ios5 drops on october 12, US time…which would make it, wednesday, sg time at the earliest. i have to say that i am REALLY excited about it. it’s taken the update a really long time and there are some key features/ improvements that have been a long time coming, to say the least.

to sum up, the key features i’m really looking forward to are -

• icloud
• imessage
• the new notifications center
• reminders
• using the ‘+’ on the hardware volume button as a camera shutter release.

this should clear up some of my major bugbears with the current ios.

notifications

i really hate it when a new notification comes in and it completely disrupts whatever i am working on at the moment. the new notifications does a clean job of keeping everything where you want them, without being disruptive.

reminders

secondly, FINALLY apple! a REMINDERS app native to the ios ecosystem. third party apps do a great job, but i just want something that integrates tightly with ical on the mac.

imessage

imessage won’t be that amazing for me since I have whatsapp and I like to keep my non-iphone friends in the loop, but i like that there is compatibility for itouch and mac users so i can imessage any apple device and it transmits across all of the devices.

a good overview of the new features ios 5 brings is in the video.

unfortunately the word on the ground is that this major update is only compatible with the iphone 4, so iphone 3g users will be out of this one, just like how siri will only run with the newer iphone 4s, which i am not too fussed about in any case since i don’t really see how siri will fit into my current lifestyle, especially since I don’t drive often enough to capitalize on the voice recognition features that siri offers.