right now still has tremendous problems to overcome, but Apple has tremendous resources to bring to bear on solving them.

And because the interface is the app, Apple can replace more and more of Google's pipes whenever and wherever they want, without users even noticing or caring, as long as the quality of the answer is sufficiently good. Instead of one ginormous provider, Apple can align many best of breed providers for everything from food and entertainment to sports and local business.

Which appears to be exactly what they're doing. If Apple could or would tie Siri into the Spotlight Search interface as well, they could do for text searching what they're doing for voice, further starve Google, and further capture and broker the lucrative search market.

Users lose the known quantity that is Google, and put up with the growing pains that come with Siri, but they gain greater and more varied information sources for natural language search. More importantly, Apple, and not Google, becomes the gatekeeper for search on iOS, and can roll out additional providers and services in the future.

Preparing for mobile payments

One of Apple's biggest advantages when launching the iPhone was iTunes -- not just the content and relationships, but the ability to handle transactions and take payments at a global scale. It's taken -- and is still taking -- years for even their biggest competitors to roll out anything approaching competitive systems, much less match Apple in terms of content available internationally and credit cards on file.

Apple can sell apps and media around the world, but there's a lot more to sell in this world than just apps and media. Apple has already begun to handle direct payments at Apple Retail Stores using the Apple Store app on the iPhone -- you show up, scan your item, and walk right out. Apple likely has far greater plans for that than just a fancy tech demo.

With iOS 6, Apple has also introduced Passbook, billed as way to easily aggregate and use all the vouchers and tickets collected by the various vendor apps on your iPhone, all in one place, and with all the benefits provided by first-party hooks into Apple's location-aware notification system. It can already work with the quaint QRC code system, and it's not hard to imagine that, in the future, it will work with RFID/NFC (near-field communications).

Start putting all the pieces together, and the technology Apple is introducing in iOS 6 sets them up to not only start staking out territory in the multi-billion dollar mobile transaction business of the future, but to do it in the extremely friendly, completely mainstream way Apple has done everything else with the iPhone and iPad.

Users get an interesting if not compelling new Passbook app today, and Apple gets to introduce the front end to what they may one day tie iTunes transactions into an entire mobile payments infrastructure.

Increasing support for Chinese markets

One look at Apple's quarterly earnings reports, and the attention given to the greater China market in the conference calls that follow, should leave no doubt as to how important China is to Apple. iOS 6 reflects that reality.

Users get better Chinese text input and dictionary support, Baidu, YouKu, Tudou, and Sina Weibo support, and Siri in Mandarin and Cantonese. Apple gets a more compelling product offering for the greater Chinese market, which will be huge for their future.

Outsourcing social to Facebook and Twitter

It's interesting that Apple owns the operating system with iOS and the server with iCloud, but they appear happy enough to let Twitter, starting with iOS 5, and Facebook, starting with iOS 6, own the social infrastructure.

Part of it could be Apple's ill-fated attempts at social in the past, most notably the Ping social music network. Part of it could be the lack of persistence social networks have shown to date. Friendster gave way to MySpace gave way to Facebook, and Google+ is at play in there, somewhere, as well. OS X and Windows span decades. Social has been far more migratory.

Apple needs social features, but they don't need to own social features. At least not yet. For now they just have to integrate with whomever has large user populations at any given time, which means Twitter and Facebook.

Users get to share what they're doing, and yes, give Twitter and Facebook the same kind of data Apple doesn't seem to want to give Google, but iOS gets the social features users want without Apple having to provide them.

Perhaps one day Apple will do to Twitter and Facebook what they're doing to Google now (and vice versa). But not today, and probably not for a while.

The bottom line

iPhone OS 1.0 was all about delighting users with a an enthralling multitouch interface and a fresh new take on the smartphone. iPhone OS 2.0 to iOS 4 were about filling in and rounding out features and functionality, and making the iPhone, and later the iPad, an ecosystem. iOS 5 was about taking the iPhone and iPad to the iCloud.

Now that's all done, and for mainstream users -- the users Apple is targeting -- iOS does what they need it to do.

Meanwhile Android and its various device manufacturers are still pushing out new features fast and furiously, yet at the same time they're being forced to go back and work on user experience and consistency, something Apple nailed in iPhone OS 1. webOS has floundered, Windows Phone has yet to find a place in the market, BlackBerry won't even have a shot at a relaunch into early 2012, and the Facebooks and Amazons are still testing the waters.

Apple has a unique opportunity, a unique moment in time, to fix some of the problems they themselves have been facing with iOS, and need to fix to better ensure the future of their platform. Unfortunately, that comes at the expense of user-centric, perhaps even geek-centric features. This time.

In a perfect world, Apple would be able to do everything all at once. We live in the real world of opportunity costs, however, where time and money spent on one thing negates that same time and money being spent on anything else. Even a company as massive as Apple has limits on how much carefully focused software they can project at one time. Sure, there's Do Not Disturb, FaceTime over 3G, VIP mail, Safari image uploads, kiosk-mode, and a few other enhancements, but making a new Maps app was a huge amount of work for Apple, even if replacing one maps app for another doesn't seem like a huge benefit for users. Likewise positioning Siri and Passbook for what comes next.

So iOS 6 is more about Apple and the future of the platform than it is about revolutionary user-facing features today. And that's fine, because a strong platform means more user-facing features for tomorrow...

Siri, as introduced in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S, is an able if not particularly well-rounded personal assistant. With iOS 6, however, Siri is expanding to the iPad, and adding sports to its repertoire. Now, in addition to keeping you in contact, on time, on course, and on schedule, Siri will also serve you up the latest scores.

Here's how Apple describes it:

Siri sports scores are only available to beta testers right now, but Apple did show them off during WWDC 2012, so we have some idea how they'll work. According to their presentation, Siri sports will support looking up information on:

• Soccer: Italian Seria A, English Premier League, Dutch Eredivisie, Major League Soccer, French Ligue 1, Spanish La Liga, and German Bundesliga
• Baseball: Major League Baseball
• Football: NCAA Football, NFL
• Basketball: NCAA Basketball, NBA, WNBA
• Hockey: NHL

For each of those sports, Siri can provide:

• Scores
• Standings
• Schedules
• Team rosters
• Player stats

Taken together, here's what you'll be able to do with Siri and sports:

• Ask "what was the core of the last Giants game?" and get a new scoreboard widget showing the results.

• Ask "what is Buster Posey's batting average?" and get a new player card widget showing you the stats.

• Ask "what are the national league standings?" and get a scrollable widget with up-to-date team standings.

• Ask "who is taller, Lebron or Kobe?" and not only get both player cards, but a comparative assessment.

• Ask "when is the San Francisco 49ers first game of the season?" and get a new schedule widgets giving you the data and time for the appropriate game.

And that's just what's been shown off so far.

Those sports sources, combined with Siri's almost Pixar-like persona and natural language, context aware search capabilities, should make it a surefire hit for everything from keeping up with games on the road to finding out who wins a bar bet.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

• Siri: The ultimate guide
• Everything you need to know about iOS 6
• iOS 6 discussion forum

This year, like every year, one of the most common questions iMore's being asked is -- how many betas will the be before iOS 6 becomes available to the general public?

At WWDC 2012, when Apple announced iOS 6 and released the first beta, they also announced that iOS 6 would ship sometime this fall. (Presumably and traditionally a couple of days before the next generation iPhone 5 ships. That gives us a window roughly spanning from September to November. We likely won't find out the exact iOS 6 release date until the iPhone 5 event, but that also hasn't been announced yet, and typically won't be until the last minute.

So all we can really do at this point is look at history for clues, and go through the mental exercise extrapolating past behavior to try and predict future behavior.

Update: Will Hains has posted a dynamic, graphical representation of the number of days between iOS beta releases. Check it out at willhains.com.

Here's the full beta schedule from last year's iOS 5 release:

• Beta 1 was released on Friday, June 5
• Beta 2 was released three weeks later on Friday, June 24
• Beta 3 was released over two weeks later on Monday, July 11
• Beta 4 was released under two weeks later on Friday, July 22
• Beta 5 was released two weeks later on Saturday, August 6,
• Beta 6 was released two weeks later on Friday, August 19
• Beta 7 was released a week and a half later on Wednesday, August 31
• GM was released almost seven weeks later on Tuesday, October 4
• Final was released a week later on Wednesday, October 12

Here's the beta schedule to date for this year's iOS 6 release:

• Beta 1 was released on Monday, June 11
• Beta 2 was released two weeks later on Monday, June 25
• Beta 3 was released three week later on Monday, July 16

Here's how that looks on a calendar:

If Apple sticks closely to the every-two-weeks pattern from here on out, and the same release schedule as last year, there's enough time to squeeze in 8 betas. If any of the betas take longer than 2 weeks, or last for extended periods like the final beta last year, then we could see as few as 6.

So, if past behavior is any indicator of future behavior, we can expect 6 to 8 betas total for iOS 6, with a Gold Master (GM seed) at the iPhone 5 event in early October, and a final release in early/mid October when the iPhone 5 ships.

Given Apple's penchant for secrecy and lack of predictability at times, the only real schedule for iOS betas is to expect them when you see them.

• How iOS 6's flagship features compare to past versions, and to Android 4.1, BlackBerry 10, and Windows Phone 8

Now that Apple has released iOS 6 beta 3, redsn0w has been updated to version 0.9.13 dev 3. So if you're a jailbreak developer, it's a good idea to make sure you update to the most recent beta so you can get to testing your jailbreak apps.

Note: This release of redsn0w is meant to be a developer release and not a general release to the public. Just as you should expect bugs in a beta version of iOS, you should also expect them in beta jailbreak tools. This release does not install Cydia. While it is possible to manually install Cydia after jailbreaking, we don't recommend it. If you aren't a developer, stay away.

How to jailbreak iOS 6 beta 3

1. Download redsn0w 0.9.13 dev 3 from our downloads section.
2. Save the iOS 6 beta 3 firmware file (IPSW) from Apple's developer portal somewhere on your computer that's easy to find. In previous releases you had to point to beta 1 but the new version allows you to point directly to the beta 3 file.
3. Put your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch into DFU mode. If you don't know how to do this, you can check out our guide on how to put your device in DFU mode before continuing but we are assuming most jailbreak developers should be comfortable with DFU mode by now.
4. Now open redsn0w and click Extras

5. Now click the button that says Select IPSW. Navigate to the IPSW for iOS 6 beta 3 that you saved in step 2.

6. Once you've selected the iOS 6 beta 3 firmware file go back to the main screen of redsn0w and click Jailbreak.
7. Now make sure Install SSH is checked and continue.

How to perform a tethered boot

Your jailbreak will be tethered so once the jailbreak process is complete you'll need to perform a tethered boot with redsn0w.

1. Place your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch back into DFU mode.
2. From the main screen of redsn0w select Extras again and then Select IPSW one more time.

3. Navigate to the iOS 6 beta 3 file again but this time select Just Boot from the Extras menu.

Let redsn0w do its thing. Your device will reboot and then you should be good to go. And again, keep in mind that this is a beta release and is not meant for the general public. Expect bugs and crashes. We only recommend installing beta software and beta jailbreak tools on test devices if you can help it.

If you do run into issues or have questions, you can hop into our jailbreak and unlock forums via the link below.

Additional resources:

• How to jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2 with redsn0w 0.9.13
• How to install iOS 6 beta with Xcode or iTunes
• How to manually update to iOS 6 beta 2 over the air
• How to jailbreak iOS 5.1.1 with Greenpois0n Absinthe
• iMore downloads section
• Jailbreak help and discussion forums

When Apple announced iOS 6 at WWDC 2012 and showed off its 10 new tent pole features, the response was... mixed. Some were delighted by the new maps app and the Siri enhancements, thrilled with Facebook integration and Safari image uploads, and intrigued by the potential of Passbook. Others saw iOS 6 as more tock than tick, a minor point release rather than a major new OS version, inattentive to power-user problems, and a sign that Apple was slowing down.

With Google releasing Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Microsoft readying Windows Phone 8, HP trudging towards open webOS, and RIM scrambling to get BlackBerry 10 done and shipped, the competitive landscape has never been hotter.

So, just like we examined the evolution of the App Store in a competitive context, let's compare iOS 6 to previous iPhone and iPad software previews, and to what the likes of Google, RIM, and Microsoft have shown off to date.

Apples to Apples

Experiencing an iOS keynote like WWDC 2012 today, and watching Senior Vice President of iOS, Scott Forstall, lay out the new flagship features for iOS 6 -- what Apple's has called tent poles in the past -- it can be hard to weigh them against flagship features of the past, and to judge them free from expectations.

When compared side by side -- or slide to slide -- with keynotes past, the impact of each step of Apple's iOS evolution become easier to measure.

iPhone OS 2.0 was announced during Apple's iPhone SDK Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. The numerous feature improvements were broken down into 4 large categories.

1. Enterprise enhancements
2. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
3. iPhone SDK
4. App Store

During the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote on June 9, 2008, Apple announced a half-dozen new features as well as the MobileMe service and iPhone 3G-specific features:

1. Contact search
2. Quick look enhancements
3. Mail enhancements
4. Scientific calculator
5. Parental controls
6. Languages
7. MobileMe
8. 3G + GPS

Additional features were added post-launch with iPhone OS 2.1, released alongside the 2nd generation iPod touch, and iPhone OS 2.2.

Enterprise support and 3G networking made the iPhone interesting to a much larger market. The SDK and the App Store, however, transformed the iPhone from appliance to platform. It was and is so important, iPhone OS 2.0 remains the most significant software update to date.

