iOS 9 is available for public download last week. I downloaded iOS 9.0 for my iPhone 6 and received iPad mini 4 pre-installed with iOS 9. Earlier today, Apple has released iOS 9.0.1 as a bug-fix update, and I quickly upgraded both my devices. This review is mainly based on iOS 9.0.1. It will not cover all the new features in iOS 9. Instead, I will focus on new features (and improvements) that matters for me as ordinary user.
Smarter Siri
Well, to put it simply, Siri can do more now. A nice improvement, but still not quite there yet. Still couldn’t get some of my words correctly, and still gave some irrelevant answers occasionally. Plus, our society is not ready (yet) to have people talking to their phone in public places. I did it few times and still received some funny looks from people nearby.
Smarter Search
Being able to type my question in search box and having Siri’s artificial intelligence to provide answers sounds like a better idea than talking to my phone. So this one would definitely become frequently used feature. For now, we can get weather forecast, stock prices, do calculations and conversions, search deeps within our apps (only for compatible apps). Somehow, I could get weather forecast in my iPhone 6’s Spotlight Search, but not in my iPad mini 4.
Six-digits Passcode
If iOS devices do not have Touch ID, I would be very annoyed to enter more digits every time I need to open my phone/tablet. However, since most of the time I can simply use fingerprint, this new security measure makes sense.
Battery Life
iOS 9 promises longer battery life for all supported devices. In my experience, iOS 9.0 drained my iPhone 6’s battery faster than iOS 8. However, 9.0.1 update did bring it back to the usual speed (still not longer). According to Apple, ambient light and proximity sensors help to cut down unnecessary battery process. One of the trick is by putting our iPhone face-down on the table. I couldn’t get used to this habit. Having said that, iOS 9 does have something rather interesting related to battery life: Low Power Mode. When this feature is activated, our email fetch, background app refresh, automatic downloads and some visual effects are reduced or turned off. I tried this feature when I forgot to bring powerbank and I loved it. My iPhone screen remains normal, the battery indicator becomes yellow instead of the usual green (or red during low battery), I can still open apps normally, can still get new emails by opening them when I need to. And with significantly more usage, my battery drain was less than my wife’s iPhone (still using iOS 8).
Better Default Keyboard
When iOS 8 allowed us to choose non-default keyboard, I quickly installed some third party keyboards and spent some time with them. In less than 2 weeks, I decided to uninstall them all and keep using the default keyboard. There are few reasons behind my decision. First, other than some fancy looks, those third party keyboards could not actually help me to type faster without allowing “Full Access”. I refused to allow full access because it will allow the keyboard developer to transmit anything I type, including things I previously typed, and it could include sensitive information such as credit card number or home address. Since the default keyboard works fine for me anyway, I see no reason to take such risk. In iOS 9, the default keyboard will show lower case letters (or upper case) depending on the shift status. For me, this is a meaningless gimmick and I find it rather annoying. However, I can clearly see why some people would want this. When I taught a senior to use iPhone a while ago, one of her most frequent question was how to type capital letter. Showing her the Shift key did the trick, but then she was confused that sometimes the keyboard would automatically set to type capital letter, and pressing Shift key once again will undo that. For a while, it caused confusion, and iOS 9 keyboard would eliminate such confusion and could potentially help me to safe hours of time.
Slide Over (iPad only)
This is a very useful multitasking feature available for newer iPads. Now we can swipe and temporarily open a second app without leaving the current app, allowing faster response and better productivity. The best thing from this feature: it works with all apps as the “first opened app”. So there is no need to wait until our frequently used apps get updated with this feature. Only compatible apps can be swiped as second app though.
Split View (iPad only)
This feature is a further development of Slide Over multitasking. If app we currently open is a compatible app, we can Slide Over another compatible app, and open both apps as “active” simultaneously. For me, this feature won’t be very useful until most apps are updated to become compatible. Until then, I am happy with just using Slide Over. Notable productivity apps that support Split View feature is Microsoft Office apps.
iCloud Drive
I generally feel that the sandbox concept in iOS (where there is no central storage for files, all files are just “data” that belongs to certain apps) is one of the main strengths of iOS. It allows me to have “local” file structure in every app that allows me to read certain formats, and everything stays there. No messy folder structures. When Apple introduced iCloud Drive as a separate app, I was a bit worried that it will bring down to the road taken by Android. However, thankfully iCloud Drive app basically just a fancy interface to access our iCloud files, not a local folder-based structure in our iPhone or iPad. I probably won’t use this app too often, but I certainly appreciate the feeling of having the capability to do so when needed. iCloud Drive app does not appear by default, we need to turn it on by going to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Show on Home Screen.
Wi-Fi Assist
If this feature is enabled, our iPhone or iPad will automatically use cellular (3G or 4G) data when we have Wi-Fi connection but unstable or considered slow. In my opinion, this is a double-edged feature. It could significantly improve the user experience when we are in areas with poor Wi-Fi, or it could be a disaster by silently eating up our mobile data allowance. Wi-Fi Assist feature is turned on by default, so if you download large files or watching movie streaming thinking that you use Wi-Fi connection, be aware that the download/streaming might actually use cellular data instead. Perhaps it depends on how much data we usually use every month vs how big/small is our data allowance. If we regularly use most of our data allowance, I suggest to turn off this feature. If we usually have lots of unused data allowance every month, you might want to leave it enabled.
Improved Notes
The new Notes is supposed to bring a lot of new features. Notably we can add checklists into our notes, draw some sketches and add some photos. However, since upgrading Notes to the new format requires OS X El Capitan, I decided to wait until end of September (El Capitan public availability) before activating the new Notes.
Picture in Picture (iPad only)
When we use iPad to make FaceTime calls, we can now press the home button and the video screen will appear as small floating window. We can open and use any other apps while continuing the call.
The apps launch slower on lowbattery mode, noticeably on line app to name one of it.
As for the keyboard, yes it just reLly dangerous to use 3rd party keyboard this being said there is a nice concept that can be really helpful from 3rd party keyboard => “/slash” is the name pfthe keyboard, you can check it out
True that apps open a bit slower in Low Power Mode. But it’s a very acceptable compromise in difficult situation (low battery, no charger and no powerbank). Much better than some other products that significantly dim the screen, turn it into black-and-white display, etc.
ps : will check out slash keyboard later, thanks