Some interesting new things coming in iOS 5 and iCloud

There is quite a lot of talk around at the moment about iOS 5 and this is because for $99 you can get a developer account with Apple and you get full access to the preview of IOS 5. Not all of us though are willing to spend the $99 to become a developer or a let’s have a look developer and we would like to know what other things are going to be available in iOS which is due to come out in autumn.

Let’s have a look at some of the not so well known features that are coming, that will make the Apple mobile devices even better to use in our daily lives. Will we have to learn how to use the iPad
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Custom vibration patterns

Custom vibration patterns is one of the options that is part of the accessibility which is added in iOS 5 for people that might be able to hear too well, so they can feel the vibration tone instead. It seems that you will be able to assign a custom vibration notification pattern to a specific contact. Apple are very good in their desire to offer accessibility options and some of the features that are available within that package, are good and useful for fully sighted people who have no hearing problems to deal with.

Custom Text Shortcuts

There are a number of things coming into iOS 5 which have been available in other applications already. One such feature coming soon in iOS 5 is the shortcut for phrases that you use often. You can for instance type in ddate instead of the word date, so that is differentiated and it will fill in a whole amount of text such as the whole complete date including the time. At least that is how the snippets work in TextExpander.

You could have a shortcut such as omg for ‘Oh my God’ which could be entered into a text message with just those three letters. I will be continuing to use TextExpander seeing as I have the application for both my iPad and also for my iPhone.

A good Feature for photographers

A lot of people will be very happy to be able to use the button on the side of the iPhone as a shutter trigger for the camera but you can also use the button on the headset microphone to take a picture. With this facility of using the headset switch that is on the microphone you should be able to make photographs that do not have any motion blur that you get sometimes by tapping directly onto the camera.

The New Notifications Method of iOS 5

Another feature that many users are looking forward to is the notifications feature. The notifications will appear on the lock screen and you can swipe them to unlock the iPhone or iPod and go to the application that gave the notification directly. That could save quite a lot of time and annoyance with the notifications as presented on iOS 5.

Hopefully there will be choices about which notifications arrive on the screen. I am seeing in the pictures that people are showing, views of a stocks notification which is only of any use if you’re interested in seeing what is happening to the stock market, and I am not. Same with the weather notifications, I prefer to just look out of the window to see what the weather is doing.

Twitter Integrated into iOS 5

Twitter has already entered mainstream and it now it seems that it will be integrated as part of iOS 5. It could have been good if Facebook were to be integrated into iOS 5 also, but it seems that Apple and Facebook were unable to make a deal that suited both parties.

The news from WWDC 2011 was wide and all encompassing with the iCloud and iOS 5 as well as the incoming OSX Lion. It is an exciting time to be a Mac user.

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