What's new in iOS 5? Ten Features Apple Didn't Announce
Since Apple officially unveiled and released a developer beta of iOS 5, the next operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, devs have been tearing through it looking for signs of new features not announced by CEO Steve Jobs during the company’s annual WWDC keynote. Below we’ve complied a list of 10 unannounced new features discovered in the iOS 5 developer beta release and a few other rumored features that will almost certainly make their way into the public release this fall.
1. iTunes Tone Store:
According to the image above from BGR, it looks like Apple is planning on dedicating a section of the iTunes store to ringtones. A slide from the WWDC keynote showing the phrase “iTunes Tone Store” lead others to discover the above image in an unspecified iOS 5 build. It makes sense as up until now getting ringtones on your iOS device has been rather painful for a device that is otherwise so easy to use.
2. Nuance powered speech-to-text:
Rumored voice recognition features powered by Nuance have yet to make an appearance in the iOS 5 SDK but are still rumored to make an appearance in the final release. The proof comes from a typically reliable source that has posted screenshots of Nuance related preferences from an apparent unreleased, internal build of iOS 5. The same source that told us about carrier-unlocked iPhone 4s before Apple’s official announcement.
3. Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn integration:
Apple showed Twitter integration during the unveiling of iOS 5 but rumor has it the final release will also include native MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and LinkedIn support. All Things D reports the features will be integrated into Settings and add the services to at least the address book contact information page.
4. “Related People” in Contacts:
Related People is a feature of the Contacts app that allows you to assign related people to any contact. This would at the very least provide a quick link to related contacts, but in theory could also help Apple build a social network of sorts. It will be interesting to see if this is just a navigation feature or something more.
5. 1080p video exports:
Our friends over at 9to5Mac discovered media framework strings in the iOS SDK that point towards a 1080p video export feature for iOS 5. The new feature will accomplish this by apparently scaling down high-res video in real-time.
6. iPod data transmits over Bluetooth:
Another small unannounced feature we’ve discovered allows your iPod data including track, artist, and album data to be transmitted over Bluetooth. This is ideal for users that share music from their iDevice to a Bluetooth enabled device such as a supported car audio device.
7. Custom vibration patterns:
Custom vibrations is actually an accessibility feature that will come in handy for the hearing impaired and others that have trouble hearing ringtones or need to distinguish between callers only using vibration. In iOS 5 you can create custom vibration patterns and assign them to specific incoming calls and alerts.
8. LED Flash on incoming calls:
In iOS 5, you can now make the LED flash on incoming calls. This is another accessibility feature that may not be useful for everyone on a daily basis, but is highly requested by those requiring a visual cue to answer calls.
9. Native panorama camera features:
Apple is also rumored to include native iPhone panoramic photo features into the Camera app thanks to a couple lines of code discovered in a developer preview. This will be a game changer along with the other announced new camera features for iOS 5 and will pretty much eliminate the need to use a third-party camera app for most users.
10. Time Capsule/Airport integration:
A big theme during the company’s WWDC keynote was the fact iOS 5 would be officially going “PC-Free." With the help of iCloud, Apple is effectively transitioning from your Mac or PC to the mobile device being the digital hub. This is why it isn’t surprising iOS 5 will include the ability to set up a Time Capsule or Airport directly from within Settings.
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