Some of my favorite things
I’ve been using iOS 6 since the announcement last June and an iPhone 5 for a few days. None of the changes have been drastic or revolutionary. But the sum total of both the new OS and the new phone is somehow more than the sum of its parts. Obviously, a lot of press has been given to the big new features, but less ink has been given to some of the smaller features. Some of these, for me at least, have been a big deal. These are my three favorite:
Panorama Taking a panorama is pretty cool. I’ve had a panorama app for quite a while, so it’s not foreign at all. But building it into the OS has made people start using it quite a bit more. So has foregoing 3D viewing apps for the basic super-wide picture. This means people post it to Twitter and Facebook and use it like any old picture. Panoramas are new or revolutionary, but making them easy to use and easy to share really is.
Screen colors The screen is taller and the image is closer to the surface of the glass — those are pretty cool things you notice right away. They also became the new normal for me after about 10 seconds. But the richness of having the full SRGB gamut means vivid colors look amazing. I added a lock screen from David Lanham. Every time I’ve turned on my phone I’ve blown away by the colors and contrast of the screen. Every time. It really is a vast improvement over prior generations.
Speed It’s really fast. No, seriously, I mean it. This was not a minor incremental change. It’s running some complex apps faster than laptops I own. This processor screams. And it’s made me rethink where the boundaries of mobile and desktop will lie in the next few years. What would it mean to have a processor like this in a notebook or desktop machine? Perhaps Xcode on iPad (or something like it) is not as far off as I thought it was yesterday.