Announced at the iPhone 3.0 Software Sneak Peak on March 17, 2009, iPhone OS 3.0 promised over 1000 new APIs for developers and more than 100 new user-facing features. 13 were highlighted:

1. In-app purchase
2. Peer-to-peer connectivity
3. Accessories access
4. Maps API
5. Push notifications (redux)
6. Cut, copy, and paste
7. Landscape
8. MMS
9. Voice memos app
10. Calendar enhancements
11. Stocks enhancements
12. Spotlight Search

At WWDC 2009 on June 8, the iPhone 3GS brought with it a some new, hardware-specific features as well:

1. Video recording
2. Voice Control

Post-launch, Apple added addition features with iPhone OS 3.1, released alongside the 3rd-generation iPod touch, and iPhone OS 3.2, which was exclusive to the then-new iPad device.

Cut, copy, and paste had been a sore spot for years. Scratching that off the list, along with MMS (everywhere except the U.S., thanks to AT&T), video recording, and push notifications (in lieu of multitasking) put the iPhone close to core feature-parity with existing platforms of the time. It meant fewer users had to choose between form or function any many -- Apple increasingly offered both.

iPhone OS 4.0/iOS 4

iPhone OS 4.0, as it was originally introduced at the Preview event on April 8, 2010, offered over 1500 new APIs for developers and 100+ new user-facing features. 7 tentpoles were highlighted:

1. Multitasking
2. Folders + Home screen wallpaper
3. Mail enhancements
4. iBooks for iPhone
5. Enterprise enhancements
6. Game Center
7. iAd

On June 7, at WWDC 2010, Apple renamed iPhone OS 4.0 to iOS 4, and also added a couple of iPhone 4-specific features.

1. 720p video and camera enhancements
2. FaceTime

Post-launch, Apple added additional features with iOS 4.1, released alongside the 4th-generation iPod touch, iOS 4.2 for iPhone and iOS 4.3 for iPad, which unified the platform, and iOS 4.3

FaceTime made for a great demo but Wi-Fi-bound video calling still hasn't gone mainstream. iBooks, iAds, and Game Center marked Apple's readiness and desire to subsume the content and services traditionally owned by competitors Amazon (Kindle), Google (AdMob), and Microsoft (Xbox Live). Multitasking scratched one of the last, and biggest remaining pain points off user wish-lists, however, even though Apple's limited solution didn't please everyone.

Apple waited longer to preview iOS 5 than any previous version of iOS -- almost 3 months longer. When it made its debut during the WWDC keynote on June 6, 2011, Apple announced 1500 new APIs for developers, and 200 new features for users, including 10 highlighted at the event, as well as iCloud, the replacement for MobileMe.

1. Notification Center
2. Newsstand
3. Reminders
4. Twitter integration
5. Camera enhancements
6. Photo enhancements
7. Safari enhancements
8. PC free
9. Game Center
10. iMessage
11. (iCloud)

On October 4 of 2011, alongside the iPhone 4S, Apple showed off a couple more, hardware-specific features.

1. 1080p video and additional camera enhancements
2. Siri

Since then, Apple released a minor iOS 5.1 point update.

iOS 5 was the biggest update since iPhone OS 2, severing the iOS' ties with iTunes and hooking in a proper server-side component with iCloud. Apple addressed the problem of their previous, modal alert system with Notification Center, and kicked the carriers right in the revenue stream with iMessage. While Newsstand hasn't proven to be the right solution for subscriptions, Siri brought an entirely new, natural language interface to iOS, even if in limited, beta form.

Back on a yearly schedule, Apple used the WWDC 2012 keynote on June 11 to debut iOS 6. Scott Forstall announced an unspecified number of new API, as well as 200 new features, 10 of which he highlighted on stage:

1. Apple maps
2. Siri enhancements
3. Facebook integration
4. Shared Photo Streams
5. Passbook
6. FaceTime over cellular
7. Phone enhancements
8. Mail enhancements
9. Safari enhancements
10. Accessibility enhancements

There were clearly no App Store-level feature additions for iOS 6. No PC-free/iCloud-level, or multitasking-level, or even cut, copy, and paste-level features when it comes to geek itches scratched or pain points soothed. No new Home screen interfaces or fast app switcher visualizations. No actionable notifications or methods for inter-app communications.

The iOS 6 flagship features showed that this year, Apple had different priorities:

• Continue Siri's intermediation and brokerage of search
• Cement ownership of iOS location data and maps services
• Outsource social sharing to services like Twitter and Facebook
• Prepare for the lucrative future of mobile payments
• Increase iOS support for the growing Asian markets

Still, we've only seen a preview of iOS 6. The big features, the big demos -- the stuff like FaceTime and Siri that Santa will be using in this holiday's iPhone commercials -- won't be revealed until the iPhone 5 event sometime around October.

More on that at the end...

Apples to Oranges Androids, BlackBerrys, and Windows

It's harder to compare iOS 6 to Android 4.1, BlackBerry 10, and Windows Phone 8, since they not only made different design choices and engineering compromises, they made different marketing decision about which features to showcase -- sometimes deliberately to counter-program Apple and/or each other. But for that very reason, to highlight the differences, the comparison is especially interesting.

At Google I/O 2012 on June 27, Google announced Android 4.1 Jellybean, which despite its point release label, packed a bevy of new features.

1. Project Butter
2. Home screen widget enhancements
3. Enhanced text input
4. Offline Voice
5. Enhanced language support
6. Accessibility enhancements
7. Camera enhancements
8. Android Beam enhancements
9. Actionable Notification
10. Search enhancements/Google Now
11. Platform Developer Kit (PDK)
12. Google Play enhancements

Google also used I/O to announce the Nexus 7 and Nexus Q, each of which have device-specific features and/or apps.

Every year, Google throws an incredible amount of new features, services, and enhancements at the product wall. It's the exact opposite of Apple's highly focused, less-is-more strategy. Not all of it Google's announcements stick, which Google well knows, but it moulds perception and caters to the power-user, technology-enthusiast crowd.

In that context, none of Jelly Bean key feature announcements were platform-shaking, but taken together, the pace Google is forcing -- often lapping their own hardware partners -- keeps the whole industry on alert, including Apple.

Given what Apple announced as a major release, what Google announced as a point release seems even more impressive.

BlackBerry 10 is a completely new operating system. RIM is jettisoning the old J2ME BlackBerryOS for the realtime QNX platform, with a modern, gesture-heavy interface, and API still being built to go with it. BlackBerry 10 was recently delayed from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, yet some of its new features were shown off at BlackBerry World 2012 on May 1, as were interface builders from TAT, and more.

1. Flow interface
2. Predictive keyboard
3. Time-warp camera

RIM may have bought or licensed many of the new pieces, but assembling them will take a lot of first-party engineering. If they can pull it off, it'll be something truly refreshing, just like Windows Phone was in 2010, webOS was in 2009, and the iPhone was in 2007.

The BlackBerry 10 feature set will probably be small compared to iOS. Like any OS reboot, RIM is limited by time. No one can do everything at once. BlackBerry 10's use of gestures to maintain one-handed ease of use on larger screens, and to keep notifications and app switching instantly accessible is interesting, but It's way too late in the game for sheer novelty of interface to carry a platform, however, the way it did in 2007. But it could make Apple's 2007-era Springboard system and Home screen design look even more its age.

Windows Phone 8 was introduced by Joe Belfiore at the Windows Phone Summit on June 20, 2012. Re-architected to run on the same NT kernel and systems that runs Windows desktop, Windows Phone 8 won't run on older hardware, but it will enable a new generation of more powerful features. While not all features have been revealed yet, Microsoft has highlight 8 of them to date, along with some developer tools.

1. Modern hardware support
2. Internet Explorer 10
3. Native gaming support
4. NFC
5. Windows Phone Wallet
6. Nokia Maps
7. Business enhancements
8. Start screen enhancements

Microsoft has also announced their Surface series of Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro tablets. Unlike Apple, which shares iOS between phones and tablets, and runs OS X on computers, Microsoft is running Windows Phone 8 on phones and sharing Windows 8 between tablets and computers.

That difference in mobile divide, along with Microsoft doing a second smartphone reboot in as many versions, and Metro remaining as constraining as it is elegant, holds the platform back. Windows Phone is still very much walking a line between iOS-style control and Android-style flexibility, but consumers haven't yet found that to be the best of both worlds -- they're rather choosing one or the other. A lot of the Windows Phone 8 features Microsoft chose to highlight, like modern hardware and gaming, come off as core functionality catch-up at this point. Features will likely be added faster and more furiously from here on out, but until Microsoft is finally done rebooting, Windows Phone can't achieve the acceleration of iOS or Android.

Conclusion (iOS 6 release redux)

In 2007, iOS (then iPhone OS) was the newest mobile operating system on the planet. Now, with Android's post-iPhone redirect, and Palm, Microsoft, and RIM's post-iPhone reboot, iOS is soon going to be the oldest. That's how fast things are moving in mobile. Where Apple was once starting almost from scratch, and triaging table-stakes like apps, copy/paste, and multitasking over the course of years, they're now mature and focused on rounding out feature sets, reducing the friction of the user experience, and better controlling the destiny of their platform.

With the low hanging fruit gone, there remain higher-hanging fruit for Apple to execute on in the future, if they so choose. But they're not choosing to do any of that this year.

As for iPhone 5-specific features, or the features that will make it into the Santa commercials, we can look at the previous iPhone events for hints on what to expect:

• iPhone 3GS: Video recording and Voice Control
• iPhone 4: 720p video recording and FaceTime
• iPhone 4S: 1080p video recording and Siri virtual assistant

It's not hard to imagine the iPhone 5 will once again include a camera demo, perhaps Phil Schiller showing off automagical new Panorama software, and other optical wonders.

If rumors of Near Field Communication (NFC) pan out, and those are integrated into Passbook, and Apple can get high-profile retail partners on board, a shopping demo at the Apple Store, Starbucks, Disney, and/or Target could certainly qualify. If not this year, then perhaps next.

It's possible, however, that this year it's hardware that gets the tock to software's tick. Come fall, iOS 6 could be less about flagship features and more about what it's running on.

A 4-inch iPhone hardware with a 16:9 screen, LTE networking, and new design, in-and-of-themselves are highly demonstrable. And if there is a surprise come this fall, rather than a blow-away new software feature, it could just be one more, small thing.

• iOS 6 and the App Store: Apple's multi-billion dollar balancing act
• iOS 6: Higher hanging fruit

As part of their Windows Phone Summit today, Microsoft has unveiled Windows Phone 8, the next generation of their next generation mobile phone operating system. Already surprisingly simple and elegant, Microsoft now seems ready to amp up the power and features of Windows Phone 7. And a lot of those features seem aimed squarely at Apple's upcoming iOS 6. Our Mobile Nations sibling site, WPCentral is live at the event, and here's what they've seen.

• Microsoft officially announces Windows Phone 8

Latest and greatest hardware support

This one was a no brainer -- Windows Phone will now support multi-core and much higher resolution displays, including 800x480, 1280x768, and 1280x720 (15:9 for the two, 16:9 last). The Nokia Lumia 900 has a screen density nowhere near what it should have been for its size. This fixes all that and catches up to the leading edge Android phones on the market.

They've also added MicroSD support. (Which Apple will be adding never.)

• Windows Phone Summit: New resolutions revealed for Windows Phone 8

Internet Explorer 10

Included in Windows Phone 8 will be what Microsoft claims is a feature-complete version of the desktop Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10). That includes SmartScreen, HTML5, and JavaScript performance which Microsoft claims beats Android 4.x on the Samsung Galaxy S III, and the iOS 6 beta on the iPhone 4S.

It is slightly douchey to benchmark prototype Windows Phone 8 hardware against 9 month old iOS hardware running beta software. (And does that break Apple's NDA?). But it is what it is, and almost everyone does it.

Mobile Nations will run our own tests on an iPhone 5 when it ships, as well as whatever Android and Windows Phone devices are on the market at the time.

But credit where it's due. Microsoft is one of the very few not using WebKit -- the rendering engine behind Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome -- in mobile and, in stark contrast to the Pocket IE 6 days, they seem intent on keeping it absolutely competitive.

Native gaming

Microsoft is giving gaming developers C++ and DirectX to work their wonders with on Windows Phone 8, which is a huge step up. Microsoft is aiming to have gaming go from Windows to Windows Phone, which is smart. Curiously, there didn't seem to be any mention of Xbox, though Xbox Live is already in Windows Phone.

Apple has provided direct Objective-C, OpenGL, and an increasing set of APIs for developers since the iOS SDK launched in 2008, and with iOS 6 will be doing Game Center and AirVideo from Mac as well, making for a fairly awesome intra-platform gaming experience.

It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft ties their ecosystem together.

Wallet

At first glance, Windows Phone Wallet looks to be a hybrid of iOS 6 Passbook's repository and Google Wallet payment system. So, not only can you keep all your cards, coupons, tickets, etc. in one place, but you can pay right from the phone as well.

There'll be a dedicated Wallet Hub for everyone, but proper payments look like they'll need a TPM secured SIM card.

Apple hasn't announced any NFC (Near Field Communications) plans yet, but it wouldn't be surprising if Passbook was already set up with this in mind, and the PassKit framework wasn't abstracted and modular enough to, for example, swap out QR Codes for full on NFC in future hardware...

• Microsoft announces Wallet for Windows Phone 8

Nokia Maps

Microsoft used to license NavTeq data for Bing Maps. Nokia owns NavTeq. Microsoft partners with Nokia. So Windows Phone 8 will now simply use Nokia Maps.

