Apple’s iOS 5 Update Now Available For iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch | Hacker News Reader

Apple’s iOS 5 Update Now Available For iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

techcrunch.com

125 pointsllambda82 comments

List of things Apple is releasing today (perhaps incomplete?):

  iOS 5 (iPhone, iPad)
  Mac OS X 10.7.2 (and maybe 10.6.9?)
  Apple TV 4.4 Update
  updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS
  iPhoto 9.2
  Aperture 3.2
  Safari 5.1.1 (Mac, Windows)
  iCloud Control Panel for Windows
  the iCloud web apps
  Cards (and associated print/delivery service)
  Lion Recovery Update
  iTunes Movie Trailers app
  Find my Friends app
  AirPort Setup utility app
  updated iOS Remote app
  updated iOS iMovie app
  updated Find my iPhone app
  store for text message/alert tones
  iPhone Configuration Utility 3.4 for Mac OS X
  ...and of course the iCloud (and iMessage, etc) service itself, including migration tools for MobileMe, etc.

Oh, and the new phone is shipping this week [thanks, smackfu], including its Siri service that relies on a server-side component. And iTunes 10.5 yesterday. And the white iPod touch. OK, I'll stop now.

Just might be a stressful time to be an Apple employee.

I remember it being reported that in the Jobs-Makes-Everybody-Cry-After-MobileMe-Launch-Disaster meeting that he said that one of the major mistakes they made was releasing too much at once - that they should've let MobileMe simmer a while more instead of tying it to the iPhone 3GS launch. Guess we'll see what happens this time. Hard to transition your whole software stack to being integrated with a new cloud service without doing most of these updates at once, I suppose, but they could have shipped the software then waited a month and shipped the phone. Would've been contrary to the "integrated" hardware/software messages that Apple usually has, though.

edit: All in the shadow of a homepage that has nothing but a memorial to Jobs. Classy. And, if they pull it off, should give a nice confidence boost that such feats can be done even in the new era.

First thought: That's a lot of bandwidth. Second thought: That's a lot of code.

I hope it's a lot of awesome-sauce.

New phone isn't today, so there's that.

Also: Xcode 4.2

Also: White iPod Touch

Also OS X 10.7.2. Among other things, finally gives the ability to rearrange spaces.

the three-finger swipe up and down once again scroll to the top and bottom of the page in firefox after the 10.7.2 update.

the cursor movement seems to be faster at the same set speed, i had to turn it down a notch after the update.

Various errors when trying to install iOS5 on my iPhone 4. I'm getting everything from error 3194 "This device is not eligible for the requested build" to a generic error 3200 "Unknown error".

Coupled with some crazy Lion crashes lately, my anecdotal experience is that Apple software is not "just work[ing]".

The iOS 5 update errors are being reported as server failures on Apple. Although, I admit I'm not helping the problem. It took 20+ tries to finally get it to phone home correctly.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/12/apples-ios-5-upgrade-...

Thanks for the link. I figured as much, though a more descriptive error message would have helped.

For the impatient: after downloading and backing up at least once -- you can put your device in DFU mode to try again (and again) without having to repeat the backup process.

I'm on #12 and still nothing.

Yeah... trying to update has actually completely screwed up my phone. I can't even get it to restore.

edit: finally got it to work again after going through the 'force into restore mode' process about a dozen times.

Anyone know how to do a restore without backing up first? Like a lot of others, the restore is failing for me when it communicates with Apple and every time I retry, it does a backup that lasts about 30 minutes. I'd love to just keep retrying without doing the backup each time.

Try putting your device in DFU mode. This worked for me, after that clicking restore (then update/restore) went straight to the verification phase.. Previous backup was restored when I finally get the update installed.

I highly recommend you backup with iTunes first. I have run the beta for months and hadn't backed up in a while. iCloud was wiped last week and when I updated to the GM I lost everything. My last backup was in July, so that's where I had to start from there.

Photostream... taking pics on the iPhone and watching them appear nearly instant in iPhoto is amazing tech.

