Review: iOS 6

Review: iOS 6:

Introduction and Phone/FaceTime

iOS 6 is a big upgrade. The interface has been given a minor makeover with improved accessibility features.
Google's apps have been given the boot, so there's no YouTube and no Google Maps; Apple's written its own navigation and mapping app with considerable help from TomTom; Siri's been improved and finally works properly in the UK; the phone app's been tweaked, Safari and Mail updated and FaceTime brought to 3G.
It's much more social than before, with shared Photo Streams and Facebook baked into the OS like the word Blackpool in a stick of rock, and there are a host of other improvements to make your iOS device that little bit friendlier.
At least, that's the case on newer Apple kit. iOS 6 works on all iPhones from the 3GS onwards, the iPad 2 and new iPad, and the fourth and fifth generation iPod touches.
However, the older the kit the less of iOS 6 you actually get. Some of the big features - Siri, turn-by-turn navigation, panoramic photos and FaceTime over 3G - aren't available for the iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4.
The 3GS doesn't even get the offline reading list feature, and Siri's not available for the iPad 2.
Is it worth the upgrade? We've installed iOS across multiple iOS devices: an iPhone 4, an iPhone 4S, an iPad 2 and a new iPad (that latter one courtesy of Vodafone) to find out.
As we discovered, even when you don't get all the new features, there are still enough improvements to make the jump worthwhile.

iOS 6: Phone and FaceTime

iOS's Phone app has some welcome improvements. When a call comes in you can now swipe up to access more options than just Answer and Decline: you can reply with a pre-defined or custom iMessage or SMS, or set a reminder to call the person back.
Such reminders can be time-based or location-based, so for example you can set a reminder that kicks in when you get home.

The Phone app also gets a new Do Not Disturb feature, which you can schedule for specific times (although we'd have liked a quick access icon in the lock screen or notification area.
Come to think of it, location-based activation would have been useful too). This enables you to silence all calls and alerts, or to ring only when specific people call, and you can also specify whether repeated attempts to call you should override the Do Not Disturb settings.
FaceTime's been given a boost too: you can finally use it over 3G, provided you have the right hardware (iPhone 4S yes, iPhone 4 no) and the right calling plan: Vodafone says some of its cheaper calling plans won't include FaceTime over 3G, although Orange, T-Mobile and Everything Everywhere don't differentiate between FaceTime and Facebook. Three hasn't published its policy yet.

Mail, Maps, Siri and more

iOS 6: Mail and Safari

Many of Safari's new features will seem awfully familiar to users of other OSes, apps and browsers: there's offline reading, enabling you to save pages to read them later; there's full-screen landscape browsing; and there's tab syncing between your various iCloud devices.
You can also post photos and videos to sites from within the browser. None of these things are earth-shattering, but they're still handy.
Mail gets some tweaks too, including easier photo and video attachment.
Apple has adopted pull-to-refresh, and as with Mountain Lion there's a new VIP mailbox for your important contacts.
The VIP list syncs via iCloud, so if someone's a VIP on your iPhone they'll be a VIP on your iPad too.

iOS 6: Maps

We'll be honest, we feared the worst: with Apple giving Google Maps the boot in favour of its own offering, we half expected an app that was just great in America and utterly useless in the UK.
We were wrong.
Thanks to data from TomTom - including free live traffic information, something you have to pay extra for in TomTom's own iPhone app - the UK maps are very good, offering turn-by-turn navigation that Siri can read aloud if you wish.

Apple has also integrated local search, with mixed results: while restaurant reviews from Yelp are handy if you live in a large conurbation, reviews aren't always available in more rural areas.
We also found a number of errors, such as occasional American spellings (eg "Exhibition Center") and the odd mapping glitch, such as the one that identified our local Italian restaurant as a Sainsbury's supermarket fifteen miles away.

