iOS 6 Beta 1

I just downloaded the beta less than a week ago. It works ok for a beta. A lot of cool new features.

Maps
Maps was built from the ground up. A while back, year or two ago, Apple acquired a map company so they would not have to rely on Google. Also helps so Google doesn't have as much of a monopoly. Anyway, it's a little like Google Earth and Google Maps put together. Retains all previous functionality, but allows 3D viewing. You can rotate the map and when that happens the names of the places show on the maps also rotate so it's always upright. Additionally, you can change the view to 3D. 3D is nice for viewing 360 at street level. Not so functional at the moment for Hawaii. If I look up big places like Golden Gate Bridge, it looks phenomenel. What they did was hire people to fly helicopters and planes to circle around certian areas. Its looks way better than Google Earth, but is not complete yet. Turn by turn is sweet. What is really cool is it uses the street signs you normally see on Freeways for where you turn next. Cool animation. Also since siri was updated you can just say "How do I get home" and it maps your way home. The old mapping sucked, in that it took forever to route your destination, etc. Too many clicks / touches to get to the right screen. If your route it taking longer than expected it updates the travel time accordingly. Or if it's really busy it gives you another route to turn off onto. Siri is the voice for the guide if you want it on. Maps also works if the phone is locked, you will see it on the lock screen in real-time.



Phone App / Notifications
Say someone is calling you and you don't want to or you can't answer. If you lift up the phone icon on the screen you get a choice to ignore the call, set a reminder to call back when you leave the place your at or a certian time you specificy, and ignore call and send a text message reply with a few choices to respond i.e. "I'll call you back". You can add a custom one.



You can now post to Facebook and Tweet from the notifications center. Not really exciting for me, but it's cool feature I guess.


Do No Disturb! Ever get a text or phone call from someone you want to kill the next day for waking you up? Well, with this you can receive all your messages, email, phone calls, and reminders. However, it will not audible alert or vibrate. But what if you wanted a group of people to be able to get through? There is an option for that! And, if you want everyone blocked, but only allow emergency calls it will allow the call to come through as normal if they call more than once within a 3 minute time period.



Safari Web Browser
Safari now supports landscape full screen view. Nice. Also, Cloud Tabs. If you have tabs open on your other iDevices or Mac they will be accessible VIA a button in Safari. So if you're doing some research and have all these tabs open on your mac at home it will show up on your phone. I really like that could come in handy. Offline reading list. Just add a website to your reading list and it will be available to read offline. Good for Airplane rides, eh? Craigslist, eBay, etc....ever want to upload photos? Now you can. Unfortuantely, you can only upload video/pictures or take either one directly from your camera. So you can't upload other files, but this is a good step in the right direction. Flickr and Photobucket users who prefer the web versus the app should be pleased.



Passbook App *New*
No more tickets for anything. All on your phone now. Not multiple apps for multiple things. One app, all things. Plane Tickets, Coupons even, Starbucks Card, movie theater tickets, gift cards, etc. Check your lock screen when you are nearby a place and the option to slide to unlock appears. Not your regular slider, but a notifcation slider which opens the exact card, coupon, or ticket you need. So if I go to an airport and there is gate change, it updates it. Also it will pop up for me to use I don't have to look for it!



Shared Photo Streams
Photo Streams are now shareable. You can create albums you want to share with others who you authorize. Other can share with you as well. All from the Photos app. You can even comment on other peoples photos.



Siri
Siri is now supported on 3rd Gen iPad. Cool for me. Siri now knows sports, movies, and resturants. For sports you can ask it to pull up scores and season schedules. For movies, a movie theather with schedule, times, and a trailer for the movie choose will be available. And for resturants, you can find out what resturants near you are currently open, get menus, reserve seating, find the store's rating, find the price range for what you are willing to pay, etc.

You can now post to Facebook and Twitter with Siri by simply using your voice. My favorite feature is App Launching. Now I don't have to look around in my phone for the App I want.

Apple is working with car manufacturers to integrate an "eyes free" system. This allows control through the cars audio system for use with Siri. In addition, your iPhone's screen won't light up. "With the Eyes Free feature, ask Siri to call people, select and play music, hear and compose text messages, use Maps and get directions, read your notifications, find calendar information, add reminders, and more." I can dig it.

Accessibility
Ever have your obnoxious kid randomly dial people's numbers while trying to play Angry Bird? Have no fear! Apple Juice has da solution for u! Now you can lock into one APP and a password is need to exit it. Usually 4 digit pin, but I'm sure you could make it more complex if you wanted. You can restrict certian controls / features of an APP, too. Home Button will not work for escaping either.

[IMG]http://images.apple.com/ios/ios6/images/accessibility_main.jpg[-/IMG]



Tweaks/Mods
-Bluetooth in the main menu under Wifi (easier access)
-Insert media into e-mails instead of copying it. It pops up like the copy/paste button
-FaceTime chat over cellular rather than restricted to WiFi
-Added Lost Mode to Find my Phone app. Keeps track of locations as they change so you can see where it's been.
-Stores: iBooks, App, and iTunes stores have been remodeled
-Music App Updated Theme
-iTunes Match now supports streaming rather than having to download the music
-APP updates do not require the user's iTunes password, only for new APPs
-New APPS have a "New" banner across the icon until they are opened
-Custom E-mail Alerts from those whom you specify -- like important people -- Also there is a VIP folder

Neat stuff, I can certainly see why Apple has a dedicated following - their stuff is simple to use and accessible... Android needs to do stuff like this for their baseline OS.

pvtnum11 wrote:Neat stuff, I can certainly see why Apple has a dedicated following - their stuff is simple to use and accessible... Android needs to do stuff like this for their baseline OS.

A well structured layout of all the new features found so far in the beta.

http://www.ifans.com/forums/threads/ifans-project-ios-6-features-list-all-200.377252/