Does anyone know how iOS 5 runs on a 3GS? Does it bog things down?

if i had a 3GS i would wait until the next iOS update comes out unless there is a resounding "Wow!" from 3GS users.

I don't follow your logic, if there isn't a performance penalty I don't see why anyone would keep using the older OS.

jailbreaks?

Wow! :)

- a 3GS user

Wow :) The resounding one.

There were benchmarks of the new 4S posted online that also showed 3GS with iOS5 outperformed iOS4.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-ben...

I've been running the developer betas since about Beta 5 and it's been fine, update away.

Although there's no numbers for the 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch, GigaOM did benchmark the iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4 and 4th generation iPod touch to find small to otherwise noticeable improvements across the board: http://gigaom.com/apple/benchmarking-the-ios-5-update/

I have a 32GB 3rd generation iPod touch as my low-end development unit (the 8GB models can't be upgraded past 4.2.x), and I can also confirm that it is noticeably snappier.

Multitouch gestures don't work on the original iPad, even though they worked for developers on iOS 4.

I guess this is either to sell more iPad 2s, or because the performance when switching apps is slower (it is), which makes the app switching gesture worse.

Either way it's quite a dubious decision IMO. iOS 5 is all about being able to do more with the iPad. I've been using it a lot while writing my dissertation, and the main issue is how slow it is to switch between safari/iBooks and the writing app. The horizontal tabs in safari are a great improvement in this sense.

sigh My poor iPhone 3G and I are completely left out.

I did update OSX to make use of the new iCloud but its really no use unless you have an i-device with iCloud. I use Pages.app and was hoping I could make use of the iCloud storage feature but it appears I HAVE to have its equivalent Pages app for iOS to activate it.

I feel old school because of my 3G. Be proud, brotha!

What is the build number of this release? Can anyone confirm it is the same as the GM from october 4th?

Looks like it's the same as GM - 9A334 (source: http://ios.e-lite.org/)

nice, that's my page (ios.e-lite.org).

It also doesn't show any updates for me on my iPhone that is running the latest iOS 5 beta.

With iMessage being released I wonder what is the plan for Facetime? Is it complementary, or is it going to be killed? Are we going to get iMessage on Mac/Windows as well?

Why would video chat be killed due to the release of a text chat service?

Having lots of issues upgrading Xcode and iPhoto through the Mac app store. Just hangs. I thought it might be because my mini needed another restart after getting the lion update, but that didn't help either. Now since I tried to update them, the Mac app store is showing them as updated even though they aren't. No idea how I fix that...

Are there any unofficial mirrors yet? I have a 100mbit connection but the download is just awfully slow.

Download stalled... :(

Akamai caches weren't pre warmed. It should get better soon.

3G owner, made that mistake with 4.0....just reverted to 3.1.2

Not making that upgrading mistake twice...

Tried to download, always ended up with a "corrupted" download. Trying again now, it says "5 Hours."

Downloading already here in the UK :)

as doesn't auto correct to A's anymore. Yeah

I'd definitely wait. Apple is swamped now.

iMessage & location based reminders dont work on my 3GS :(

iMessage should work fine, location based reminders on the other hand are iPhone 4 and 4S only.

doesnt work for me..what do i do to make it work?? I cant see any option under messages for activating iMessage.

This makes me wonder how the majority of the people are even going to use it if it isn't immediately obvious how to activate it. I used this gigaom article to setup it up on my 3gs: http://gigaom.com/apple/ios-5-imessage/

It works pretty well and I can't wait for the mac version.

Do you happen to know about iPad/iPad2?

Why does Techcrunch always offer such exaggerations as "SMS dies today?" I'm curious if people will actually use iMessage very much. It will be hard to keep track of the relatively small amount of friends you know are on iOS5, and people on iPods won't want to rely on having wi-fi for their SMSing.

You don’t “use” iMessage and you don’t have to keep “track of” anything.

If for friend has an iPhone you will automatically send her an iMessage, if not you send a text. You won’t even notice. (The “Send” button changes color. That’s all.)

(Yeah, TechCrunch is exaggerating but iMessage is very clever.)

Nice.

So now all my private messages get routed (and logged) through an US company?