That leaves Google with Google Maps, and Apple with the only other supplier of map data, TomTom's TeleAtlas, for iOS 6 Maps.

• Microsoft announces Nokia Map Technology for Windows Phone 8

New Start Screen

Windows Phone 8 updates the tile-based Start Screen, adding more customizable sizes and colors, and removing the old "gutter" so they go full screen.

I'm not a huge fan of Windows Phone tiles. They aren't as easily distinguishable as icons or as informationally dense as widgets. Microsoft means them as a best-of-both-worlds but to my eyes they're the one aesthetically displeasing part of the otherwise gorgeous Metro UI. And this all just makes a bad thing worse.

Still, if you are a fan of Titles, there's more of them to love.

• Microsoft announces the new Start Screen for Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone 7.8

Owners of almost brand new Windows Phones, like the Titan 2 or Nokia Lumia 900 won't be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Instead they'll get a Windows Phone 7.8 booby prize which brings the new look, but not the new APIs needed to keep those phones relevant.

And that's, frankly, pathetic. Microsoft should have planned better. Can you imagine the much older iPhone 4S not getting iOS 6 but getting an iOS 5.5 build that had the new colored status bar but didn't maintain API compatibility?

Microsoft should have made sure any device sold in the last year had hardware specs that would maintain compatibility. I feel sorry for my Windows Phone friends on this one.

• Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7.8 update for current hardware

More on Windows Phone 8

That looks to be about it for the announcements. Dan Rubino, Rafael Rivera, and the entire WPCentral team are now watching the demos and digging into the details, and they'll have more -- much more! -- to come. So if you're at all interested in Windows Phone 8, head on over and check out all the info:

• Complete Windows Phone 8 coverage

Ahead of WWDC 2012, rumor had it Apple was considering a fresh coat of paint for the default iPhone interface elements (UIKit). Now that iOS 6 has been introduced, instead of a new, unifying silver look, like Leopard gave OS X, we've gotten several new looks, and a newly tinted status bar to go along with them.

In iOS 5 the default iPhone status bar was constrained to very few states: translucent (for use on top of Lock screen or Home screen wallpapers), light gray, black, or hidden (for videos, games, and other full-screen apps).

With iOS 6, the translucent and hidden states are still there, as is the black state, but the light gray default has been replaced by a color that's tinted based on the that of the menu bar -- or more exactly, a color averaged from the bottom row of menu bar pixels. Developer Simon Blommegård ran several tests and determined if, for example, you entire menu bar was yellow but the bottom row of pixels was half red and half blue, the status bar would be tinted with a purple hue.

You can see the new, tinted status bar plainly in the keynote video when the new Mail features are shown off. (About 90 min. in). You can also see Safari, Passbook and other apps that have been opted-out and set to black instead.

This raises an interesting design question: Should the status bar be part of the app interface, or should it disappear into the casing.

On a black iPhone, the black status bar almost becomes part of the device itself. Even on a white iPhone, due to the black border around the screen, the black status bar becomes more device than interface element.

Consistency becomes invisibility.

If iOS only ever used a black status bar, it would be unobtrusive -- all but unnoticeable to users unless and until they went looking for it. In other words, attention would remain on the app content, not the iOS chrome.

Even in iOS 5 and earlier, the black and light gray status bars were repetitive enough, and light gray matched the default menu bar enough, that they all but disappeared.

The tinted status bar doesn't do that right now. In default Apple apps, it sticks out in a more obvious shade of blue. Arguably that's because it's new. But given its potential to change colors, Skittles-like, from app to app, it'll be hard pressed to fade into unobtrusiveness any time soon.

Themes, skins, carrier customizations, and other variables aside, other major mobile operating systems handle it this way. The status bar is uniform to the point that dedicated users have to go double check to see what color it is, so unmemorable has it become. webOS specifically targeted that experience, keeping their status bar black and rounding the corners so it would look more like words on the case than pixels above an app.

Yet with iOS 6 Apple is deliberately drawing attention to the status bar.

So the question becomes, what advantage is there to having a more noticeable status bar in apps like Mail and Settings? (Apple overrides it with black in apps like Safari and Find my Friends.) Is there information contained in the status bar that needs to be more noticeable in default app interfaces? Does it simply make utilitarian, more data-driven apps a little more cosmetically attractive, where content-rich apps are better left to the less obtrusive black?

Apple showed off the new, more colorful status bars during the WWDC keynote, but iOS 6 is still in beta and things can change between now and the general release date this fall. There's also always a chance some new system in the iPhone 5 could shed better light on the switch to the tinted status bar, so we'll have to wait and see.

Right now, I'd prefer to see Apple go pure black across the board in iOS (and let developers overwrite it if they choose to). Even on a white iPhone, a consistent status bar becomes part of the device, there when I need it, gone when I don't.

One of the more intriguing aspects of both iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion is the way in which Apple is further enabling intelligent background activity when iPhones, iPads, and Macs are otherwise "asleep".

People hate waiting

Tapping a button or activating a gesture, only to have to wait for data or content to refresh or download, to have to stare at seemingly endless spinners and slowly crawling status bars, simply isn't a great user experience. It makes us wait, and people hate waiting.

A great user experience is is tapping or gesturing for content and that content instantly popping up because it's already available, waiting for us.

iCloud and Exchange do this already. Your email, events, addresses, etc. arrive even when your iPhone and iPad are sleeping. When you go to Mail, Calendar, Contacts, etc. all the data is already there and up to date.

Newsstand does this already. Newsstand-enabled apps "wake-up", check for new content, and then download and refresh magazine an newspaper subscriptions automatically.

That's the appeal of push technology and automatic updates -- users don't have to wait seconds, minutes, or longer for data and content to become available.

Power napping

With Power Nap in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is bringing a similar level of service to the Mac, and adding several more. In addition to the other core iCloud apps -- Reminders, Notes, and Photo Stream, with Power Nap, system updates will automatically download in the background while your Mac is asleep. So will App Store updates. Time Machine backups will take place. Find my Mac will update its location. 

It all happens quietly and with a minimum of power drain. Our data simply refreshes while we're off getting other things done.

Podcast app

Apple is in investigating other methods of making devices "work for us" while we're not using them, and other types of content that can be refreshed automatically in the background. 

for example, today you have to manually go to iTunes and start a download and then wait for it to finish, or open an App Store app that can then wake up and start a download.

iMore recently heard there were plans for automatic background audio and video downloads. If battery and connectivity levels allowed, just like Newsstand, new content would download all on their own. 

Rumors of a new, separate Podcast app from Apple could showcase just exactly that kind of functionality. Once subscribed to a show, Podcast could wake up and download it for you, and have it ready and waiting, instead of requiring a button tap to initiate the process, keeping you waiting for it.

"Just working"

Mobile will be constrained by greater power and connectivity concerns than desktop for the foreseeable future, but it's not hard to imagine iOS eventually doing all the same kinds of background activity OS X Mountain Lion will be doing this year. iOS is already doing automatic iCloud backups. Automatic system and app updates, among other things, might not be that far away.

While we haven't heard anything specific, the potential of these kinds of processes are phenomenal. Instead of requiring risky online maps or huge offline pre-loads, iOS could silently fetch and cache a radius of maps around you, offering more reliable and efficient near-line and just-in-time navigation.

Anything that requires the management of large blobs of data or content could be handled this way. Apple products are famously said to "just work". These types of Apple services could be seen as "just working".

iOS 6 and beyond

How much of this is already in iOS 6, how much more could be announced at the presumed October iPhone 5 event, and how much will come in future updates only Apple and NDA-bound developers know for sure. But it's getting increasingly hard to imagine is not coming.

Make all the Skynet or the Matrix jokes you like, but there could soon come a time when all our Apple devices busily get to work handling all the little things, leaving us free to get the big things done.

Before Apple unveiled the new iOS 6 Maps app at WWDC 2012, I wrote a post trying to help offset the hype and hopefully better set expectations. It seemed unlikely Apple could simply swap out Google maps data, add new features, and still keep all the original ones intact.

That's proven to be true. TomTom has replaced Google as Apple's primary map provider, but that means Google's Street View is gone. They've added free turn-by-turn navigation and put it in Street View's place, perhaps to distract people who might otherwise be frustrated by the omission.

But what about directions? That's been the source of some initial confusion, and a lot of debate. Driving and walking directions are still there, if less obviously placed behind a 90 degree turn button. Tap either tabs and you get exactly what you'd expect. Hit the public transit tab, however, and you get a list of apps that can supply that information.

No, I didn't type that incorrectly. In the iOS 6 beta there's no built-in transit directions.

Apple's view, elaborated on by SVP of iOS, Scott Forstall during the Keynote, is that developers have done such a tremendous job with public transit directions that Apple would rather hand off to them and not reinvent the data wheel.

That's great for developers but the opposite of great for users.

It's great for developers because Maps-compatible apps can be sold right from within the Apple Maps app (similar to how games can be sold right from within Game Center. That means more timely exposure for the developers -- users see the app when they need it and are more likely to buy it.

It's not so great for users because, instead of being presented with the timely data they need, they're presented with choices to make and steps to follow to eventually get to the data they need.

In an ideal iOS 6 Maps implementation, Apple would do what they usually do -- provide baseline functionality and let developers handle more advanced, more detailed, more niche requirements. iOS 6 Maps would include the same basic transit information as iOS 5 Maps did, and then offer additional content via the in-Maps App Store.

Apple usually places the needs of users ahead of the needs of developers, so this may simply be a case of Apple not being able to provide good enough transit data for numerous enough locations, forcing the absolute hand-off to apps. They could also still be working on it and have it ready for a future beta or in the Gold Master.

Otherwise the abdication of responsibility in an app as important as Maps is tough to understand, and is something Apple should consider re-visiting during the beta cycle, or in a future point revision like iOS 6.1.

Otherwise, if Google does indeed release a proper, Android-style Google Maps app in the App Store, it could prove to be a powerful alternative for those who want and need transit (and Street View) built-in.

Update: We received some screenshots highlighting the difference.

At WWDC, Apple proclaimed iOS 6 would introduce over 200 new features when released this fall, and that what we saw yesterday was just a small sampling. We've got plenty of posts going over the big features, but there are also a handful of slides that were positively riddled with features that they just didn't have time to go over.

Additionally, there were lots of smaller features that either just got a passing mention, were folded into some of the talk about OS X, or weren't referenced at all. That said, let's tear apart the keynote address (which was recently made available in HD on iTunes, by the way) and pick out every teeny tiny iOS 6 feature we can.

We're going to keep a running tally here, and update it as more information becomes available, so check back often! (New additions will be in boss-like bold.)

• Messages (with iMessage, pulled from the latest beta), Reminders, Notes

• Documents in the Cloud (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Preview, Text Edit, plus developer SDK)
• Mail preferences pushed to iCloud
• iCloud Documents API improvements

• Sports scores (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer)
  • Italian Serie A
  • English Premier League
  • MLS
  • French Ligue 1
  • Spanish la Liga
  • Dutch Eredivisie
  • German Bundesliga
  • MLB
  • NCAA Football
  • NFL
  • NBA
  • NCAA Basketball
  • WNBA
  • NHL
• Sport player stats

• Sport team rosters
• Sports league standings
• Sports game schedule
• Updated restaurant searches (type, price, Yelp reviews, distance, map, hours, phone number)
• OpenTable reservations for restaurants
• Movie listings per theatre
• Rotten Tomato moview reviews
• Movie facts
• Movie trailers
• Search by actor/actress
• Launch apps
• Send Tweet
• Update Facebook status
• Listen to notifications
• Eyes Free car integration (in the next year)
• International languages (Canada, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Korean, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China) and local search (all of the above plus countries with existing Siri functionality)
• Siri for iPad (new iPad only)

• Single sign-on
• Share from Photos, Safari, Maps, App Store, iTunes, Game Center
• Public API for developers
• Contact and Calendar integration

• Reply to incoming calls with message (preset or custom) or save reminder (timed or geofenced)
• New dialer layout

• Do not disturb toggle with fine-grain phone call exceptions, schedules, or allowing repeat calls
• Facebook and Twitter compose buttons

• Available over cellular
• Apple ID unified with phone number, enabling FaceTime or iMessage answering on iPad or Mac

• iCloud Tabs for Safari on other iOS devices and Macs
• Offline Reading List
• Photo uploads
• Smart app banners link to App Store or launches
• Fullscreen video in landscape

• Shared Photo Streams with designated friends, includes comments

• Photo Stream pictures in Mac screensaver
• Photo Stream now a separate tab, not another album

• VIPs - designated contacts cause notifications, e-mails flagged with stars, separate inbox

• Flagged mailbox
• Attach photos in-line (finally)
• Open password-protected Office docs
• Per account signatures
• Fun new pull-to-refresh animation
• Notifications per mailbox
• Long-press compose to open or delete drafts

• Barcode collection for boarding passes, store cards, coupon, movie tickets
• Pops up on lock screen when you arrive
• Includes up-to-date-balance
• Boarding passes update with gate changes
• Synced to iCloud
• Cute deletion animation

• Disable certain app interactions with a circle
• Limit hardware buttons, touch, and motion control access
• Single-app mode

Maps

• Local search with 100 million business listings with Yelp reviews and pictures
• Crowd-sourced traffic data with incident reports
• Free turn-by-turn navigation with alternative route offers based on faster ETA
• Navigation viewable from lock screen
• Siri integration, finds spots along your route
• Flyover (3D buildings)
• Multitouch rotation, angle change, and zoom
• Powered by TomTom
• Pinch-out in maps goes to globe view
• Report bugs

