Living iOS9 For A Few Days

I upgraded both my phone and iPad to iOS9 a few days’ ago but I was in a hurry and I really haven’t had a chance to review the features so I’ve just been living with the new OS and seeing what works for me and what doesn’t.  I use my iPad for Citrix, SSH & RDP, reading, watching TV and playing games.  My iPhone I use for managing my day, emails, reminders, tasks and photos.

I’d be interested to know anyone else’s favourite features that you’re actually using

The Good

  1. Popup blocker in a browser.  Yes I know blah blah editorial sites need to make money blah blah.  It makes my browser faster and sites more interesting.  I do pay for some sites to access but if the sites didn’t overdo the ads then I’d tolerate them.  But they don’t, they overdo and make the entire site unreadable.  I’ve tried Blockr and Peace (now withdrawn) and i’m definitely noticing improvements
  2. Swipe in.  On my iPad I can swipe in from the right to look at my mail whatever else i’m doing
  3. Picture in Picture - i absolutely love the PIP feature that Hulu, iPlayer, Netflix all have.  Now when I’m exercising and watching a program or cooking and watching a program I can come out of the app and do other things whilst the app shows in a small window.  LOVE

    PIP

  4. Photo syncing.  Finally my photos auto sync immediately across devices - previously it was hit and miss and could take a while for photos from my phone to reach any other device. That may have just been me because Tim never had that problem
  5. Spotlight search - customised searching across apps including streaming services.
  6. Mobile data failover when wifi is weak.  The idea is that if you are connected to wifi but it’s not strong it will switch to using mobile data instead.  I do have one dead spot in my house and usually I have to disconnect wifi so it uses data there but this fixed that problem.  It only works if you have unlimited data though.
  7. Siri seems improved, at least it seems to understand me better and write emails / texts more accurately
  8. Public transport in Apple Maps.  I’ve already used this a few times - asking for a route home last night from Hampton Court it showed me the nearest bus stops, stations , bus numbers to take and when they were due.  It only works right now in London and a few other cities but luckily that’s where i live.

The Bad

  1. Swipe In.  When reading a book every time I go to turn the page it swipes in and shows me my inbox. No Apple BAD. I don’t want to be checking my inbox when I”m trying to read.  There’s no way to turn off right in swipe so I need to reprogram my fingers to touch for page turn slightly further in from the right or use the left touch to turn the page. It’s annoying but I wouldn’t give up swipe, I just wish I could turn it off when in iBooks
  2. Spotlight search - by default all apps are included in spotlight search including “Spotlight suggestions” and “Bing Search” both of which send your query to a remote site.  I disabled those.  Also by default when I go to search it shows what book i’m reading and how far i’ve progressed.  Not a fan.  I had to go through and turn off all the apps I didn’t want searched. I would have preferred to turn “on” rather than turn “off” so another one where the feature is good but the implementation doesn’t work for me
  3. Tim absolutely HATES the new keyboard which I don’t notice at all so that’s his problem 🙂

3 thoughts on “Living iOS9 For A Few Days

  1. One of my favorite features is the two-finger tap and/or swipe on the keyboard to position the cursor or select text. Works only on the iPad, but a godsend.
    I also hate the swipe in when reading. Switched to scrolled reading for now.
    Tell Tim he can turn of the lowercase keyboard in the settings.

  2. when txt’ing, if i leave the screen open, between me sending and reply, the write box is covered with a grey bank with 00.00 on he right.

    The only way to get this to go away is turn off my phone and turn it back on again.

    So annoying

Comments are closed.