Sigh.

If you like you can obviously deactivate iMessage. It’s not a problem.

For what it's worth, I appreciate your sanity.

And how are you imagining SMS messages work currently?

Well, I doubt that my SMS messages are routed through an external third party outside my country if I send a local SMS. I rather have my local government control who can access my information, then a US company.

If that's your concern, then, Settings > Messages > iMessage to [OFF]. Hardly difficult.

I'm assuming you have the same concern about your emails, right?

By the way iMessages are encrypted end-to-end (but I wouldn't expect you to believe or trust Apple on this).

What in the world is a "local SMS?" It still goes through the cellular network, even when you're texting the person in the cube next door.

Local cellular networks are governed by the local government. US companies are governed by the US government.

Some governments > US governments on issues of privacy and propriety ..

The only problem is that most people will stick to the unlimited SMS plan. If they have a small data plan (500 MB for example), they'd be using their limited data.

That's what I meant

The US is not the World.

Also: I don’t think an iMessage is 1MB.

iMessage offers more: you can send photos and videos, and you see the other end typing if I understand correctly, so you can use it like a chat.

More: you can use iMessage on iPad and iPod touch to send message to someone using iPhone.

Has Apple mentioned anything about Mac OS support?

I'm curious what the typical texting plan and actual usage numbers are. I have the minimum (400, I think) and I never go over it, but I'm also past the whole social butterfly period in my life.

I feel I should explain myself. I understand iMessage is much more than SMS and I love it so far. What I am saying is that is has been difficult to convince friends to use it. They still require a SMS plan since not everybody has an iPhone. Using iMessage will cut into their limited data, while using their SMS plan will be unlimited. Once more people have iPhones, we can ditch the SMS plan and use the "cheaper" data.

Oh okay, I misunderstood its implementation. Still though, it will definitely not be any sort of SMS killer.

Why not? All it would take is for Apple to standardize the spec and all of a sudden your BlackBerry/Android using friends are on board. My SMS usage is going to plummet with just iPhones on board, but add in the others and I'm down to reminders that are sent programmatically.

The iPhone has 4-5% market share of worldwide mobile phones. Even if you could get every smart phone manufacturer to convert that still would only get you to a ~20% market share.

SMS isn't going anywhere soon.

The fact that the iPhone has a 5% market share does not mean it represents 5% of all SMS messages sent. Smartphone users text message more frequently than your grandmother with an LG handset.

I would argue that the frequency of SMS usage has very little to do with the type of phone you have, and much more to do with the demographic. There are plenty of iPhone users (such as my mother) who don't use SMS at all, and plenty of 14 year olds without smart phones (like my cousin) who text dozens of times a day.

Either way, I've never seen a breakdown of SMS usage by either category.

I had peers in junior high/high school (before I even had a cell phone) who sent hundreds a day. One girl bragged about reaching something like 30,000 one month.

It doesn't have to go anywhere soon in order to die a slow, painful death. Moreover, it's a question of one's social circles. In my case, it hardly matters what the worldwide share looks like since nearly everyone I currently text has an iPhone.

I agree with jbondeson and in addition to that, Apple probably won't want to standardize and share this, it's a new incentive they've created to buy an iOS device.

I think it was more of a power move with their carrier partners, the user experience is nearly the same.

Even if so, why should Apple give Android similar leverage over carriers?

Because it would be better for every handset maker to not be held by the nuts by carriers. In most markets Android has more market share, Apple would be wise to be able and set the standard for future messaging.

It might not kill SMS itself, but it has a decent chance of killing the need for an SMS plan. If most of your text messages are free anyway, then buying a text plan starts to become a poor idea.

I haven't had a text plan on AT&T for many months, mainly because I use Beluga to send texts to my friends. iMessage is similar but much more seamless. I have saved hundreds of dollars by paying for the few text messages I still send/receive as I go.

I use WhatsApp instead of SMS mostly. It has benefit of working not only with iPhone users, but with Android as well.

..and Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Phone. Absolute god-send for my startlingly diverse (smartphone-wise) circle of globally dispersed friends.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com