iOS 8 wasn't the smoothest operating system rollout in Apple's history.
It's true, any other ecosystem would kill for Apple's OS adoption figures—as of this writing, 87 percent of the userbase is running some version of iOS 8. But it had a slower start than past versions of iOS, it required a ton of free space to install, and it had a few unfortunate bugs early in its life cycle that gave it a bad reputation. Like iOS 7 this was a big release, and with any big change comes the potential for big bugs.
Viewed from that lens, iOS 9 feels kind of like iOS 6 did. This is a necessary spit-and-polish release that followed two bigger, transformative releases. There's some good stuff here, but nothing that's quite as all-encompassing as iOS 7's complete redesign or iOS 8's introduction for Handoff and Continuity and Extensions.
At least, that's broadly true for iPhones, iPods, and older iPads—the majority of the userbase. If you've got a newer iPad, however, Apple is making some long-overdue changes that make the tablet much more capable.
In this review, we'll be focusing on iOS 9 features that are available to current devices. There will doubtless be a few software features unique to the new iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, and iPad Pro, but we'll cover those in our reviews of those devices. Let's get started.
Table of Contents
- Device compatibility
- Installation and free space
- Out of the box
- Feature fragmentation
- Missing iPad features
- Missing iPhone and iPod features
- Features missing from both
- Moving beyond iOS 7: San Francisco and more
- Fixing Shift: Software keyboard improvements
- Mac-ifying the iPad: Multitasking support
- Slide Over
- Split View
- Picture-in-Picture
- Hardware keyboard improvements
- Spotlight and third-party search APIs
- NSUserActivity: Handoff meets Spotlight
- CoreSpotlight: Comprehensive indexing
- Web Markup: Extending your reach
- Hey Siri, get proactive
- Safari, content blockers, and the ongoing ad-blocking debate
- Technical vs. ethical
- Notes
- Maps and public transit
- Apple News
- iCloud Drive
- Health and reproductive health
- Under the Hood
- App thinning, and trying to make 16GB iPhones livable
- Making multitasking work: Auto Layout and Size Classes
- App Transport Security: HTTPS by default
- Performance and battery life
- Low Power Mode
- Grab bag
- Searchable Settings
- Smaller updates (and more)
- 6-digit passcodes and two-factor authentication
- Battery widget
- New default photo albums
- Find iPhone and Find Friends
- New wallpapers and missing wallpapers
- Conclusions
- The good
- The bad
- The ugly
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