iOS 5 – A First Look for Business

iOS 5 is going to release here in just a few hours. Thanks to an early release of iOS 5 I was able to get a peek into the upgraded OS. In this article I’m going to update you on the best parts of iOS 5 for Business owners.

Reminders

The Reminders app itself is fantastic. It allows you to create, categorize, and set alerts for little things you need to take care of. Most of us have a business life AND a home life – this allows you to create specific lists for any reason you think of. Say you have a bunch of projects going – you can add a reminder for each of your projects, set a priority, add a due date, and voila! The most intriguing portion of reminders to me is the ability to add a location to reminders. Say you need to remember to grab a few things at the office supplies store – you can have your reminder remind you of what to buy just before you get to or leave a location. Very Practical.

iMessage

Okay – I am typically a Blackberry Nerd – I have to say that I was most excited about iMessage. You have no clue how nice it is to see that your message has both been delivered AND read until you’ve had it…and then it’s gone. iMessage allows you to message other iOS 5 users and you can send and receive messages between iPad, iPhone, and iPod – FANTASTIC. So think about it – you can send messages in between employees around the office, in a retail store, or remotely and not have to buy them a full phone contract. The best part is that iMessage works within the Texting app and automatically recognizes another iOS 5 device. VERY cool.

Where iOS 5 Lacks

This analysis wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t tell you where I think the OS really lacks.
Mail

Personally, I hate the email on iPhone. The autocorrect is annoying, and if you’re not carful you can send some pretty bad things to people – for instance when my wife tells me she’s going over to “amy’s” – her sister it says she’s going to anus.

Phone Reception

This has more to do with the device and can certainly vary from place to place, but in my daily life I am constantly sitting at 1-3 bars and usually at 1 bar. That’s just a problem for me. I can’t be talking to a client and have my phone all the sudden cut out – it just isn’t convenient.

Battery Life

I have found this to be a device issue but also has to do with the operating system. The fact of the matter is that all of the data that is being pushed and pulled on an iPhone requires a lot of energy. If you’re not careful you can be down to half a battery in just a few hours – especially if you’re in an area with poor phone reception.

My Overall Thoughts

Overall I think that Apple has really put together a nice operating system and they’re inching closer to something that is unbeatable. They just need to introduce a few things for me and then it will be both a fantastic toy that calls and a business phone. They don’t even have a “mark all as read” feature for their emails. If you get a lot of emails in a day – I would look somewhere else because it is very very annoying.

However, this is a great operating system and if battery life and email aren’t issues to you – then you would probably fall in love with the iPhone. The additional toys to play with make this phone a lot of fun.