• Game Center sync with OS X
• Cross-platform turn-based and realtime gaming between iOS and Mac
• Issue challenges to friends
• Find Facebook friends

• Audio and video sampling during playback
• Pass Kit
• Rich text on labels, fields, and text views
• VoiceOver gestures
• Control camera focus and exposure
• Remote Web Inspector
• CSS filters
• Action Sheer
• Web Audio API
• Crossfade with CSS animation
• Game Center in-app experience
• Reminders
• Video stabilization
• Game groups
• Bluetooth MAP support
• Transit apps (Apple's Maps doesn't have its own, but opening doors to local devs)
• In-app Bluetooth pairing
• Face detection API
• Inter-app audio
• Frame drop data
• Map Kit
• Auto layout
• State preservation
• Pull to refresh on Table views
• In-app purchase hosted content
• Read and write image metadata
• Collection views
• In-app content purchases
• Multi-route audio

• Location-based reminders for iPad
• Autocorrection for every keyboard
• Global network proxy for HTTP
• Manual reorder of reminders
• Lost Mode - send a phone number to lost device which can be called with single tap
• Kernel ASLR
• Manual location entry for reminders
• Custom vibrations for alerts
• VoiceOver improvements
• App in Safari search results
• IPv6 support for Wi-Fi and LTE
• HDR improvements
• French, German, and Spanish dictionaries
• Word highlights for speajk selection
• Search all fields in Contacts
• New iPad Clock/timer app
• Improved keyboard layouts
• Made for iPhone hearing aids
• Extended functions for China
• • Baidu
  • Sina Weibo
  • Tudou
  • Youku
  • Improved text input
  • Dictionary
• Top title bar changes color with app
• New iPod app layout
• Granular privacy control
• iCloud-stored user dictionary
• Updated sharing menu with large icons
• Music ringtones, alarms
• Redesigned App Store and iTunes (can now view App Store screenshots in full screen)
• iTunes Match now streams music (rather than just download)
• Support for iPhone 3GS and later; iPad 2 and later, iPod touch 4th gen)
• Tilt changes reflection on slider buttons
• Spotlight now shows which folder apps are in
• Government alerts (AMBER and Emergency) in Notifications
• More and new Emojis
• Music preview banner overlays current screen, plus preview history
• Time since last full charge (usage, standby)
• Darker camera UI
• "New" banner on app icons after installation
• Update history in App Store
• 15 second skip playback controls for podcasts
• Hold navigation arrow in Safari for iPhone for history view
• "Enhanced" photos now add "-fixed" to file name
• Cleared notifications sync across devices
• No more pop-up in Safari when there's no internet access available
• Share calendar that you created (but not one shared with you) from app
• iPhone version of Stocks app loaded on iPad
• Downloading doesn't kick you out of App Store anymore
• Updating apps doesn't require password anymore
• Apple apps have logo in Spotlight search
• Wallpaper previews show live reproduction, rather than canned app layout
• App Store "installed" buttons now show "open"
• Cellular data toggle for FaceTime, iCloud documents, and iTunes
• Late night mode in equalizer
• Simplified Bluetooth toggle
• Episodes viewable by season in Video app

Anyone see anything new in the iOS 6 beta that's really rocking your world? What are you favorite new features?

Thanks to jwr_ for his finds.

Apple has already partnered with several car manufacturers to bring Eyes Free to market.

Siri integration in your car will be coming soon via Eyes Free integration. Apple has already received  commitments from several car manufacturers including BMW, GM, Chrysler, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, and more to build it right into their vehicles. Eyes Free will link into your car via a button by the steering wheel that will allow you to communicate with Siri while driving without ever having to take your hands off the wheel.

Eyes Free will also expand its language support across several countries including Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Italian, German, Korean and French for Canadian users.

More to come! Keep watching our liveblog!

Maps are core technology on a smartphone these days. We depend on our phones to make calls and otherwise keep us in contact, and we depend on them to tell us where we are and help us find where were are going. We depend on them. Messing with a successful mapping solution on mobile, in any way, is non-trivial. They're an incredibly important feature and one Google, Nokia, and TomTom have spent years building out. How will Apple match all that in iOS 6?

The maps

Until relatively recently there were two places to get maps, NavTeq, which is now owned by Nokia, and TeleAtlas, which is now owned by TomTom. If you wanted maps, you had to license the tiles from one of those two companies. OpenStreetMap is an attempt to crowd source an alternative, but it's not there yet, and arguably it will be better for casual rather than mission-critical use for a while to come.

Microsoft used Navteq. Apple used Google. Google originally licensed maps from TeleAtlas, but eventually replaced it with their own data. (This is broadly similar to both Apple and Google originally using Skyhook for Wi-Fi router location mapping, and both replacing Skyhook with their own location databases.)

Google didn't just re-map the world, however. They sent out trucks and photographers, and made Street View. They redrew bitmap tiles as vectors. They added social tracking in Latitude. And they gave away free turn-by-turn Navigation.

Apple reportedly wouldn't integrate Latitude into iOS Maps, and Google reportedly wouldn't give them Navigation. Street View came to iOS but the vector tiles didn't. Driving, walking, and public transit routes, and alternate routes, appeared. And Google collected and monetized the data that was returned from each and every query.

That's a problem for Apple. As much as Google was Apple's partner at the original iPhone launch, they are now Apple's biggest, most heated competitor.

And Apple reportedly wants Google off their phone (seriously).

That's also a problem. For Apple to reproduced all the work done by Google from Maps launch to today would be non-trivial. Even for a company with $100 billion in the bank, it would necessitate a herculean effort.

But Apple's been planning it for a while.

Placebase

In July of 2009, Apple bought Placebase and integrated the founder into their Geo Team. As far as I can tell, Placebase didn't have their own maps, but instead focused on innovative ways to integrate a variety of public and private datasets, and layer them over the maps.

Poly9

In July of 2010, Apple bought Poly9. It's not clear to me what Poly9's core business was, but they did surface a product called Poly9 Globe. It was a browser-based 3D geolocator -- essentially a Flash-based web app that looked like a spinning globe and could tell you where things were and exposed APIs to big corporate clients. That sounds like Google Earth style map data visualization technology, however. And since they licensed their maps from others, including Google, there still aren't any maps.

C3 Technologies

In August of 2011, Apple bought C3 Technologies. What C3 Technologies did, and now presumably does for Apple, is fairly clear. They make photo-realistic 3D map renderings. Think Google Earth, but with real little city models you can move through. Yet once again, this is visualization, and not core map data.

Putting it all together (or taking it all apart)

Placebase and Poly9 and C3 Technologies all add up to a killer way to render maps in 3D and layer interesting information over them.

But Apple still needs the maps.

While Apple turned to OpenStreetMaps for their recent iPhoto for iOS app, I'm not sure OSM could provide the consistent quality of maps Apple would need for a more critical service like iOS Maps. That leaves redrawing maps, the way Google did. Or licensing directly from Nokia or TomTom. Nokia seems unlikely, for the same competitive reasons as Google. That leaves TomTom.

Street View is also not easily duplicated. There haven't been widespread reports of Apple cars or jetpacks photographing alleyways and strip malls, the way there was when Google was in the middle of creating Street View. It's possible Apple hired or licensed out that work, but it's hard to imagine any large scale photo mapping service going unnoticed anymore.

Traffic data is another factor to consider. Apple says they collect traffic data but has never been clear if that's network traffic, actual roadway traffic, or both. In many ways, however, Apple has the ultimate crowd source at their disposal -- hundreds of millions of iOS users with GPS reporting their locations in cities around the world.

Public transport directions would have to be replicated or likewise licensed. And the list continues to grow.

More than features, reliability and accuracy will be far more important concerns at the outset. That's true both for users, who rely on it for mapping, and developers who rely on the APIs that call it to give users mapping in other apps.

The Google-fed Maps app is imperfect and hasn't seen any significant feature upgrades in years, but it's really good. There's a high bar for Apple to clear, and again, Maps are core technology now. Having bad maps is like making bad calls or dropping communications. Apple has to clear that bar, quickly and convincingly.

Apple did launch iCloud last year, so they're perfectly capable of deploying data intensive new services. But how many, and how fast?

Arguably iCloud didn't launch feature complete. iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match rolled out over time. Documents in the Cloud is still waiting on Mountain Lion before it'll work in Apple's own iWork for OS X. And new services like photo and video sharing, and new Reminders and Notes web apps are rumored to be coming just as iCloud hits its first birthday.

No company, not even Apple, can do everything. And certainly not all at once. Time and effort spent in one area can't also be spent in another. When Apple was rushing to get the original iPhone out, they pulled engineers from OX S and Leopard was delayed.

It doesn't seem likely Apple would pull engineers from Mountain Lion, iCloud, or Siri to catch up to years of Google Maps development.

iOS 6 Maps

What seems likely with iOS 6 Maps is that Apple will do what they've historically done -- relaunch with a subset of next-generation features that don't do everything the previous generation does, but do a few things in an entirely new and better way.

The original iPhone was like that. It didn't do everything the Palm Treo or BlackBerry did, but the capacitive multitouch interface was so good people bought into it anyway, even if they grumbled a bit while doing so. The new versions of iMovie and Final Cut Pro X have both been like that. Amazing, visionary new products missing key features of the older versions, made slowly better over time.

That strategy worked magnificently with the iPhone, passably with iMovie, and the jury is probably still out on Final Cut Pro X. The iPhone has such a great multitouch interface people were willing to wait for the missing features. iMovie and FCPX are niche products that, while frustrating, don't frustrate the mainstream. Maps will.

Given the limits of time and space, it seems the most likely scenario of Apple Maps is basic mapping functionality, amazing visualizations, and perhaps some cool additional data layers.

Some features could be U.S. only, or major markets only, at least at first. Certainly, some will have to make for visually exciting demos on the WWDC stage, and later in iPhone 5 commercials.

"Siri, give me turn-by-turn directions to 1 Infinite Loop", rendered like something straight out of Pixar, would certainly fit that bill.

And that's pretty much all I'm expecting from iOS 6 Maps. Not a feature-for-feature replacement of the current Google-fed Maps app with pure Apple tech and polish, but something with a lot of eye-candy, that over time adds back the most important features and introduces new ones. And eventually, maybe by iOS 7 or iOS 8, a damn good mapping solution.

Addenda: Google Maps redux

What will be interesting to see is if Google, free of the shackles of Apple's built-in Maps, submits their own Google Maps app proper to the App Store. Given the brouhaha over Google Voice, Apple would almost certainly have to approve it. (It might even be in their best interests to approve it, to take the pressure off Apple Maps in its early days.)

If that happens, iOS users would actually be better off than every before -- pure Google and pure Apple maps apps to choose from, or to alternate between. The best of both worlds (or both companies mapping the world).

• iOS 6: The multi-billion dollar balancing act
• iOS 6: Higher hanging fruit
• iOS 6: A fresh coat of paint
• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?
• The 16:9 iPhone
• The 4 inch iPhone
• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6
• iOS 6 and the opposite of widgets
• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

Some of the above spun off from a chat with @markgurman of *9to5Mac, so credit where it's due -- though he may or may not agree with the rest of it*

Sometimes you break out the sledge hammer. Sometimes you knock down the walls and rebuild from scratch. Palm did that. Microsoft did that. RIM is doing that. Other times you pick up a brush and slap a coat of paint on the walls, and the place suddenly looks good as new.

With iOS, Apple has both said and acted in a way that indicates they consider familiarity to be a feature -- that's why the iPad introduced in 2010 pretty much looked and worked the same way the iPhone did when it was introduced in 2007, and the same way both still do today.

It's also the reason the core of iOS -- Springboard -- isn't likely to change any faster than iOS' hundreds of millions of mainstream users can digest. Because, to users, the interface is the app. Apple can remove Google data from Maps.app, but as long as the interface works in a familiar way, and the content remains accurate and appealing, to many users the change will be transparent. How many noticed when Apple swapped out Skyhook Wi-Fi location data for Apple's own database?

As much as we've explored the idea of new iOS Home screen interfaces, and what potential a 4-inch, 16:9 iPhone screen may allow, we've also been hearing for a while now that renovation may not be on the agenda this year. For iOS 6, what we might be getting is more like a coat of really good paint.

But which colors will they use?

Here's a brief look at Apple's iPhone interface designs over the years, and how each of them would look applied to the default UIKit. (That part's just for fun -- many of them are clearly ludicrous.)

Pinstripes

The original iPhone app treatment remains the current iPhone app treatment. Pinstripes. Back in 2007, compared to PalmOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian, the pale gray blue and subtle white line of iOS 1 (iPhone OS) worked. Or at least, people were all too busy playing with inertial scrolling and pinch-to-zoom to really pay attention to the color-scheme.

There were a few exceptions, like Notes with its yellow pad treatment, but most of the core iOS apps came into the world in pinstripes, and have worn them ever since.

Felt

For the first few years, first-party Apple apps stuck to the default interface. iOS 4's Game Center, released in 2010 was one of the first major, notable exceptions. It was made to look like a Las Vegas gaming table complete with green, burgundy, and yellow felt with polished wood trim.

Linen

With iOS 4, Apple introduced the linen texture as a metaphor for background or behind-the-scenes content, and aggressively expanded it in iOS 5 and OS X Lion. It was used in setup screens, for the fast app switcher dock, for folders, for Notification Center (breaking the background motif), and Siri. It wasn't used in the same way as felt, as a skin over UIKit, but as a way of visually differentiating an alternate level of functionality.

When you saw linen, you knew you weren't in an app any more.

