Apple iOS 5.1

Apple released an update for the iPhone’s operating system last week. Sadly, the move from iOS 5.0.1 to iOS 5.1 offered very little for users of this smartphone. I’ve been using it for a week now, and I’m completely underwhelmed. This is too bad, as there’s a long list of potential enhancements that could have been made.

The most noticeable change is the addition of a camera button on the unlock screen. If you want to quickly take a picture, you can hit this button and slide the screen up and you’ll be in the camera app. The new version also allows you delete images directly from the photo stream.

If you’re an AT&T customer, your iPhone now tells you that you’re connected to a 4G network when you have an HSPA+ connection. Your phone isn’t faster than it was before, however.


Features MIA
What does it offer beyond that? Not much.  You still have the “choice” of only one keyboard layout,  you can’t specify the default apps for different tasks, there’s only limited support for Bluetooth, you can’t have different signatures for different email accounts… I could go on and on.

One of the best features was mysteriously stripped out. A beta offered Facebook integration, which allowed people to upload images to this social networking service directly from the Photos app. Unfortunately, this did not make it into the final version.

The iOS is much more mature and robust than it was just a few years ago, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. It’s too bad Apple missed this chance to make some of the needed enhancements.