Douglas Moran: Downloaded and installed iOS 6 onto my iPhone 4S. Not much to report so far–although THANK GOD Bluetooth is now on the top-level in Settings!–but I’ve noticed that *every time* I tap the “Genius” button in the App Store, uh, app, it crashes the app. Every time. Tried rebooting my iPhone, and no joy. Anyone else seeing this? Did a google search but didn’t turn up anything.
Travis Ehrlich: I just finished updating my 4. Minor changes, but all good so far.
Douglas Moran: Whatever data they used for the new version of the Apple Maps utility is out of date. *Very* out of date. Like, *years* out of date. The visual info for my block is *at least* 2 years old, and possibly older.
Oh, and how the hell do you report bugs? I went through the process under the “Support” tab on the Apple page, and ended up with a choice: “Contact carrier” or “Take it in to Genius bar.” It’s a software but the Genius bar won’t be able to help with, so both options are useless. How the heck do you report a software bug to them?
Christopher Wayne: I haven’t experienced the Genius problem you report. Not many players on Passbook yet. The maps come from TomTom, who I think is the WORST choice for maps in the U.S. I wish Apple had chosen anyone but them! Big negative. Other change is that I had switched my AT&T account to an LTE account (from an iPhone account), so that I could support my Lumia 900 as well. Everything kept working on my iPhone just fine until this update; iOS6 broke my tethering. I can get it back by switching my account back to an iPhone account, but ugh.
Douglas Moran: Hm, that’s weird.
Carly Z: I don’t get passbook. Though its marginally more useful than newsstand at least. I am underwhelmed on the whole with this update, but the new mail is very nice.
Douglas Moran: Wow: Siri works better and can launch apps–I think that’s just great. *Finally* the bluetooth toggle is on the first page of the settings; Yay!. Maps: meh. Out of date. I like the *idea*, but it looks very Beta-release-ish to me. (There’s a house around the corner from me that’s been there for, literally, two years that isn’t on the map. Lame.) Not sure I like the new look-and-feel in the phone app; very bland. Music app reset the default buttons at the bottom–i.e. I had moved “Albums” out and “Podcasts” in, and that got reset. Annoying, but no big deal. As I noted, the “Genius” button on the App store crashes the app every time for me. More as I come to it. Overall, it’s fine, but nothing to get pumped about. Maybe it’ll look better on the iPhone 5?
Joel McLaughlin: http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/ Yep….that’s probably the worst of the update….have to look at it with my wife’s phone.
Travis Ehrlich: I’ve read many complaints about the maps used but have not had much time to mess with them. I also have had the App Store Genius crash each time I have tried it. Decent update, but not much to get excited about on the iPhone 4. Oh yeah, lots of new emoji icons.
Carly Z: Hmm. According to apples map app, I have no neighbors behind my house. It’s just an empty lot and then street. How freaking old is their map data?
Christopher Wayne: Tom Tom’s map data – not Apple’s. And it’s crap – Tom Tom owns TeleAtlas and their US data was always terrible. Apple should have bought their data from Navteq. Big mistake going with Tom Tom.
Joel McLaughlin: Looking like the 70s…..
Christopher Wayne: It’s sad. The app isn’t bad at all, especially for a v1.0 release, but it suffers from an unreliable data source. Pity.
Are you blown away by iOS6, or is this more of an “under the hood improvements” type of update for you? Let us know in the comments!
I’ve found the update to be, overall, a good thing. I have been lightly using Maps, and I haven’t had the problems the majority is experiencing. Granted, I haven’t checked in-depth for locations being out of date, but Maps has gotten me around fine in Springfield, MO.
I’m loving some of the finer details, like per-account mail signatures, Facebook integration, the Siri enhancements, and actually being able to enter an address for geofencing in Reminders.
My experience has been uniformly positive:
– The overall performance on my new iPad is SUPERB. Definitely faster.
– The new app updater is a welcome change, without tossing me out of the App STore every time.