(We originally developed the iMore app using the default UIKit, until Nickelfish's Justin Marcucci suggested a linen based interface would be more modern.)

Wood

Alongside iOS 4, Apple released iBooks, which unlike the iTunes Store and App Store, needed to be downloaded separately. While it used the default interface for the store component, the built-in reader used a wooden shelf motif for the list view.

iOS 5's Newsstand featured a similar, fold-out version of that look. In 2012, the iTunes U reboot went with the same interface as well, only darker.

Leather

2011's Find my Friends, which like iBooks wasn't included in the core OS but required a separate download from the app store. It took the stitched leather look, which Apple had already used in the iPad and iOS X Lion's calendar and address book, to it's fullest extreme.

Reminders, also introduced in iOS 5 in 2011, also wore leather, albeit less like comfy couch and more like an action-oriented jacket.

Silver

When Apple released the iPad in 2010 with iOS 3.2, they announced they'd re-written many of the core apps from scratch, including the above-mentioned leather-bound book looks. More than that, however, they dropped pinstripes from the get go. Instead, they went with a more subtle, more silver looks for the default apps.

Apple's 2012 WWDC app brought this look to the iPhone as well, but with an even more subtle effect.

iOS 6

Apple has worked relentlessly over the years to make the iPhone and iPad all about the screen. Casing has been minimized, bands have been flattened, buttons have been moved behind the curves.

At the same time they've made apps more visually dynamic, using many of the aforementioned skeuomorphic designs. That's for two reasons:

1. To make apps appear friendlier to people for whom technology initially feels inaccessible.
2. To make otherwise boring, data-driven apps more visually interesting.

As much as the mockups above were fun to render, Apple treats the default interface chrome more like casing than like content. The Settings app doesn't need to be made more accessible or more visually interesting -- it would distract rather than add to its experience.

There's a common cliché associated with Apple design -- 10:3:1. From a handful of concepts, one production version emerges. It's probably no coincidence the WWDC app, and the leaks of the redesigned Maps app look like evolutions of the default interface first introduced with the iPad.

And personally, I think the iPhone would look great with a fresh coat of silver.

Update 1: Since I started working on this late last night (photos don't shop themselves!), both iDownloadBlog's Christian Zibreg and 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman have also reported hearing about interface refreshes to Apple's core iOS apps. WWDC should be fun.

Update 2: Here's a variant on silver, inspired by Michael Steeber, with a darker background for better contrast.

• iOS 6: Higher hanging fruit
• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?
• The 16:9 iPhone
• The 4 inch iPhone
• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6
• iOS 6 and the opposite of widgets
• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

What will Apple bring to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad with iOS 6? What will be the "tentpole" features to take Apple's mobile software into 2013? With WWDC 2012 coming in just over a week, and an iOS 6 beta widely expected to come with it, now's the perfect time to take a look and see what makes sense.

We've already seen some of what is likely coming in iOS 6, including a new version of the Maps app that replaces Google data with Apple data. It wouldn't surprise us in the least if it brings turn-by-turn navigation with it either, by way of Siri...

But what else could Apple bring with iOS 6?

Making smart choices

No company can do everything at once. Opportunity cost means that when you spend time developing feature A, you can't spend that same time also developing feature B. Even if you pull engineers from other projects, even if you work around the clock, there are limits to how much any company, even Apple, can do at one time. You have to choose. The key is choosing smartly.

When Apple launched the original iPhone in 2007, it didn't have many of the traditional features that established smartphone platforms had for years already. But it didn't matter. The revolution in user interface was enough that people simply didn't care (or were willing to carry two devices to make up for it.)

Obviously, prioritizing the multitouch interface was the right choice to make.

Apple then proceeded to add back those smartphone staples. Among other things, iOS 2 (then iPhone OS 2) got the App Store, iOS 3 got MMS (outside the U.S.), video, push notifications, and copy and paste, iOS 4 got folders, better email, and limited 3rd party multitasking, iOS 5 got better notifications, Siri voice control, and went PC free with iCloud.

The rest of the industry didn't stand still, however. Android was released and is now at version 4.x, Ice Cream Sandwich, with more on the way. Palm rebooted with webOS, and while their business failed, their interface work was more than impressive. Microsoft rebooted with Windows Phone and let the world know that some people in Redmond did indeed have taste. And now RIM is poised to reboot with BlackBerry 10, and take gesture-based phone interfaces to the next level.

Interestingly, many of the newly rebooted operating systems lacked -- and some still lack -- all the features of their predecessors. And because they rebooted, Apple's iOS, once the new smartphone operating system on the block, is now one of the oldest.

That doesn't mean Apple can and should replicate each and every feature of their competitors. I'd argue many of the ones listed below shouldn't be copied, perhaps shouldn't even be re-imagined with an iOS twist. But they should be considered. Apple is famous for saying "no" more than they say "yes", but they're just as famous for the arduous design and prototyping process they go through to get there.

In fact, as we approach iOS 6, Apple might have already reached feature parity, and it might be hard to look at other platforms and see what else needs to be matched -- that there's no longer any low hanging fruit.

But what about the (slightly) higher hanging fruit?

What iOS could take from Android

Android isn't a singular phenomena the way the iPhone is. There are multiple versions of Android currently on the market, and multiple manufacturer interfaces layered on top of them. Still, there are a few common threads in Android that iOS could draw inspiration from.

The current iOS Home screen system (Springboard) is an app launcher. With very few exceptions, an icon on an app launcher tells you only which app will launch when and if you tap it. They're static images and there's typically no information about the current state of the app, or any relevant data beyond the static image.

In the case of Apple's iOS, Calendar will show you the current date on its icon, and Apple created a badging system to overlay the number of outstanding alerts an app has pending. But that's it. With Notification Center, with a little extra effort, you can pull down snippets of those alerts, and see widgets for Weather and Stocks. However, the level of immediately available, glanceable data remains low.

While Apple has widgets in Notification Center and Siri, Android lets you pin them to Home screens as well.

The iOS Home screen isn't designed as a place to hang around, but as a launcher to get you quickly into apps. With widgets, however, you don't have to get into apps to get high level data, and sometimes that's more efficient. If rumors of a 16:9, 4-inch iPhone are to be believed, there could also be an extra 117 pixels on the Home screen to house a swipe-able widget space.

Here are some more examples and concepts for what Apple could do to with the Home screen, both in general and if they do go with a 4-in, 16:9 display.

• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The 16:9 iPhone

Direct file access

If I start writing an email in iOS, then decide I want to attach a document, I can't. It's not just difficult, it's impossible. Even if I trash the email, go to a document app, and share via email, I can only share what's in that app. I simply can't attach a Keynote, PDF, and image file to an email in iOS. I can only send out a bunch of emails, from a bunch of apps, with the document they support.

Likewise, If I have a text document in iOS, I have no way to directly access that text document. I have to go to an app and hope that I can access the document from that app. If I created a text document in Simple Note, I have to remember I created it in Simple Note because chances are I can't easily open it in Drafts, much less in Apple's Notes app. If I have a Document in the Cloud, it's the same problem only worse. I can't just see Documents in the Cloud. I have to keep a mental list of what I've created over time and their associations, which is a lot of overhead for something that's supposed to be simple.

A document picker, done almost exactly the same way iOS currently handles the image picker, and a Files.app with an interface in the same spirit as the Photos.app would go a long way to making iOS more convenient. Here are some examples:

• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6

Right now if an app, any app, even a built-in Apple app, wants to know your location, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to send you Push Notifications, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to access Twitter integration, it has to ask for permission. If it wants access to any of your personal information, however, like Contacts, it doesn't have to ask at all.

Just like with Push Notifications back before iOS 5, however, the popup requester system doesn't scale. If you launch a new Twitter app for the first time, you get popup after popup, asking you to tap to approve Twitter account access, location, and Push Notification. Imagine when Contact access, Calendar access, and conceivably other information is added to the list. As the number of popups grow, the likelihood that a user will read and consider each one falls precipitously. They'll just start tapping through to get to their app.

Here's an attempt at a better solution beyond popups, and beyond Android's overkill, using a permissions sheet:

• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app permissions

More personalization options

Android has a stock interface, but with manufacturer layers like Sense, TouchWhiz, and Blur, alternative keyboards like SwiftKey and Swype, and many other options, you can usually change the appearance of your phone.

Apple won't be making a Theme Store any time soon, but they could increase customization options in Settings, even if only for the Home screen and built-in apps (UIKit). Rather than Aqua and Graphite like OS X, they could even call upon iOS conventions...

Here are some examples of the default iOS interface (UIKit) made-over in felt, leather, linen, wood, silver, and more.

• iOS 6: A fresh coat of paint

What iOS could take from BlackBerry

The traditional BlackBerry OS is a dinosaur soon to go the way of the dinosaurs, but there's still a few things iOS could learn from the old beast. Likewise, BlackBerry 10 won't be out until later this fall -- maybe around the same time as iPhone 5 and iOS 6 -- but what little we've seen of it shows potential.

What if I want my iPhone to beep and buzz if my wife calls, but to go dead silent if it's my mother-in-law? What if I want different tones or vibration patterns for work and personal email, or for my boss's or partner's email? What if I want notifications to demand my attention during the day, but mute themselves and let me sleep at night? What if I want a work-centric set of options when I'm at the job site, but a I don't want work following me home? While iOS currently has per-app settings for notifications, it doesn't have anywhere near BlackBerry's level of granularity.

That leaves implementing more specific settings up to individual apps, like Tweetbot and it's sleep options. iOS could handle that, both globally (a Notifications on/off toggle), per Contact, and including time and location.

(And, in the name of all that's civilized, there should be a way to suppress notifications when on a call so we no longer feel the shock of an unexpected tone/vibe combo punch to the ear.)

Arguably this might all be better handled as part of a greater iOS time- and location-based profile system that includes additional elements like network settings, Home screen layouts, and more but functionality always needs to be balanced by simplicity. While more granular notification options sound more complex, examples already exist in iOS -- like per-Contact ringtones -- that could be built out.

With BlackBerry 10, RIM is trying to solve the problem of maintaining one-handed ease-of-use on larger screen sizes. For example, reaching all the way to the top of the screen to pull down the Notification Center shade is just doable for most users on a 3.5 inch screen, but as screens blow past 4 inches and approach 5, it breaks down. Like on the iPad's 9.6 inch screen, it requires a second hand.

RIM is relying far more heavily on gestures as a way around this. Start swiping with your thumb from offscreen to on, and a transitional notification bar comes up letting you "peek" at your alerts. Keep swiping, and it takes you into the messaging center where you can handle them. Swipe the other way, and you're in the app switcher grid, and then the app launcher.

Gestures are typically much harder to discover than buttons, and suffer from the potential for collision between system and app, (e.g. trying to slash something in Fruit Ninja and ending up in Mail), and the limits of manual dexterity and accuracy on small screen sizes.

That's probably why Apple restricted gesture shortcuts to the iPad in iOS 5 (and to developers only in iOS 4). However, there should be a balance that can be reached where gestures allow more advanced, adept users to more quickly navigate and triage elements of the OS and apps, even if the gestures to do so remain gross and few.

What iOS could take from webOS

webOS debuted at CES 2009 and was shown off by former Apple executive, Jon Rubenstein. It was the most impressive mobile product introduction since the iPhone in 2007, in part because Palm seemed to specifically target things the iPhone wouldn't, or couldn't yet do. And to this day, webOS still does some of those things better than iOS.

The current iOS fast app switcher does a good job listing open apps by putting them in a horizontally scrollable list, sorted in reverse chronological order. It does a great job making them easy to visually distinguish by using their icons. It does an okay job making them quick to switch between -- great if they're chronologically proximate, like jumping back and forth between two to four apps. (It's basically alt/cmd + tab for mobile, with some controls thrown in.) It also lets you kill apps.

webOS uses a metaphor called Cards, the early implementations of which showed one app or window (e.g. a website or email) in very similar fashion to iPhone Safari Pages. You could horizontally swipe between them but could also, very naturally, touch and flick a Card away to close an app or window. Palm later expanded the Cards visualization beyond what Apple did with Safari Pages by introducing Stacks in webOS 2.0.

It's a more approachable, more informational way of showing open apps and their state, and a more natural way of navigating and closing them. That's probably why Apple chose it for Safari Pages in iOS 1., and why almost every major OS uses some variation of it today. It's also probably why Apple supposedly experimented with a grid-based, Exposé version of it in iOS 4 before settling on the current, Dock-based model.

As the iPhone continues to evolve, and the mainstream market becomes more mobile-sophisticated, it could be worth re-assessing fast app switching on iOS.

Here's a more complete rundown of the history of fast app switching in mobile, and what some of those concepts might look like rendered in iOS.

• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?

My iCloud, Gmail, and Exchange contacts currently sit in the Contacts tab of my Phone app and in the Contacts app proper. My Twitter contacts have been recently integrated with them, but my Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social contacts still live in their own apps, though they can impregnate themselves into my Contacts app resulting in varying levels of chaos and confusion. It's a mess.

webOS Synergy handles this much, much more elegantly. You enter you account info, much as you do for email and Twitter in iOS now, but also Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sources that plug in to the system. Then all of that information is kept in neat silos behind the scenes, but presented as a unified view in the interface. I don't have to care where any particular bit of data comes from -- Gmail, Facebook, whatever -- I just see it all in one place, and any time any of those sources update, I see the updates.

Taking it a step further, messaging could be unified as well. Rather than having to go from Messages to Twitter to Facebook to Mail to see what Leanna is saying, a unified view of recent public status updates and private messages could be presented.