The Maps app doesn't have Street View, but the iPhone 4S/5 and recent iPads get Flyover View's 3D models of cities.
When they're available they're superb, but they're not widely available yet: for example London's there, but Glasgow isn't.
Navigating on an iPad feels a bit silly but on the iPhone 4S/5 it's a very nice experience, with clear directions and fast rerouting if you miss a turn.
However, the interface isn't ideal for in-car use: you shouldn't interact with any app while driving, of course, but even when parked Maps' tiny interface elements mean you'll need to take the phone out of any cradle to adjust anything.

Maps is a decent app, but we think existing, dedicated sat-nav apps have more finger-friendly UIs and more features, even if they do charge for traffic data - and if you've got an iPhone 3GS or 4, those apps are your only option.
Without turn-by-turn navigation all Maps can offer is a list of directions, and if you don't go the Apple way you're on your own. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

iOS 6: Siri

It's still in beta, but Siri has been massively improved in iOS 6, especially for UK customers: at last Siri can do local searches, so you're not just limited to a subset of the US version's features.
If you liked Siri but found its limitations infuriating in iOS 5, you'll find the iOS 6 version a big improvement.
This time around Siri can give you driving directions, tell you what time films are on and whether they're any cop, find your friends, provide football scores and launch apps, and it integrates with services including Wolfram Alpha, Facebook and Twitter.
There's also Eyes Free for integration with in-car audio and voice control systems, something Apple is currently liaising with car manufacturers about.
Apple is rather keen on Siri, not just for answering questions but also for dictating text. We've found computer dictation patchy over the years, but it's genuinely impressive in iOS 6 - especially on the new iPad, where thankfully you don't need to hold the tablet next to your face for it to hear you.

iOS 6: Facebook and Passbook

iOS already has Twitter integration, and Facebook joins it in iOS 6 with the same ability to share photos and post updates.

The contact and calendar integration is superb, adding Facebook events and friends' birthdays to your Calendar (if you want it to) - although if your social network is full of acquaintances rather than genuine friends that can quickly make your diary a disaster area.
You can also tell Facebook that you like particular apps and songs.
iOS has another book: Passbook, Apple's app for tickets, loyalty cards, boarding cards and anything else that's currently taking up too much room in your wallet.
It hadn't gone live at the time of writing, so we can't say whether it's of any use just yet, but from messing around creating our own cards in Passsource.com it's clearly going to be a doddle for developers to support it.

Verdict

The big question about any OS upgrade is, will installing it make you glad you did it?
The answer is yes, but some users answer yes more emphatically than others.
If you've got an iPhone 3GS the upgrade is really just a collection of minor improvements, whereas if you've got an iPhone 4S you're invited to the whole iOS party.

We liked

The two most impressive features are Maps and Siri, and while it's easy to jeer at the former - Android's had turn-by-turn navigation for a long time - Apple isn't just playing feature catch up: it's cutting yet more ties between it and Google.
Building a Google Maps-rivalling service is an impressive achievement; doing it this quickly and this well is astonishing.
And there's much, much more to Siri than just voice navigation: where iOS 5's version didn't really deliver for UK users, the new version is superb.
Other improvements are more minor, but a better phone app, improved Mail and Safari and (potentially) Passbook are all worthwhile.

We disliked

We're sure that in some cases the device differences are due to hardware limitations, but we're equally sure that in others the lack of features are not: if it's so hard to do turn-by-turn navigation on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, how come our TomTom app has done it for years?
Why can't the iPhone 4 do FaceTime over 3G, when it's fine with Wi-Fi?
Maybe Apple didn't feel the user experience was right, or maybe they felt their resources would be better spent on new goodies instead, but it's still frustrating to see your device denied some of iOS's more useful features.

Verdict

We could say the same about iOS 6 as we did about iOS 5: it "has been trailed for so long that the element of surprise went ages ago, but there's enough here to make your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch feel shiny and new all over again." iOS 6 is rather like the iPhone 5 or Mountain Lion; the refinement of something that already works extremely well.