Hands-on with iOS 6 - here's what I think!

Hey guys! I managed to update my iPhone to iOS 6 earlier today. (I'll be writing about how you can get it early for yourself shortly, it's ridiculously easy so everybody can do it.) I've gone through it all so I can talk about & show you all what's new & what I think of it all. Please note that I'm using an iPhone 4 so I don't get all of the updates included eg. Siri and 3D maps, but I get the majority of them (definitely enough to talk about!) so let's go!

(Apple is the king of hype - 'most advanced' lol.)

Let's start with the AppStore. I can't remember the last time Apple's little moneymaker got given a new dress, but looks like today's the day! The store is all new & updated. It looks very swish & modern looking, the main page in particular is a lot more appealing.

(Everything is obviously going to be designed for the extra-long iPhone 5 display now :[ )

Not only does it come with a pretty new face, it has added brains, too! You can now open apps that are installed on your phone directly from the AppStore. This probably has something to do with the fact that now you aren't taken out of the AppStore when installing a new app. You can continue to browse (maybe even buy a couple more apps!) and once your app is finished installing, just tap on open & you're straight into the app.

Search has been updated, too. Now your results are displayed in a card-like format. It's all gimmicky, and actually makes it harder to find new apps that aren't in the first 10 results (because, honestly, who's going to swipe through that many results?), but is a nice touch. The iTunes Store is also very similar, which makes sense.

Next on my list is Passbook. It may be because I've managed to get iOS 6 early, but when I open passbook I'm prompted to go to the AppStore, & when I go there, there isn't any content to view/download. This may be because I'm almost a week early, so stay tuned, I'm sure something will happen over the next few days. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works, and hope that retailers will adopt it. I want to pay for my Starbucks with my phone! :) (Although, not in the way I had initially hoped....) Keep an eye on this post for any updates I experience with Passbook in the near future.

Maps. Apple made a big deal about this, and I personally see it as a major drawback to the iOS system. Google maps is an invaluable tool, and until Google releases it on the AppStore, I'm going to have to make do with the web app. Apple's own solution comes preinstalled with iOS 6 and, to be honest, I don't see too much immediate difference, apart from the new icon & some minor UI refinements. Points of interest are loaded onto the map, though, for example petrol stations. This could have come in very handy to me a couple weeks ago as our car was so low on fuel it had decided that it had "--" miles left in the tank, leading me to frantically search the web on an awful 2G connection for the nearest petrol station. I know that on the iPhone 4S and 5 you can get driving directions from Siri, which sounds just delightful.

The Music app is one of my most-used applications on my iPhone, so I was pretty happy to see that it's also gotten a hot new look. This app has had a major overhaul, & it honestly looks so much better. The silvers look amazing and the contrast with the mostly black Now Playing page works well. There isn't much else to say other than there's a nice little gimmick when you move/tilt iPhone, the relections on the knobs seem to follow you, as if they were made of real metal :) If I'm not being clear, you'll see what I mean when you see it for yourself. This app is the second one so far (after the AppStore) that feels like its design has been properly redone. On a negative, though, the speed of this app is much slower than compared to iOS 5.1.1.

Settings. A couple things worth nothing here. I'll start with what seems to be system-wide, first. The banner at the top of the page that has the title (in this case, 'Settings') has had a minor colour change. It seems to be more like what you see on the iPad. In the main Settings app, there have been some new options added. One is a 'Do Not Disturb' mode, which when turned on, stops all incoming notifications. You can set it up to allow certain people through, or if somebody calls you twice within 3 minutes, their second call will get to you. It's pretty useful & means I won't be woken up by my nocturnal Facebook friends sending me Farmville requests at 4am. There is also a new submenu labeled 'Privacy'. This is basically the place you come to see what apps are allowed access for various different parts of your phone. It's useful & something I didn't have any idea was coming to iOS 6 before, and more control over your stuff is always a welcome surprise. Other then that, there isn't really much different other than some reorganisation of submenus. Oh, and you can now set custom vibrations for every single type of alert.

Those are the main changes that I found myself, below are a few more that aren't worth going into major detail about because they are only minor, but still noteworthy enough to point out.

Camera. Nothing new here other than a slight UI change. This being a darker banner & shutter effect. The buttons remain the light silver colour they've always been.
Contacts. Not much change here at all, although when you scroll down your contacts, the search bar now stays on top, which is good.
Phone. Again, not much change. However the keypad is much different now, not sure if i like it.

Photos. Only new thing here is you can now set up shared Photo Streams to share with select people, or the public. Not too sure what the uses of that could be, isn't what what Facebook is for?
Mail. I'm not big on emails on my iPhone, and sort of wish I never set them up in the first place. iOS 6 has a new VIP inbox. It allows you to filter email from certain people so you never miss anything. I guess it'll be useful if you're a busy business person.
Weather. Nothing new, just a sharper-looking interface.

Safari. I'd exepected a bigger update to Safari. I don't know where I'd read it but I was convinced that there was a unified address & search bar. Maybe that's on the iPad. The only new thing here really is iCloud tabs for syncing across all your iDevices. Yawn, Chrome did that weeks ago.
New Action Menu. When you click on the swooping arrow thingy in photos, Safari, etc. you used to be met with a couple buttons to choose from. iOS 6 brings a set of icons on how to share/print/bookmark the item in question. Nothing revolutionary, but it's prettier.

Notification Centre. There's absolutely nothing new here apart from new buttons at the top that enable you to tweet or update your Facebook status from anywhere in the phone. My inner social networking addict is weeping with joy.

I'll be getting my hands on an iPhone 4S later on and updating that too, so I'll be able to have another look at the improvements to the stuff that my measly iPhone 4 isn't deemed worthy capable of doing, I'll also be writing a tutorial on how you can get iOS 6 early for yourself. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! :)
AB x