If I said something, and a contact of mine wants to find it, it makes a lot more sense for them to go right to my card than than to jump to and scour through a half dozen separate apps.

webOS still handles the arrival of notification banners, and the subsequent stacking of them, in a more elegant manner than iOS. But there seems like much more that could be done.

Currently, in iOS, notifications aren't actionable within the notification system. I can't "quick view" a Tweet or a Facebook message, I have to go to the Twitter or Facebook app. I can't "quick reply" to them in-app, I have to go back to the associated apps to respond. That either causes me to ignore messages I may not really wish to ignore, or to wrench myself out of what I'm doing to go handle them immediately.

By contrast, jailbreak apps like BiteSMS let you quickly respond to a text no matter which app you're in. Your app (or game) pauses, a text entry box is overlayed, you enter your message, you hit send, and you're current app resumes. With apps like LockInfo, you see an email notification, and you can tap a button, and read it without even unlocking your device.

Those may seem like subtle differences -- a pause of state rather than change of state and back -- but in practice it's far more efficient. It reduces a lot of friction, and makes the experience far, far better.

Here's some more behind the idea:

• iOS 6 wants: The opposite of widgets

What iOS could take from Windows Phone

Currently the only way for iOS apps to exchange information is via the limited URL schemes protocol. Some amazing things can and have been done with it, perhaps none better than Launch Center and the upcoming Launch Center Pro. However, developers and users keep knocking their heads against that "limited" part.

Windows Phone 8 will employ something called "contracts", which will allow sandboxed apps to communicate with each other under certain, secure circumstances. For example, Instagram could present itself as a camera option, Sparrow as an email client, Elements as a text editor.

Then, other apps can hand off to those apps when they want or need to. We already see this done as a work around in iOS, for example, Tweetbot now gives you the option to take a photo with Camera+ instead of the built in Camera app, if you have Camera+ installed. The aforementioned Launch Center lets you tap a button to jump into an app and start an action, for example launch Tweetbot right into the new tweet sheet, or launch Safari right into a specific search.

It's tough to see Apple letting users set their own default apps, for example, set an alternate default browser to Safari. However, it's easier to see Apple creating a more robust system for inter-app communications than URL schemes.

Microsoft is still kicking and screaming its way out of decades of disparate, non-interoperable systems, but they're starting to get it right. Xbox Live is an example of that. Sure, it costs a silly $50 a year for the far more useful Gold version, but it's otherwise well executed and is being pushed from TV to mobile with increasing efficiency.

Sure, Microsoft botched things badly by not calling their new mobile devices Xphones and having Halo-branded, Halo playing versions available at launch, but what they lack in smarts they make up for in tenacity.

Luckily for them, gaming is something Apple doesn't yet "get". But Apple's also showing signs that might change. Apple has already announced they're bringing Game Center to OS X Mountain Lion, for example.

But it needs to do more. Game Data sync, via iCloud, across devices is a start. If I'm playing Angry Birds on iPhone, I should be able to pick up my iPad and keep going, and then switch to Mac and keep on keeping on.

Cross-platform multiplayer will be a must-have soon as well. If I'm at the coffee shop gunning in N.O.V.A on my iPhone, I should be able to pwn Chad at home on his iMac, and Georgia at work on her iPad. (And, eventually, Simon on his Apple TV as well.) And hey, voice chat and beacons to let friends know what you're doing, and when, and to talk while doing it, would be nifty.

It's a lot of heavy lifting, but it's heavy stuff that needs to be lifted. (And yeah, I wouldn't say no to niftier avatars either.)

Better non-gaming network

Xbox live, wisely, wasn't called Xbox Gaming Live, because it's used for more than just gaming. All of Microsoft's living room ambitions are channeled through it, from Netfilx to social parties.

Even less than Apple gaming, Apple has repeatedly shown they don't understand social yet. Apple chose not to call their network Apple Live, but Game Center, for example. And they released Ping. But they do seem to know it's important. They're partnering with Twitter and might one day partner with Facebook. But Apple tends to like to own core technology.

iCloud is a good example and a good start towards a personal cloud. It needs an accompanying social cloud. Not just for sharing personal data like Calendars and Photo Streams with spouses and partners, but to share everything -- movie watching, music listening, app usage. Everything.

What iOS could take from jailbreak

Instead of competing platforms, Apple can also draw inspiration from their own platform -- as it's been tweaked and modified by jailbreak developers. They've done it before, so there's no reason they can't do it again.

A lot of it is similar to what I've already listed above -- the jailbreak community has been picking the slightly higher hanging fruit for years and years. The way they've implemented it is often different, however, and often several different implementations exist. That makes it an incredibly fertile ground, and a free, pro-level beta pool for Apple when it comes to large scale testing deployments of new features and interfaces.

Here's more on what Apple could explore from the jailbreak community this time around:

• Jailbreak concepts Apple should implement in iOS 6

What iOS could take from OS X

For a while now Apple has been working to take iOS "Back to the Mac" -- to take what worked best in iOS in general, and the iPad in specific back to the Mac. To make an Apple experience that's more consistent across their two platforms.

But how about a little quid pro quo? There are several aspects of OS X, including some of what's being implemented in Mountain Lion, that would be great to see in iOS.

The thing most power iPhone users have dreamed of since the original, no-third-party-apps iPhone launched in 2007 -- the thing that led to the jailbreak scene -- is the ability to side-load apps. The ability to run apps not approved by Apple. The ability to run app that come from outside the App Store.

With Gatekeeper in OS X Mountain Lion, users have a choice -- run only App Store apps, run App Store apps and non-App Store apps signed by identified developers, and run any app, no matter where it comes from. The App Store provides a lot of security -- it minimizes the chance for malware or other malicious software. It creates user trust. Non-App Store apps signed by identified developers is a good middle-ground, however. They don't need Apple approval but if any of them are found to be malicious, their certificate can be revoked.

Unfortunately, I don't think Apple would do this. It wouldn't really change the type of apps that are available -- for example, the system-level hacks of jailbreak -- and it would almost certainly lead to developers cutting Apple out of the 30% share of app sales Apple takes to maintain the App Store. Apple has shown they're not fond of end runs around the App Store for subscriptions, and they'd likely be even less so for paid apps.

• FaceTime conference calls. Like the iChat that Mountain Lion kills off, the big iPad screen -- especially a Retina display on a quad-core iPad 3! -- should allow for multi-person calling.
• Print to PDF. A built-in PDF printer option, perhaps added to AirPrint, that goes right to Documents in the Cloud, would be great for everything from Mail to Safari.
• Per-account mail signatures. No reason the current signature setting can't be moved down a step in the Settings hierarchy. Work and play can't always have the same signature.
• Top Sites for Safari. I could do without the forced curve effect, but quickly getting my most common sites as thumbnails is very convenient.
• Development options. Beyond Xcode, HTML5, and cross-compilers, support for other development options exists on OS X but not iOS.
• AirDrop. Quickly send files (from Files.app!) or photos from one iOS or OS X device to another over local Wi-Fi.

Here's more on what Apple could take from OS X and bring "Back to the iPhone and iPad":

• Back to the iPad: What Apple should take from OS X Mountain Lion and give to iOS 6

Conclusion

Operating systems are like art -- you add material then take away what you don't need. You add features and trim away bloat. While iOS may now be one of the older, more mature mobile operating systems, it's not perfect.

Just like OS X, Apple will keep adding features, then it will pause and re-soldify like it did with Snow Leopard, then focus anew like Lion and Mountain Lion.

The question is -- what will they do this time with iOS 6? Apple may or may not have plucked all the low hanging fruit in previous releases, but they haven't plucked all the fruit hanging just a slight bit higher. And they certainly haven't finished polishing it.

• iOS 6: A fresh coat of paint
• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?
• The 16:9 iPhone
• The 4 inch iPhone
• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6
• iOS 6 and the opposite of widgets
• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

At Macworld 2007 Steve Jobs showed off mobile Safari's Page switching interface, but despite the operating system as a whole crying out for similar treatment, to this day Pages haven't expanded beyond Safari. At the iOS 4 event in the spring of 2010, the iPhone added limited 3rd party multitasking and a fast app switcher interface, but rather than Pages or even an Exposé-esque grid interface, it locked to the Dock.

And as far as showing currently open apps, making those apps as visually distinguishable as possible, and making them as fast as possible to switch between, that's where iOS has remained. Even on the iPad's far larger screen.

Is it time for something more?

Options for and iOS 6 fast app switching

The most obvious options for iOS 6 fast app switching are:

1. Keep the current fast app switching interface
2. Change to the now-common Pages/Cards-style interface
3. Change to am Exposé/grid-style interface
4. Change to something else that's better

Keeping the fast app switcher does nothing to move the platform or mobile interface forward. For good or for ill, it keeps Apple and iOS exactly where they are today, even as the rest of the industry is providing more informationally and experientially rich app-switching interfaces.

Apple might well prefer this option. It's familiar to existing users, which is a feature, and it's more or less hidden away unless you go looking for it. That keeps things simple for casual users, but accessible for power users.

Changing to a Pages/Cards interface loses some of the immediate recognizability of icons, but gains the additional information density of thumbnails. It brings Apple and iOS up to par with most of the rest of the mobile platforms, but does nothing to leapfrog them.

Apple could claim they're merely extending Safari Pages, and use that claim to try and sidestep charges they're copying webOS and others (especially if they don't do Stacks, though Apple really didn't seem to care about charges they copied Android for Notification Center).

Since it would work like Safari Pages, it would be consistent on the iPhone (though not iPad). However, Apple eschewed that before in favor of keeping consistent with the Dock. wWuld they go back to it now? Where would the current media control widgets go if they did?

Changing to an Exposé/grid interface is similar to changing to a Pages/Cards interface, though it would initially fit more thumbnails onto a single screen than a horizontally scrolling list does. (However, it would still require scrolling to see subsequent screens of additional thumbnails.) The more thumbnails per screen, the easier it is to switch between them but the harder it is to get any useful, glance-able information from them. Red X icons for closing apps could be persistent, like in Pages, or could require the thumbnails to be putty in "jiggly" mode first, which could also enable re-arrangement.

Apple would get pretty much the same benefits, and face the same drawbacks, of Cards/Pages. They chose not to go this way for app switching before iOS 4 even hit beta, however, and in iPad Safari, they abandoned the grid view for tabs. So, again, would they revisit it now?

Aping Exposé's successor on OS X, Mission Control, is more problematic. Relatively few iOS apps have multiple windows, like Safari, making the stacks less necessary. Keeping the regular, app launcher Dock around also doesn't seem to be an optimal for a switcher interface (and going to the fast app switcher would be redundant).

Changing to something better than Pages or Exposé is a huge interface challenge. Those metaphors have become standards because they work, and they make sense. Concept videos and prototype devices like the First Else, and interfaces for movies like Iron Man are one thing. Nailing real world usage for hundreds of millions of users is quite another.

Apple does, however, have some of the best mobile interface designers on the planet, and a track record of coming up with great design solutions. It would have to really be better than the current fast app switcher, provide more information, recognizability, and accessibility, and work great with one hand (especially if they go to a larger, 4-inch, 16:9 screen as current rumors suggest). Could Apple do it? Should they?

Desktop precedents

Over the years, desktop operating systems have evolved various ways of handling multitasking, app switching interfaces. OS X on the Mac alone has gone through various incarnations of the NeXT-derived Dock (including lights beneath open apps, and Stacks for folders), Exposé and Mission Control, and the Windows-derived CMD + Tab.

Mobile operating systems are both more recent and far more resource constrained than the desktop -- less power, less processor, less screen real-estate. So, mobile has evolved different methods of showing, identifying, and switching apps.

While these things all existed well before the iPhone, highly visual, design-centric interfaces were far less common. I'm sure someone will tell me Symbian had the best multi-object mobile interface imaginable back in 1812. Or Maemo/Meego. Or some Windows Mobile launcher. For the purposes of this post, however, we're going to start in 2007 and work our way forward through current, popular operating systems.

iOS Safari Pages

The original iPhone had excellent multitasking -- it could fade music out to take a call, keep the call going while loading web sites or email, and fade music back in without missing a beat. However, only certain specific apps could run in the background, and due to their nature, and since there were no App Store apps back then, no fast app switching interface was needed.

Even in 2007 however, Safari did have to deal with multiple objects -- websites.

Desktop Safari has tabs, but Apple chose not to use them on the much, much smaller 320x480 iPhone screen. The Music (previously iPod) app has CoverFlow in landscape mode, like Desktop iTunes. Apple also chose not to use that interface for mobile Safari.

Instead they went with Pages.

A horizontal list of visually identifiable thumbnails with text labels on top, Pages are easy to switch between through scrolling and tapping. (It's possible this type of interface was used on a mobile device prior to the iPhone, but I'm not familiar with one if so.)

Tapping the Pages button in Safari invokes the Pages interface. While the order of Pages can't be re-arranged, tapping the red X icon at the top left of a Page closes the Page.

When Apple introduced the App Store with iOS 2 (then iPhone OS 2) in 2008, they didn't allow any 3rd party background tasks, and so still didn't need any lists, visualization, or fast switching. (And wouldn't until iOS 4 in 2010.)

webOS Cards (and Stacks)

Just because Apple hadn't yet pulled the trigger on multitasking doesn't mean mobile multi-object interfaces stood still, or that the Pages metaphor remained limited to the web rather than the OS.

The original Palm Pre and its webOS operating system debuted at CES 2009 and was shown off by former Apple executive, Jon Rubenstein. It was the most impressive mobile product introduction since the iPhone in 2007, in part because Palm seemed to specifically target things the iPhone wouldn't, or couldn't yet do. One of those was 3rd party multitasking, and the way they handled it was by making Apple's Safari Pages metaphor system-wide.

