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iOS 9.0 Beta review

DrumsOfGrohl

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Is anyone else running the 9.0 beta? I switched to it on Friday, and am mostly impressed but horribly irritated. I'm fully aware its in beta, but there are so many glitches in this that I've found myself asking my friends to borrow their phones to do simple tasks, like send texts and browse the web. Again, yes its beta, and there are supposed to be glitches (well, not "supposed", but "expected"), but I've run beta iOSes before, and they've never been this bad.

THAT BEING SAID, the new features I've noticed are a really nice improvement. I might say that its a little bold to call this new update "iOS 9.0," and maybe should be called a really nice iOS 8.5. But I've noticed over the weekend that Apple keeps adding more features, so there's a good chance it will still be different when its released to the public.

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SIRI is WAY faster now (when she doesn't bug out on me). Like the second I'm done talking, she's already loaded the information I've requested. There's very little "thinking" time. She's also got some new graphics, but, as Shania Twain says, that don't impress me much.

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You can now access SPOTLIGHT by pulling down on the apps (like before), but its also been added to a new screen when you swipe right. With the new screen, other things that show up (and this might be customizable in the future) include: "Siri Suggestions," which shows your popular contacts, as well as popular apps that you use; "Nearby" shows things you might want to search in Apple Maps, such as breakfast, coffee, gas stations, and more; and "News" which shows you the top 3 stories in the news right now (actually I'm not sure what the algorithm is, it might be Top, or Most Popular, or personalized to your preference, I don't know, but mine shows 2 CNN articles and one from WSJ). All of these features can be expanded to show "more" or "less, which just doubles the amount shown, i.e. 4 lines instead of 2 lines of "Siri Suggestions," etc...

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The new "NEWS" app that is now a stock app on the phone has not been updated enough for me to really provide a nice review of it. I think it has potential to be useful, but its basically like "flipboard" but because its still in beta, many news articles there are weeks old. I think if they treat it like they are treating the new Apple Music, it will be a fantastic app. But the algorithm-manufactured lists don't appeal to me. I'd be more interested in subscribing to a human-curated list of relevant articles than a generic "Music news" or Buzzfeed News, etc.

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I don't know what its called, but the feature that you access by double-pressing the home button that shows all of the apps you have opened has been modified. The recent contact list has been removed (presumably because its on that new spotlight page), and the page orientation has been flipped, so that older apps are farther to the left. Its MUCH faster, and the time it takes to close all your apps has been significantly reduced. (I still don't know why they don't have a feature to close all apps at once, but this is an improvement.)

Overall, (and other than the glitches that hopefully will be addressed), I'm a fan of the new iOS. I'm excited for when its out of beta testing.
 
I've been using the iOS 9 beta since the WWDC in June. iOS 9 beta 3, which is the same as iOS 9 public beta 1. The third beta is much better than the first beta, which had horrendous battery life. The third beta us much more stable. One interesting feature, only available to an iPad on iOS 9 is that folders now display 16 apps on a page instead of 9.
 
I've installed the public beta version on my iPad.

Additional to the above:
Find Friends and Find my iPhone are now built in apps.

I can't find the News app, although I've been searching for it. Maybe it's available in certain countries only.

The Newsstand app, on the other hand, finally behaves like an app, which means you can close it using the four/five finger pinch.
 
oh, and theres now a Wallet app. which is just Apple Pay, but they changed the name and made it easier to access
 
oh, and theres now a Wallet app. which is just Apple Pay, but they changed the name and made it easier to access
Wallet is basically a renamed passbook app with some new features. Anything you had in passbook is now in Wallet.
 
I've installed the public beta version on my iPad.

Additional to the above:
Find Friends and Find my iPhone are now built in apps.

I can't find the News app, although I've been searching for it. Maybe it's available in certain countries only.

The Newsstand app, on the other hand, finally behaves like an app, which means you can close it using the four/five finger pinch.
Apple News replaces Newstand but for you, not yet.
News will be supported in the United Staes, United Kingdom, and Australia when it launches.
That was from the Apple site.
 
Apple and the App Store stops beta reviews. Too many public beta users have been giving apps bad reviews for just about every issue. This hurts the developers. The beta is for them. Many public beta users seem to see it as an early GM release. I'm glad they put a stop to it.
 
Those so called beta testers don't realize the harm they were doing to the developers they rated based on app performance in a beta seed of iOS. It about time Apple finally took action to stop his stupidity.
 
I loaded it Monday and was happy with it until it started to drain my battery so much faster than before. I was also concerned that the temperature or the battery, at one point i couldn't hold it in my hand. I decided that I should just revert back to 8.4 and wait til the release.
 
welcome to the club, @antainso. Having messed with it and reverted, I ain't gonna touch 9.0 until the official public release.
 
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