Thursday, September 20, 2012

Initial impressions of iOS6

After a long hiatus from posts, I thought I'd give some initial brief impressions of iOS6 from Apple. As a Product Manager for a large software company, I think I may be hyper-critical but fair.

First, the update takes quite a while, about a half hour. Longer than I'd expect for such small devices.

I immediately made a bee line for the new maps app. Looked up the home address, switched to 3D, then directions. Underwhelming! As location based services are key to the mobile experience, I had expected Apple to wow us with beautiful maps and have the full complement of directions for driving, walking and public transportation. This doesn't even come close to a "me too". If you're going to try and guess my destination as I'm typing, then start with nearby matches. The big green safety warning, let's hope I don't have to see that often. Again, with the suggestions, order by proximity, give me some info to determine which location. I enter the name of the local community college, and it shows the furthest campus first and without any annotation to determine which listing to choose. Once into the directions, there is no button to manually advance. I also can't wait to change that ladies voice.

I'm really glad that I didn't do this update a couple weeks ago, when I was in San Francisco and using the public transportation a lot.

I already found a nit to pick on the update to the email app, and I've only had iOS6 installed for fifteen minutes.