Called Cards, the early implementations showed one app or window (e.g. a website or email) in very similar fashion to Safari Pages. Instead of tapping a button, however, a less discoverable but more elegant swipe gesture "shrank" the current window into a Card and switched to the horizontally scrollable thumbnail view. You could also, very naturally, touch and flick a Card away to close an app or window.

In the original version, you could even shrink the cards down smaller to see more open apps and windows at one time. (Greater immediate information density.)

It worked wonderfully.

Palm later expanded the Cards visualization beyond what Apple did with Safari Pages by introducing Stacks in webOS 2.0.

Stacks allow you to group Cards together into sets of similar apps by type, task, or any other way you like. Stacks slightly reduces visibility (because apps or windows can be harder to see if they're tucked underneath other apps or windows), but increase speed because the distance between apps you commonly use together can be made much smaller.

In short, it works even more wonderfully. (Especially scaled up on the TouchPad running webOS 3.x)

iOS fast app switcher

Apple enabled limited background tasks for App Store apps in 2010. They added APIs for streaming audio, location, and voice-over-IP (VoIP) so Pandora, TomTom, and Skype, among others, could stay active even when you switched out of them and into other apps. They didn't add a persistent internet connectivity API, sadly, but did give a few minutes grace period for internet apps to finish activities, like uploading pictures, before they suspended. Mostly, instead of apps relaunching from scratch every time they opened, Apple let them set state on exist, and return to state on resume, so perceptively they never seemed to close.

To manage all this, Apple didn't go with the Pages or Cards interface. They went for something decidedly different.

The iPad version of Safari, which debuted in the spring of 2010, didn't use a horizontally scrolling set of thumbnails at all. Instead, thanks to the larger screen, iPad Safari showed website thumbnails all at once in a grid view. The grid didn't last long, however, and when iOS 5 was released in the fall of 2011, it was replaced by a tab interface, similar to desktop Safari.

Pages stayed in Safari on the iPhone, however, but still wouldn't expand OS-wide. Apple did, apparently, experiment with something like the original iPad grid, or the OS X Exposé interface, in iOS 4 but ultimately decided against it.

Instead, to show open apps, to make them more visually identifiable, and to enable faster switching between them, Apple went back to the Dock. Or rather, went behind it.

With a double click of the Home button, the active screen fades and lifts up, revealing a background Dock, and showing open apps as a horizontally scrollable set of app icons in reverse chronological order. Tap an app and, with a carousel-like flourish, the current app swings around to the back and the selected one swing to the front.

This configuration shows more apps and makes each app more immediately identifiable than Safari Pages. Four apps is more than the one central Page, and the two Page edges on either side. Also, icons are typically faster to differentiate than thumbnails. Their information density is lower, however, so while you can tell which app it is, there's nothing to show what state the app is in. (In iOS, with the exception of Calendar, all the icons are static as well, further lowering information density.)

If the tasks you are doing are chronologically proximate, the switching is fast (e.g going back and forth between the same two apps). Otherwise you need to swipe horizontally through a potentially long list of apps to get to the one you want, which in some cases can be slower than using the regular Home screen app launcher.

When in fast app switcher mode, roughly 80% of the iPhone screen (and more of the iPad screen) is not used. Similar to the Alt/CMD + Tab desktop interface, this puts the focus on the task of app switching, but comes at the expense of waste screen space that could be put to better use (for example, like it is in Mission Control on OS X).

Apps in the fast app switcher can't be re-arranged, but by tapping and holding, they will go into "jiggly" mode and can be closed by tapping the X icon at the top left.

With iOS 4.3, Apple also experimented with gesture-based fast app switching on the iPad, and made it official in iOS 5.

With gesture-only interfaces, while switching can be fast (though also constrained to reverse chronological order), it offers no visualization what-so-ever. You can only tell which apps are open by swiping through them all. (Which is likely why Apple also added gestures to bring up the existing fast app switcher and Home screen app launcher interfaces as well.)

And so app switching remains today, more CMD + Tab than Exposé or Mission Control, more identifiable than informational, more a utility than an experience.

Android incarnations

Google's Android mobile operating system embraced 3rd party background processes and task switching early on in its development. Between Android versions, and original device manufacturer (ODM) interface layers like HTC's Sense, Motorola's Blur, and Samsung's TouchWiz, there have been quite a few different implementations.

The current version, the one used in Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich, was spearheaded by Matias Duarte, formerly lead designer of webOS at Palm. So, it's no coincidence Android has taken a webOS-like approach to app switching -- albeit at a 90 degree angle. (You scroll vertically instead of horizontally.)

Because Android has ODM interfaces, and 3rd party launchers, and a custom ROM community, if you don't like Google or anyone else's version of task switching, you can choose another device, or sometimes another implementation for your existing device.

BlackBerry PlayBook OS cards

BlackBerry's PlayBook OS borrowed heavily from Palm's OS-wide Card implementation of Apple's Safari-bound Pages interface as well. It was first seen in late 2010 and released in Spring 2011.

The 7-inch screen, larger than a phone but smaller than a 9.7-inch tablet, combined with the real-time nature of the QNX underpinnings, makes for similarly wonderful visualization. Because of that, it has all the advantages of webOS' card metaphor.

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango cards

Microsoft's original smartphone operating system, Windows Mobile, had robust multitasking but an antiquated user interface. Windows Phone launched in late 2010 with the elegant, "digitally authentic" Metro interface, but initially lacked 3rd-party multitasking. That changed with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in the summer of 2011, which re-introducted a much more limited multitasking to Microsoft's mobile phone platform.

However, while many elements of Metro were fresh and different from other mobile operating systems, Microsoft chose to go with a highly constrained version of the now very familiar, almost commonplace Pages/Cards, horizontally scrolling thumbnail metaphor for fast app switching.

BlackBerry 10 grid

BlackBerry 10, expected to ship in the fall of 2012, doesn't keep the card metaphor of the PlayBook but switches to a grid view for app thumbnails. You get to see 4 at first, and can swipe down to 4 more. You can also swipe immediately into the app launcher, or notifications and messages, thanks to the gesture-centric user experience.

It's a very slick implementation, with the goal of optimizing one-handed ease of use on larger touchscreen phones.

• The 16:9 iPhone
• The 4 inch iPhone
• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6
• iOS 6 and the opposite of widgets
• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

We're just under a month away from Apple's WWDC 2012 and with it, an expected preview of iOS 6. Last year, we had a list of features available through jailbreak that we wanted Apple to make mainstream in iOS 5. Apple listened, and we got everything from Notification Center to Wi-Fi sync. This year is no different -- once again we have wants. Here are my top jailbreak concepts Apple should implement in iOS 6.

Widgets API

Developers don't currently have the ability to develop widgets for Notification Center. If Apple would open up API for widget access and allow developers to integrate them with current app offerings, it could open up a whole new world of possibilities. This ability is already available on Android and other mobile platforms.

Jailbreak apps have been taking advantage of widgets since iOS 5 was released. There are several widgets that allow access to contacts, system toggles, music, battery info, quick Google searches, and more. Having access to all kinds of settings and apps right from Notification Center is much more convenient than digging for an app or system setting.

Notification Center enhancements and quick replies

While iOS 5 was a huge improvement over the way notifications were handled under previous versions of iOS, there is still room for improvement. Jailbreak apps like IntelliscreenX and LockInfo offer much more control over notifications than stock iOS does. You can fine tune notifications down to the tiniest detail. Do all users need this ability? Absolutely not. But a compromise would be nice.

First, find a way to make the Lock screen more intuitive. Right now all Lock screen notifications are dismissed the moment you swipe to unlock. By all means, clear the screen, but why not keep the notifications available in the window shade until they've actually been viewed, like they are in Notification Center proper.

Second, add the ability to clear app badges the same way Notification Center can be cleared. One little X gets rid of an entire list in Notification Center, but there's no way to get rid of badges in an app without hunting down and viewing every alert individually -- if you can find them.

Thirdly, make in-app banner notifications actionable. Right now if you tap them you're ripped out of the current app and sent into the source app. Having to exit one app to respond to something as simple as an SMS or iMessage, or tweet, is irritating. BiteSMS and Messages+ for jailbreak have offered this functionality for a long time. Enhancements of this nature would make the entire experience of using the iPhone or iPad much faster and much better.

Siri API

While Siri is great at dictating notes, punching out emails, scheduling Reminders, and sending messages, it can't do anything beyond that. Yet. And even if Apple expands it to support other integrated services, like Twitter, it still wouldn't enough.

Having options like sending out a tweet via Tweetbot, or adding a task to Clear, or otherwise letting App Store apps integrate with Siri directly would be a welcome addition. Jailbreak apps such as AssistantExtensions add tons of functionality to Siri. It'd be nice to see that become official in iOS 6.

Better multitasking gestures and shortcuts

Right now the iPad has limited multitasking gesture shortcuts but the iPhone and iPod touch have none at all. Jailbreak apps like Zephyr have brought gesture shortcuts to iPhone and iPod touch, but this is really something Apple needs to slap a coat of paint on and release as stock in iOS 6.

Tabbing through apps should be easier. Sure there's the iOS 4 fast app switcher, but swiping is faster. Custom gestures for favorite app access would be great as well.

Mail enhancements

Mail has previously been given a unified inbox, threaded messages, and flags. Otherwise it's not much different from the days of iOS 1. Mail Enhancer allow jailbreakers to better handle and sort mail on their iPhone or iPad. You can color code different mail accounts so you know what account a message is from when in the unified inbox.

And for the love of all things that are good in the world, can we please have multiple signatures for mail accounts? For users with separate accounts that they use for different purposes, editing signatures can be a huge pain. I may not want a client having my home phone number but I want my friends and family seeing that in my signature. Allowing multiple signatures is the only feasible solution and hopefully it's on the slate for iOS 6.

In addition to per-account signatures, per-account mail tones would be a nice bonus. Sometimes work mail needs to stay on when personal mail does not (or vice versa).

Better Folder functionality

iOS 4 brought the addition of Folders but their functionality remains limited.. The iPhone only allows you to place 12 apps within a folder while the iPad allows 20. Sure, the iPad screen can show more apps at one time, but the difference harms users who want a consistent Home screen setup between devices. For example, if I have 15 productivity apps and keep them on both my iPhone and iPad, on my iPhone I have to have 2 folders while I only have one on my iPad.

Jailbreak apps such as Infinifolders and Folder Enhancer have been around before iOS supported folders. They've also been more functional. Both allow you to stick as many apps as you want in a folder and either page through them like you would Home screen apps or scroll vertically, whichever you choose.

Nested folders is also something jailbreak apps allow for. I frequently use this feature for game folders. I have my strategy, puzzle, adventure, action, and other types of games inside of one main games folders. Unfortunately, it's probably far too hierarchical and "file system-like" for Apple to ever consider.

Themes or Home screen refresh

It's about time for Apple to re-design the Home screen or give us a way to customize it if we want to. iOS 4 introduced the ability to set a picture as your Home screen background but besides that, the Home screen we all know hasn't changed much since the inception of iOS. There's always an argument for familiarity and experience which Apple prides themselves on but it's beginning to look a bit dated.

Jailbreakers have been theming their iPhones for years. While I don't necessarily want my iPhone looking like an Android phone, apps like Shrink allow me to change icon size while apps like Winterboard give me the ablity to change up fonts and status bar icons.

It's highly unlikely that Apple will ever integrate even an Apple exclusive Theme Store into iTunes, but at the very least it would be nice to see iOS 6 bring with it a newly designed Home screen or a few options for customization.

Your iOS 6 want list

What jailbreak apps can you not live without that you'd really like Apple to add stock? Are there any quirks or oddities in iOS that you really can't stand and use jailbreak as a solution?

Hit the link below to let us know in our forums!

Additional Resources:

• What jailbreak features do you want most in iOS 6?
• Best jailbreak apps for new iPhone users
• Jailbreak and unlock discussion forums

Last week I ruminated out loud about whether or not Apple needs to redesign the iOS Home screen. We've continued to discuss it on the podcast and in the forums and I realized something: as much as it'd be nice to information from apps and make it glanceable on the Home Screen, it'd be even better to take functionality of apps and make it accessibly from within other apps.

Sure, it's nice to be able to see today's date on the Calendar icon, and it would be nice to see today's weather on the Weather icon and so forth, and information density could absolutely stand to be improved on the Home screen. And yes, there's an argument to be made that familiarity is a feature and Apple won't mess with the app launcher, the familiar mechanic by which hundreds of millions of users feel comfortable using iOS. But either way, that's a fleeting concern -- I don't spend much time hanging out on the Home screen.

Apple has said all along that the goal of the iPhone and iPad was to get out of the way. They're essentially giant screens so that, when you launch an app, the device becomes the app. When you're in Calendar, it becomes a calendar. When you're in Phone, it becomes a phone. When you're in a game, it becomes that game. Arguably, the Home screen is just a simple app launcher because all Apple wants you to do is unlock your iPhone or iPad and launch apps as quickly as possible. They want you in apps. And that's exactly where I am. I'm in Twitter. I'm in Campfire. I'm in Safari.

The problem is, when I'm in an app, if anything else happens, I'm forced out of that app and into another app. If a notification pops up alerting me to an iMessage or an email, and I want to either read all of it or respond, I have to stop what I'm doing, leave the app I'm in, go to the source app, and then respond.

