So Apple announced not long about it's new flagship Operating System (OS) that will run on some of its current products in the future and the newer products that are yet to be released.
I may not be a fan of Apple and their products but I am a fan of technological advancements and what Apple used to dish out always fascinated me in many ways due to its innovation and creativity.
Instead of jumping straight to the bad, I think I will start of with the Goods about iOS 6.
- A better Siri - Siri gets an update (does everything get updated once a while?)
- Integrated Facebook (every other mobile OS has this?)
- Photo Steams (and this is suppose to be new when every other OS has it?)
- Overall App enhancement (standard with new versions of OS, things get updated...)
- Better Maps (got tired of paying Google and decided to make their own maps)
5 out of 5 recycled with 0 new innovations. Good job Apple cause millions will still end up buying your products thanks to millions of dollars spent on marketing and advertising, sigh...
But iOS 6 was a total bore and barely introduced anything outstandingly new at all. It was merely recycling what was readily available on other platforms and added a hint of Apple touch to it (not even improvement I might say) to make it look Apple-ish.
It like being sold Windows 2000 which is 95% the same Windows 98. Sad...
So, here is a nifty little article from Jaime Rivera that writes about Five Disappointments of iOS6.
1. As of this year, it's no longer "ahead of its time
Back when Steve Jobs
released the original iPhone in 2007, he said that the operating system was “at
least five years ahead of its time”. If any of you were using the Motorola Q9h
or BlackBerry Pearl that I was using back then, you’d agree with me in the fact
that the guy was right. Sadly it seems that nobody at Apple remembers that any
more. Those five years are up, and sadly nothing that was released at WWDC has
prepared iOS to leap ahead of its time again. Today, a natural user interface
is no longer a feature. It became mainstream years ago. Even feature phones
have flick scrolling, Opera Mini for improved web browsing, and yeah, they’ve
been doing music for a while now.
iOS 6 should’ve been about
where the puck is going to be next. Siri, while superior in many ways to
whatever other platforms currently do, is still half-baked. iPhone OS 1 made
the phrase “ease-of-use” change in meaning half a decade ago, but today, the
concept is no longer a selling point. So my question is, what’s next Apple?
Your reluctance to change a legacy UI makes you, not look like you.
2. Most of what it'll do, it won't do any better than others
When they’re timely, Apple is famous
for launching products that define new standards. When they’re late, they
usually leapfrog over competition with something dramatically better. iOS 6 is
sadly nothing like that. Prettier maps are not necessarily the same as better
maps. It doesn’t challenge the system to be any better than it already is. It’s
just a late catch-up that’s great to have, but that won’t give you a reason to
choose iOS over a competing platform.
Facebook Integration? Been there, done
that with Windows Phone 7 or HTC Sense. FaceTime over cellular? Third party
apps have been offering video calls over cellular long before the iPhone’s own
manufacturer figured it out. These reasons are no longer big enough to stir any
customer away from the competition.
3.
It still looks the same
Surely the
wheel can evolve, but overall, it’s still just a wheel. With operating systems,
that’s a different story. Can you imagine Microsoft launching a Windows Vista
that still looked like Windows XP? The age difference between them is just five
years, and still the user interface evolved for better or worse. The age
difference between iPhone OS 1 and iOS 6 is exactly that, five years.
Functionality has changed here and there, but eating chicken every day for the
last half-a-decade must drive even some Apple employees crazy by now.
Even though
I carry an iPhone 4S as one of my two daily drivers, I’ll admit that I’ve spent
more time using HTC Sense on the One X that arrived on my doorstep a week ago,
than this beta of iOS 6. I know this remark isn’t fair to all of you, since I
know that for some people, what’s not broken shouldn’t be fixed, but my honest
impression of iOS 6 is that I’m bored.
I do
understand Apple’s purpose in keeping the grid of icons all over, but why not
figure out some way to have UI profiles. If you’re a first-time user, you get
the grid, and if you’re a power user, you can customize it differently. Hey, if
Cydia could figure that out, I’m sure all those thousands of Apple Engineers
can do better.
4.
It brings more fragmentation
I’ve got to
hand it to Apple here. Users of legacy devices probably don’t get everything in
future updates due to hardware limitations, but they at least get some of them.
The problem is when this fragmentation is not justified by hardware
limitations. For example, as of beta 1, Siri is not supported by the iPad 2,
whose guts are almost identical to what we find powering the iPhone 4S. And if
the iPhone 4 and 3GS are getting iOS 6, why isn’t the first-generation iPad
getting it? None of these technical decisions make logical sense, unless you
add dollars into the equation.
We have seen
Apple change their minds as betas keep coming to developers, so let’s hope this
is just another phase where they’ll lighten-up sooner or later.
5.
We’re stuck with it for at least
another 18 months
Using a
device that’s no longer ahead of its time, boring or no better than competitors
isn’t easy in our times, but knowing that it won’t change for another 18 months
is torture. Even if Apple released a new iPhone in the fall, which runs iOS 6
with some minor enhancements, nobody can switch phones every couple of months
in this economy. Apple has slowly pushed users into adopting newer hardware
just to get this new feature or that one, and it’s really not a good way to
drive additional loyalty towards the platform.
It used to be exciting finding out what Apple has installed for the world and for competitors to follow/improve upon. But for the case of iOS 6, it seems to be a total flop selling recycled products to helpless Apple fans.
and No, I am not condemning Apple, I just expected more from the so call mobile/simplicity/innovative leader in the field.
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