You’ll have read about the problems with
the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 launch. As long-term readers may know, this column is no
longer on the Apple PR department’s Christmas list, as we’ve had our
differences over the years. Despite that, I’ve started to feel a bit sad for
the company recently. The Maps fiasco reminds me of that “What have the Romans
ever done for us?” scene from the Life of Brian: there’s a whole list of
brilliant improvements in the iPhone 5 and its iOS 6 operating system, but
they’re being ignored or overshadowed because everyone just wants to complain
about Apple’s terrible map application.
Some
have argued that in the face of much of the Android competition, the screen on
the iPhone 5 simply isn’t big enough, yet I know from feedback that a
significant proportion of you are fed up with the massive phones that seem to
be fashionable at the moment
So, despite the lack of love between us, I
thought I’d spend a few words defending Apple’s latest hardware and software
babies. Let’s start with the phone. Some have argued that in the face of much
of the Android competition, the screen on the iPhone 5 simply isn’t big enough,
yet I know from feedback that a significant proportion of you are fed up with
the massive phones that seem to be fashionable at the moment. What Apple has
done is actually quite clever: by retaining the width and just making the phone
taller, it can still be held comfortably in one hand; even people with fairly
small hands can reach right across the touchscreen with their thumb. Any wider
and for many people it would become a two-handed device, especially for that
important Far Eastern audience who (on average) tend to have smaller hands than
us in the West.
Some argue that a bigger screen is needed
to see more of a web page, but this isn’t only a factor of physical size –
screen quality and resolution matter too. The fact is that the iPhone 5’s
display contains more pixels than many of its competitors, and the screen is
better quality too. Put it alongside any other high-end smartphone and it’s
just as easy to read a web page on its screen as on bigger-screened devices.
Of course, there’s more to the iPhone 5
than the screen. It has a faster CPU and a host of other improvements, but I’m
getting a bit weary of the usual box-ticking comparison of phone specifications
that make many smartphone reviews look like a game of Top Trumps: phone A has
two extra cores in its CPU but phone B has a higher clock speed and phone C has
a 2% brighter screen. It’s all starting to feel irrelevant to me because,
ignoring the budget end of the market, pretty well every current smartphone is
utterly brilliant. Of course, some do certain things slightly better than
others – the quality of the onboard camera or battery life, for example – but
bickering over single-figure percentage differences in CPU speeds seems
increasingly pointless.
Where the differences are significant is
between the phones’ operating systems. Much of the market is now running
Android – sometimes vanilla Android, but often Android in drag. Phone
manufacturers like to plaster on layers of make-up to make their device look
prettier, but underneath it’s still Android and you’re still going to be
running Android apps. There are several credible alternatives to Android,
including iOS on the iPhone and an increasing number of Windows Phone devices;
and outside of the USA people are still buying BlackBerry (although it’s
starting to look like a bit of a dead end as the company’s new 10 OS gets
closer to launch)
It’s these OS differences that really
provide the differentiation when comparing phones: if you want the largest
selection of (mostly) high-quality apps then iOS is the obvious choice; if you
want freedom from lock-in, to feel that you own the phone rather than the phone
owning you, then Android is a wiser choice; and if you want something
innovative and different that integrates superbly with Microsoft-based
back-office systems then Windows Phone is the logical buy.
Now iOS 6 is taking a real pasting from
users and the press about its awful mapping software; but having said that, as
a satnav system it works very well, provided you manage to locate your
destination properly (I’ve found that entering precise postcodes is best). It
offers very clear instructions, good routes and comprehensive live traffic
updates. Apple’s biggest mistake seems to have been in calling the thing “Maps”
and wielding it as a replacement for the old Googlebased map app. I think if
the company had called it “Satnav” instead then most people would have been
quite happy with it.
However, there’s plenty more to iOS 6 than
mapping. You’ll have read about many of the new features in reviews and news
stories, so here I’m going to mention some of the less visible new features
that you may have missed; even iPhone 5 owners may have missed some of them!
Let’s start with a tune: I’ve discovered
that the play position of certain music tracks I’ve listened to seems now to
get synced across my various iOS devices, including the little Apple TV box
that sits under my TV and isn’t really a TV at all. The same ability applies to
videos and podcasts, too – start listening to something at home on TV, carry on
listening by phone during your commute, then switch to another device when you
get to work. There’s actually a whole host of extra stuff that’s synced in iOS
6, including keyboard shortcuts and browser tabs.
The
fact that mobile Safari now supports HTTP uploads is a huge deal for web
developers
A nice improvement in the App Store is that
you no longer need to keep typing in your password when updating previously
installed apps. Also when installing new apps, you now only need your password
for paid-for apps; freebies just download automatically (although parents
worried about kiddies now being able to fill their phones with rubbish can lock
down this feature by using restrictions).
One tiny update that I really like is the
way the auto-brightness feature works on the lockscreen, which previously was
always turned up to 11 and only dimmed down when you unlocked the phone or
tablet. Some people still have trouble with the iOS auto-brightness setting; if
you’re one of them, what you need to do is go into a darkened room and set the
brightness fairly low. From then on it should work as designed, but please note
that it only auto-brightens: the screen doesn’t auto-dim if you move to a
darker place. The only time it will dim is when idle for a few minutes, or when
awakening from sleep.
Finally, something that web developers will
appreciate: for iOS 6, the Safari web browser now supports HTTP uploads. This
is a big deal, as anyone trying to maintain a website using a CMS couldn’t
previously upload images, only text. It was a bugbear, which sparked a whole
industry of workaround apps and tweaks, although none of them were really
successful. For people writing web-based applications, it’s a big step forwards
that iPhone and iPad users can now make use of <input
type="file"> or even <input type="file" multiple>
statements.
Incidentally, since I don’t receive any
help from Apple with this column, I have to look elsewhere when I need access
to the company’s products. This month, Vodafone came to the rescue. I’ve got a
lot of time for that particular network: T-Mobile, Orange and their love child
EE are all making plenty of noise at the moment regarding 4G (or so-called 4G)
rollout; O2 is a network that has brilliant customer service but is still
taking flak for the quality of its mobile data network; and 3 is improving, but
still has very patchy coverage outside the main population centres.
Meanwhile, Vodafone has just been sitting
quietly, not making a big fuss, but gradually improving its network quality and
coverage in a methodical manner. I often find when doing a network test in a
particular location that Vodafone might not always offer the strongest signal,
but it will quite often be the network with the best throughput.
