Updated: iOS 5 rumours: what you need to know

Saturday, 4 June 2011

Updated: iOS 5 rumours: what you need to know

We're expecting big things from Apple this year: the iPhone 5 is imminent, some rumours suggest we'll see the iPad 3 as early as this autumn and there's a new version of iOS, iOS 5, in development.

On 31 May 2011, Apple confirmed that it will be showing iOS 5 at WWDC 2011.

So what can we expect from the next generation of Apple's mobile OS? Let's ask the internet.

iOS 5.0 release date isn't until September...

iOS has been around long enough for a pattern to emerge: a springtime reveal and then a summertime launch with the latest iPhone. Not this time, Techcrunch says: while iOS 5 is likely to be shown off at the WWDC event in June, the iOS 5.0 release date will probably be in September.

...or maybe April

According to "trusted sources", a German blog claimed that iOS 5.0 would be released at an Apple event in April. Apple had better get a move on, then.

iOS 5 now looks as though it's being tested in the wild. On 1 May 2011, 9to5 Mac said that it had received word from developers who found that their apps are being tested with iOS 5. And earlier, on 27 April 2011, a tweet from app developer Future Tap said "Just received the first iOS 5.0 crash report. MKUserLocationBreadCrumb sounds interesting."

...and iOS 5.0 might not be on the iPhone 5

There are two possibilities here: either Apple is ripping up its existing annual schedule and keeping the iPhone 5 back until the Autumn too, in which case the iPhone 5 will be an iOS 5.0 device, or Apple is sticking to its annual release and we'll see an iPhone 5.0 in the summer without iOS 5.0. Our money's on the former: the superbly well-connected Jim Dalrymple says this year's WWDC is a software show, not a hardware event.

iOS 5.0 specifications include better notifications

iOS's notification system for SMSes, missed calls and app messages is rubbish, but Cult of Mac reports that good news is coming in iOS 5.0: Apple is "working on a new notification system for iOS and will be buying a small company to build its technology into the operating system" - likely candidates include App Remix, whose Boxcar does what iOS doesn't.

Boxcar

NEW NOTIFICATIONS: Rumours suggest Apple's buying App Remix to boost iOS's notification system

iOS 5.0 features include cloud music and photo sharing

Amazon's already launched its cloud-based music service, but Apple's offering is more ambitious than a few gigs of server space: 9to5 Mac says there's a photo-based social service called Photo Stream in the Photos app and the much-rumoured, cloud-based iTunes service is likely to turn up alongside a revamped MobileMe.

Could iOS 5.0 also include Spaces

A patent filed by Apple suggests that iOS 5 will see 'Spaces' come to the iPad. The patent application shows a touchscreen device with Spaces controlled by multi-touch gestures, which hints at the gesture control that is only available to devs in iOS 4.3 becoming standard.

iOS 5.0 features include beefed-up speech recognition

iOS's voice recognition lags far behind Android's, but that might change with the release of iOS 5.0: according to analysts at Soleil Securities, " Apple's IOS 5.0 for the next-generation iPhone will likely feature deep voice control into the operating system and likely be demonstrated in June. We believe that Apple's partner for the underlying voice recognition technology is Nuance".

Nuance