So the launch of the iOS 9 came and went without any major hiccups. The launch was smooth and the update had fewer bugs and needed much less fiddling with to get it working properly. In fact, I simply had to download and install.
The best things about iOS 9 are that it’s a small download (1.4GB) and works with older devices. Usually, iOS updates only work on newer devices, which is a sneaky way to force upgrades, but iOS 9 is a change in direction. It even works on an iPhone 4S. If your device can run iOS 8, it can also run iOS 9.
There are a few standout features in iOS 9, including a much smarter Siri, settings search, website as .pdf and battery overview.
In iOS 9, Siri looks and works much better than before. The promised contextual understanding is here. Ask Siri to remind you about “it” and the app will check to see what is open on the phone and try to understand what you mean by “it”. It’s a small but very important improvement.
Digging through the settings menu in iOS can be a bit of a pain. With options buried deep, it can be difficult to find what you need. But that’s no more as iOS 9 introduces a search function specifically for settings. This is another seemingly minor change, but one that makes managing your device easier.
The ability to save a webpage as a .pdf file is mostly useful for those who do research online. With iOS 9, we can now save a page as a .pdf file for sharing or later review. Simply select share while on the page and select save PDF to iBooks.
With battery life still a contentious subject with iPhones, the inclusion of a battery overview in iOS 9 is very useful indeed. Go to the battery settings to see what is eating battery life and access low power mode if you need to stretch out time between charges.
Other smaller changes such as listing notifications in chronological order and changes to the keyboard make working on an iPad a much simpler experience. The new keyboard is neat too and iOS 9 has made some small but very important improvements to the operating system that make iDevices more intuitive to use.
Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.