So, it's finally here, iOS 5 has hit the virtual shelves. Now what? To update, or not to update? Developers generally take a while to update their games so that they work on new i-Operating Systems, so, if you're lucky, a little more than half of the games and apps that are on your device will keep working after you update, while the other half sit there waiting for updates from developers trying to fix all the reasons their apps won't run smoothly on the new system. Thankfully, a lot of developers have been anticipating the release of iOS 5, and with that, grabbed the beta version that has been out for a while, and made sure that their games ran, so chances are, if you have mostly new games on your device, those new games should, in theory, all run. But if you're like a lot of us, and have games on your device that have been around for more than 6 months, you might just be better off waiting about a month until most of the apps and games have had a chance to get updated.
Now, if you're seriously thinking about updating, here's some of the AWESOME new features you can expect to see with the new Operating System;
-- New Push Notification System;
You will no longer have to put up with those big annoying blue text boxes that pop up with no regard as to what you're doing at that moment in time. Instead, a nice little bar will scroll at the top of your screen, and dragging it down will let you access any and all of the notifications that are waiting for you. It's a huge improvement over the way notifications have been handled, and you will no longer need to worry about games locking up or lagging when you're getting a message.
-- iCloud;
Along with all the features of iCloud in older iOS versions, you can now send your game data to iCloud, and transfer the saved data to another device. For gamers with both an iPod/Phone, and an iPad, this is a HUGE feature. You'll also get 5GB of Cloud storage, a free e-mail address, syncing for all your contacts, calendars, and more. With this, inside of the AppStore on your iDevice, all apps that you have previously bought will show "Install" instead of the apps price. So now, you won't need to wonder if you've previously bought an app, or browse through games, find one you might want, and then go into Cloud and search to see if you've already bought it, making the AppStore a little more neat and tidy for all.
-- New GameCenter Features;
GameCenter is probably my favorite online leaderboard and achievement system. The moment I updated to an operating system that could use GC, I dumped OpenFeint, and immediately loved the new-to-me layout. So, what has Apple done to improve the already great GameCenter? You can now access friends of your friends, making your own friends list bigger, and maybe finding out that someone you've met only a couple times through another friend is into gaming, and start competing with them. After all, there's not a whole lot out there that brings people together like high-score challenges. You can also add pictures to your GameCenter account, letting people know what you look like, or giving other's an opportunity to say "oh, so THAT'S who that is...", or just share a picture of some goofy text showing how you feel about life, games, people, entertainment, or whatever else. There's also the ability to download games from directly within GameCenter, and the ever-so-cool feature; SUPPORT FOR TURN-BASED GAMES. This right here will be quite a great feature once developers really start taking advantage of it.
--Untethered iDevices;
You no longer need a PC to set up your iDevice. This will make it so that your friends with iDevices that don't have a home PC will stop bugging you to get you to set up their devices. You can also update to a new iOS over Wi-Fi. There's also Wi-Fi syncing to iTunes, so no more USB cords to get tangled up, or chewed up by pets. Backing up to iCloud is also featured, allowing you to backup and restore your apps and settings.
There are plenty more features and enhancements, like Safari 2.0, Twitter integration, and much, much more. For a full list, you can check out the Apple iOS5 Features page for a full list. But as with every iOS update, it might just be better to hold off on updating, at least for a week or two, until most developers update their games to play on iOS5. If not, you could have a bunch of new features and enhancements on your iDevice, but loose quite a bit of application functionality. But damn, iOS5 sure does look nice, and we here at The App Shack are very impressed by the update, as well as the even more promising future of Apple.
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