Notifications aren't actionable within the notification interface. I can't "quick view" a Tweet or a Facebook message, I have to go to the Twitter or Facebook app. I can't "quick reply" to them in-app, I have to go back to the associated apps to respond. That either causes me to ignore messages I may not really wish to ignore, or to wrench myself out of what I'm doing to go handle them immediately.

There's more to this equation as well -- Windows Phone-style contracts so apps can better communicate with each other, and an iCloud aware Files.app so documents can be picked in-app as easily as photos and videos.

We may no longer have model alerts in iOS that you can only ignore or act on immediately, but in some ways, notifications today remain as binary as they ever were.

By contrast, jailbreak apps like BiteSMS let you quickly respond to a text no matter which app you're in. Your app (or game) pauses, a text entry box is overlayed, you enter your message, you hit send, and you're current app resumes. With apps like LockInfo, you see an email notification, and you can tap a button, and read it without even unlocking your device.

Those may seem like subtle differences -- a pause of state rather than change of state and back -- but in practice it's far more efficient. It reduces a lot of friction, and makes the experience far, far better.

It could be implemented as a popup or added to an existing layer like Notification Center (tapping the icon goes to the app, tapping the snippet flips Notification Center around and shows a preview/reply bow, for example). Apple has all the tools to make it happen.

So rather than widgets, which take app data and put it on the Home screen, I'd far prefer functional notifications that take app interactions and put them wherever I happen to be.

And I'd like it in iOS 6.

• iOS 6 wants: Files app and documents picker with iCloud
• The 4 inch iPhone
• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

At Macworld 2007 Steve Jobs pulled the original iPhone from his pocket, held it up high above the stage, and showed off the app launcher-based Home screen... that's pretty much remained the same ever since.

That's not entirely true, of course. Apple quickly added the ability to create WebClip icons for websites, and to re-arrange and delete them. With iOS 2 (iPhone OS 2) they added native apps to that mix. They increased the number of Home pages. They added Spotlight. They added wallpaper. With iOS 4 they layered in the multitasking fast app switcher. They layered in folders. The iPad, and the iPad alone, got landscape Home screen support. With iOS 5 they layered in Notification Center and Siri.

Is it time for something more?

Familiarity is a feature

To a casual user -- someone who only makes calls, plays music, takes photographs, and runs the occasional app -- the iPhone today works almost exactly as it did back in 2007. Just like a casual Mac OS X user can ignore the Terminal, iOS users can happily ignore Spotlight, the fast app switcher, folders, Notification Center, and Siri, and still fully use and enjoy their iPhone. They can wait years between hardware upgrades (and sometimes, because of that, software upgrades) and still pick up the latest iPhone and use it exactly as they used the first iPhone.

That may not matter to gadget geeks who change their platform as often as they change their jackets, but to mainstream users, to those for whom technology has traditionally been intimidating and inaccessible, that familiarity is a huge feature.

It's why Apple made the iPad work almost identically to the iPhone and said as much -- hundreds of millions of people already know how to use it.

It's why Home screen interface and experience isn't fashion. If you're bored by the iOS UI or UX, consider how little computer UI and UX has changed much over the last few decades. For all its other advances, for all it's design tweaks, OS X still has icons and folders on a desktop, the same as the classic Mac OS had generations ago. For all of Windows 8's Metro skins and finger-friendliness, it will still ship on beige boxes with full mouse and pointer support at its core.

That being said, mobile is moving at a blisteringly fast pace. While the iPhone and iOS were the startling new in 2007, they're now one of the oldest mobile experiences in the space. Interface and experience aren't fashion, but users are fashion conscious, and phones are subject to fashion trends.

Android has a huge marketshare. Windows Phone is getting a lot of attention, not just from AT&T but from designers. BlackBerry 10 may bring a new level of gesture-based interface to the table (if they can solve the discoverability issues).

These Home screen experiences not only look different to iOS and the traditional app launcher, but they function differently as well.

App launchers and information density

iPhone wasn't the first app launcher style Home screen. Not by a long shot. Long before smartphones, Palm Pilots were based entirely on the icon grid. When smartphones came along, the Treo retained the app launcher. Windows Mobile adopted it as well. Even today, you can find app launcher Home screens on webOS, BlackBerry OS, and Android. Some of them also add other layers, like Cards or widgets, but for the most part app launchers are never far away.

That's because they're familiar, as mentioned above. You see an iconic representation of something you want to do, you tap it, and it opens up. Because they're iconic (or supposed to be), and because human brains are great at pattern recognition, they scale well and can (usually) be picked out even among a large quantities of other icons.

What they lack is information density.

With very few exceptions, all an icon on an app launcher tells you is which app will launch when and if you tap it. They're static images and there's typically no information about the current state of the app, or any relevant data beyond the static image.

In the case of Apple's iOS, Calendar will show you the current date on its icon, and Apple created a badging system to overlay the number of outstanding alerts an app has pending. But that's it. With Notification Center, with a little extra effort, you can pull down snippets of those alerts, and see widgets for Weather and Stocks. However, the level of immediately available, glanceable data remains low.

Even if we consider the status bar, which shows carrier and Wi-Fi, time and battery, location and Bluetooth, none of it is actionable. It can't provide additional information or take you to it. (Although it has added persistent color bands for tethering, voice recording, VoIP or telephone calls, etc. and tapping those will take you to the associated app or Setting.)

Widgets and cards and tiles, oh my

There's no consistent Android interface, but stock Google, Sense, TouchWiz, "Blur", and other manufacturer implementations typically offer some variety of widgeting system. With them, you can have social statues, search boxes, clocks, news feeds, and a huge amount of glanceable data available right on the Home screen. They typically take up more space, however, might use slightly more battery and bandwidth as they keep up-to-date, and add an element of chaos to the layout. However, the amount of time they can save makes for an excellent tradeoff. (If that type of data is important to you -- some users simply don't find a use for widgets on computers or smartphones.)

webOS takes a different approach, shrinking entire apps down into "Cards" that stay live-ish on the Home screen, and thanks to more recent updates, can be stacked together. Flipping through Cards doesn't give you an iconic view or a widget-ized extract, but a look at the entire app, in its current state, with its current data. BlackBerry's Tablet OS essentially aped this approach as well. The only drawback is that sometimes some apps aren't as identifiable by their actual screen as they are by their icon (long white list views just look like long white list views). So, it might take a moment to find the exact Card you want, but probably not longer than finding and launching an app.

Both Android and webOS have easily accessible app launchers as well. Both also typically provide more information in the status bar, including the ability to tap into icons to activate drop down menus or initiate other functions.

Windows Phone 7 took an even more radical approach. They threw away the Windows Mobile app launcher and replaced it with a tile-based Home screen. Squares or rectangles represent categories of functionality, and can show a small amount of live content -- a picture, an avatar, a number, an icon, etc. It's not always great, however, since at times they take up the space of a widget while not showing much more data than an icon. (They're not as informationally dense as they could be, at least not yet.) And because they update, they're not as visually persistent, which means they lose the advantage of pattern recognition.

BlackBerry 10, which will only be released later this year, seems to be taking a hybrid approach. In the little they've demonstrated so far, they've shown something akin to a set of four cards, one per corner. Sliding panels also allow access to notifications, messages, and more. (Somewhat like Twitter for iPad. There's likely a lot more to it as well, and we'll hopefully see it as time goes on.

Siri

Siri is and isn't a Home screen. It isn't the traditional implementation of a Home screen -- something you can sit in and navigate around. It demands immediate interaction. But Siri can be used to access data and apps without having to move through the traditional Home screen. Rather than unlock, look for an icon, and launch, with Siri hold down a Home button, wait for a double tone, and speak.

Siri can by no means replace the traditional iOS Home Screen, but it can and does sit in parallel to the traditional iOS Home screen, and can replace its use in a few very specific ways. Yet it's clear Apple put significant work into Siri, not just into the server-side voice and context parsing engine, but the interface as well. Siri got a lot of the widgets that the traditional iOS Home screen hasn't. Depending on what you ask, all manner of clock and alarm and to-do and information snippets pop up. All incredibly well thought out and incredibly well rendered.

Getting a Reminder into iOS using the traditional Home screen, icons, buttons, and gestures is a chore. Getting a Reminder into iOS with Siri is remarkably fast. (Granted, when Siri works.)

Siri is still in beta, it's still not fully baked, Apple hasn't implemented it on the iPod touch or iPad. So, while Siri is no doubt part of the future, how much of the future is still to be determined.

iOS 6 and the Home screen

There's not a lot of low-hanging fruit left in iOS. Over the years, Apple has slowly but steadily added in most of the features that most of the people thought were missing in the original iOS (iPhone OS) -- apps, copy and paste, multitasking, notifications. There's a lot of ways to improve the existing functionality, but not a lot of functionality that's still missing. So on what tent poles will Apple hang its iOS 6 keynote this year?

Sure, Apple's bought 3 map visualization companies (but no map tiles), so a new Maps App could be one. I'd still sincerely love a Files.app repository, now iCloud enabled. Georgia still wants her Theme Store, where users can choose between a small amount of Apple designed iOS skins. But over the years, as iOS has matured, the amount of features truly "missing" has reduced considerably.

That leaves improving existing functionality. And that brings us neatly back to the question asked in this article's title.

Is it time for Apple to revamp the iOS Home screen?

Do you want them too? Do you need them too? If so, how so? Is it as simple as adding a widget layer to the existing multitasking and notification layers? Is it increasing Siri to the point where the app launcher becomes secondary? Or does it require something completely new, something that makes Windows Phone Metro and webOS and the upcoming BlackBerry 10 look old and outdated?

If Apple does make a substantive change to the Home screen, what does that mean for the hundreds of millions of mainstream users who are used to, perhaps dependent upon, the way things work now?

Apple has always been fearless when it comes to driving the future. They obsolete hardware and software often faster than the market itself. Is it time for Apple to apply that fearlessness to the iOS Home screen?

• iOS 6 wants: Files app and documents picker with iCloud
• The 4 inch iPhone
• iOS 6 wants: The opposite of widgets
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

Earlier this week the internet got itself into a kerfuffle over Path, a small-circle social networking app for the iPhone, which took Contact information without asking and openly transmitted it to Path's servers. It's an important issue to be sure, one worth getting into a kerfuffle over, and Path eventually apologized and vowed to make changes. But Path was only one of many, many apps to act this way.

A couple of years ago there was a similar kerfuffle over Dragon Dictation when Nuance was transmitting Contact information to their servers as well. Nuance did this, it turns out, so that its server-side voice recognition services could better understand the names of your friends and family.

Path, it turns out, did this so it could notify you if your friends and family were already using, or started using, their service and offer to connect you in the app as well. (Though the "open transmission" part was concerning -- hashing or otherwise encrypting the data between iPhone and server would have been a good idea.)

It could have been any of a number of other apps in Path's place, however, if they'd been discovered first. Many of them are now updating, adding security if they weren't already, and custom-making request popups for user permission before transmitting Contact information. And that's a good thing. But it exposes a problem with the way Apple currently handles user privacy on the iPhone.

If an app, any app, even a built-in Apple app, wants to know your location, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to send you Push Notifications, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to access Twitter integration, it has to ask for permission. If it wants access to any of your personal information, however, like Contacts, it doesn't have to ask at all.

Apple should change that, of course. They should require that apps ask permission to access Contacts -- and Calendars, and any other personal data -- and insist any information be transferred in a secure manner, and never be stored permanently on a developer's servers.

Just like with Push Notifications back before iOS 5, however, their popup requester system doesn't scale. Right now, if you launch a new Twitter app for the first time and you get popup after popup, asking you to tap to approve Twitter account access, location, and Push Notification. Imagine when Contact access, Calendar access, and conceivably other information is added to the list. As the number of popups grow, the likelihood that a user will read and consider each one falls precipitously. They'll just start tapping through to get to their app.

There's a school of thought that says inattentive users deserve what they get -- if they don't read, they abdicate their right to complain later. Apple doesn't usually subscribe to that school of thought, however. That's probably why they've kept permission requesters to a minimum for now.

Just like with Push Notifications, however, a better solution exists outside popups, and Android could once again be drawn upon for inspiration.

When you browse an app on the Android Market, whether via the web or in the Market app proper, there's a clearly defined place see what permissions that app will require. Arguably, Android presents way too many permissions and users might not bother to read them any more than they would a popup, but having them there as a permanent reference is invaluable.

for iOS 6, Apple could do what they did with Notification Center in iOS 5, remove the cumbersome nature of popups, simplify Android's implementation, and, when an app launches, present a simple sheet of toggles allowing a user to pick and choose which ones they're willing to grant access to.

Things like storage access are more noise than information, but Contacts and other areas that touch on personal information should absolutely be there.

Likewise, the permissions sheet could be kept available in the settings for the app (or in the general Settings.app), so users could easily change them at any time. Under special circumstances, if a service is absolutely required for an app to work -- for example, location is required for a photo editing app to access potentially geo-tagged photos in the Camera Roll -- then a popup could be generated explaining the situation.

Adding a list of permissions each app requires to the App Store, on device, in iTunes, and on the web would be a nice-to-have as well.

Path deserved the push-back they got for doing what they did with Contacts, but Apple deserves push-back for letting them do it in the first place.

Apple has shown a relentless drive to tackle the rough edges of iOS in recent releases, and as iPhones and iPads become more powerful and apps more sophisticated, privacy becomes one of the rough edges they need to get a handle on quickly.

They've used Privacy as a differentiator from the competition in the past, and Notifications and Location Services in iOS 5 are a huge leap forward when it comes to granularity and usability. Hopefully Apple brings it all together, and gathers up the loose ends like Contacts, in iOS 6.