– As for maps, I note that Google Maps has the ‘satellite’ from ~early 2008 for our house, with a fence we tore down 3 months after moving in … whereas Apple has one from within the last few months. So I guess it all depends …
Overall, I like iOS 6. I agree that it’s faster on my iPad 3 and seems fast on my iPhone 4S as well (don’t know if it’s faster or the same, but definitely NOT slower).
I’m waiting to see how playbook “plays out”. It could be very interesting if compainies sign on.
I like the updates to mail – all are useful.
I LOVE the new DND feature – nicely implemented and easy to use!
I’ve seen a few glitches in using the App Store from my phone – may be overload from all those updaters who now have to update their apps – don’t know, but like the new format and download screens.
Yeah – definitely a worthwhile upgrade overall.
I have a new iPad and an iPod Touch 4G, and so far the update is fine. Like Michael, I am loving the fact that I am not tossed out of the app store when I update apps. The mail app is marginally better – but the ability to flag messages more easily is definitely a plus. I have not noticed any performance improvements, really – all seems about the same, but the iPad was pretty fast as it was.
Unlike Michael. Google’s map images were more current in my neighborhood than what Apple has now. Apple’s are three to four years old – I can tell because it is showing our shed in the location it was before we moved it in spring 2009, but definitely after we had landscaping done in fall 2008. Google was showing satellite images that were no more than 18 months old (based on other changes in our neighborhood.) I do prefer Google’s old maps. Last week I was in Montreal and used the iPad to get directions from our hotel to another, where my daughter was staying, and the iPad gave perfect directions. I redid them last night to see whether the directions were the same, and they were not – they were missing some important changes that were made based on some construction that is now happening.
I think that the Maps issue would bug me more if I had an iPhone, as I don’t use the iPad for turn-by-turn all that much, but it is definitely a minor step in the wrong direction. I am sure that they will get better over time – how can they get worse? – and we do not really know the reason why Apple is no longer contracting with Google for map services, but whatever the reason, it was unfortunate, at least for the short-term.
I’ve read also that the Apple podcast app had a downgrade in features – apparently it no longer supports playlists, or it lost any playlists that you may have had in iOS5 – but I’ve long used third party apps that are much better, so this doesn’t really affect me.
Until there’s an untethered jailbreak available, I’m holding off on updating. With any luck, Apple will have released a few tweaks to address a few of the shortcomings that people are experiencing and/or Google will decide to help and create an iOS map app, rather than leaving people to try to navigate the webpage to get a decent map.
I really debated on upgrading for iOS 6, not for the least reason that whenever there is a major upgrade Apple’s apps usually require that new version to be functional and it prevents you from using the “Update All” function when there are a zillion app updates.
But, a few of my jailbreak apps are more important to me than this so-so update from Apple, so I’m holding off updating altogether for now.
Okay, so this splitting off of the podcasts into their own app? Not liking that at all. On your laptop, you go into iTunes, and everything is there–apps, books, music, movies, whatever. On your iPhone? Everything has its own app. This is not user friendly, in my opinion. Previously I was almost always holding off on searching for anything–apps, books, what-have-you–until I could get onto my laptop and do it there. Bigger screen, everything in one place. Now it’s even *more* difficult. Plus, they didn’t automatically download the new Podcasts app onto your system by default, but if you go into iTunes and try to get a podcast like you’ve been doing for months . . . you get an error message that says “You have to download the podcast app to do this”. And they didn’t even put in a link to the app store to help you out! That’s really lame.
Regarding Maps, I’ve seen some data that is less than a week old and some that is outdated by three years.
As I said, I do not use the apple podcast app, but I can definitely see the strength of a third party app for podcasts. In the past, you needed to subscribe to podcasts on iTunes and then sync to get them on your iDevice. With the third party apps and a network connected iPod touch, iPad or iPhone, I can now remain current without syncing, I can multiple podcast playlists with a lot of flexibility about which podcasts and episodes land there, and I can use the music app for music and not bot music and podcasts. This is ultimately a win, in my opinion.