iOS

CNET has told you all about what's new in Apple's iOS 5 operating system and in the iPhone 4S that launched today, but this here's a deep dive into the Notifications Center, one of the new features to hit iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Pull down notifications The new notifications center is one of the biggest changes to iOS 5, and also among the best. Previously, if you missed or dismissed an alert, that's it, it was gone. Now you can place a finger at the information bar at the top of the screen and pull down to reveal a whole collection of messages, e-mail, reminders, calendar events, and other notifications you may have missed.

Comparisons with the pull-down menu in Android's operating system have been plentiful, and I'll get to them later on. But yes, the surface similarities are apparent.… Read more

Safari in iOS 5 brings an entirely new experience for those who spend much of their time browsing the Web on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

The new OS introduces tools for better news reading, Twitter integration, and a new private browsing option.

Use Reader and Reading List to keep up with news Of the new features, Reader and Reading List take center stage; it makes reading news and blogs a more enjoyable experience on the new OS. Now, if you navigate to an article, "Reader" will appear in the address bar. Tap it, and an e-reader-style … Read more

An attempted upgrade to iOS 5 bricked my iPod Touch, forcing me to spend hours restoring the device. What steps should you take if this happens and how do you protect yourself before you update your iOS device?

The upgrade to iOS 5 started smoothly enough on my end as iTunes seemed to be chugging along updating my device. But about halfway through, an error message popped up, and the process was aborted. When I checked my iPod Touch all the data had been wiped out, and iTunes refused to recognize the device.

After plugging and unplugging my Touch and … Read more

There's a new iOS in town and and it comes bearing gifts. iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch owners are kicking their old OS to the curb and embracing this handsome stranger.… Read more

Among the many new features in iOS 5 for Apple's mobile devices, one seemingly small addition will make sharing your life in fewer than 140 characters much easier.

Integrated Twitter features are now an option in most of the main iOS apps, and on first use, you'll see just how easy it is to send tweets from your browser, photo app, YouTube, Contacts, or Maps. iOS 5 doesn't come standard with a complete Twitter experience that lets you browse tweets as well, but during your first setup you'll find a handy button for downloading Twitter's … Read more

New apps like iMessage, Newsstand, and Reminders are taking the spotlight in iOS 5, so it's easy to miss the little things, like Mail. Apple's well-respected mail client got a minor refresh, introducing several features iPhone users have been begging for.

If you browse through your Mail app in iOS 5, it's seemingly unchanged. But look again to find three key differences: text formatting, flagging, and mailbox management.

Yes, this means you can finally bold, italicize, and underline text (seriously, what took so long?), flag e-mails as important, mark e-mails as unread, and create or delete mailboxes. … Read more

How useful you'll find Photo Stream depends a lot on what you need or expect. If you just want a completely automated way to mirror all the photos you shoot on with your iPhone and iPad to your other computers and devices, then congratulations, this app's for you. If your needs stray beyond that to selective syncing/backup, the ability to manage what's in your Photo Stream cache, integration with other applications, and so on, then you're out of luck.

On each supported platform Photo Stream monitors a a pair of folders, one for uploads and … Read more

My iOS 5 upgrade went pretty smoothly, though it took the better part of two hours and left me scratching my head about a lot of things. (One of them is iCloud, but thankfully Apple now has a brief guide to iCloud setup and operation.)

Indeed, while I'm overjoyed with Reminders and loving Safari's new Reading List, I'm really perturbed by some of the new operating system's quirks and limitations. Here's my list of the five most annoying things about iOS 5.

1. Photos can't be deleted from Photo Stream

On the … Read more

I've been reading magazines on my iPad for months. I didn't need iOS 5 to do it. I keep these apps--The New Yorker, Wired--in a separate folder on my iPad, called Reading. With iOS 5, that's no longer the case. A new baked-in app (or, rather, a type of smart folder) called Newsstand has now absorbed these apps into an iBooks-like wooden bookshelf.

Newsstand was one of the iOS 5 features that I'd been long awaiting, because I dreamed it would be a way of integrating books, periodicals, and all reading material into one destination. Alas, that's not the case here. Instead of being slotted into iBooks, Newsstand is a separate app. This means two icons to manage instead of one.

Also, I hoped that Newsstand would become a digital way of discovering not just magazines, newspapers, and journals, but a means of browsing covers and headlines from current issues. I browse real newsstands on the corner of 28th and Park, or at a bookstore, and based on what I see, I actually might buy an issue. A football preview came out this month? A cover story on a dinosaur discovery? Sure, I'll bite.

Newsstand on the iPad does none of this.… Read more