Should I download iOS6 for my iPhone4? | Hacker News Reader

Should I download iOS6 for my iPhone4?

glipho.com

23 pointswodlander47 comments

Honestly, and this applies to all updates on any system: wait a month. Developers will move over their apps. Any major bugs will be found and shook out. Stackoverflow/blogs will be populated with answers on "how do I do $thing_that_has_changed"?

And B, upgrade a non-essential machine first. The only thing you gain by upgrading willy-nilly is Internet e-peen points, and after a while you realize those aren't worth losing a day or week or month or year's worth of work (hello rsync -E) to being the first mouse. Yes, this isn't as exciting. As for me, I like my systems very very boring.

I agree, being an early adopter always means that you should prepare yourself for issues. However:

> Developers will move over their apps. Any major bugs will be found and shook out.

Wasn't this why the iOS6 beta versions were released months before the final release? Now that iOS6 is officially released, Apple is encouraging all users to update and there are quite many average Joes and Janes who don't read the tech press and these warnings. These users are the ones that face the most confusion if something is missing or changed (YouTube, Maps).

Since I installed the update as soon it was available, I don't have first-hand experience of when users are prompted to update. Based on previous experience and some update guides[1], the prompt will appear automatically when connecting to iTunes.

[1] http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad_Guide/ss/How-To-Upgrade-To-iOS...

I have not been prompted to update, as, like many users, I no longer need to connect to iTunes.

You'll get a prompt to update directly eventually. Not sure how long it takes or what triggers it. iTunes is now a purely optional part of the process.

I did, and I'm glad. The maps thing is unfortunate, but I'm sure it will get better. In the mean time you can still use maps.google.com and I'm sure Google will release their own app some day.

Bits of the system feel faster, but I can say that Music got a massive speed improvement. I have a playlist of over 5k songs that I like to listen to shuffled. On iOS 5.1, opening that playlist for the first time would take two or three seconds and hitting the "Shuffle all" button at the top of the list to start playing would take take another few seconds.

In iOS 6, they're both extremely fast. Combine that with the ability to use iCloud tabs and I'm quite happy.

> the maps thing is unfortunate, but I'm sure it will get better

Based on what? The problem in the first place is that this is an insanely hard problem that is in the centre of Google's core competencies (data gathering, search, data munching; all on a ridiculously massive scale). Apple makes hardware and an operating system and some apps for it. Where in that set of core competencies does it indicate they have what it takes to tackle this and yield the quality google has (who have poured a rather large fortune into it (they bought the satellites for google maps so they could reshoot to avoid clouds), the have paid for high tech trucks to run down every road in an increasingly large collection of cities. And then massive human QA teams)

This isn't what apple does and it was massive hubris on their part to think they could tackle this and come anywhere near the level of google maps, or their usual standard of excellence. I remain extremely dubious that there is any "quick" fix to their problem. It's not like the screwed up an algorithm and this is a bug, this is a massive problem that they've barely started to tackle.

If Apple does realize what it's going to take to compete at this and doubles down on it, it's still going to take a year or two for them to catch up. And that's an if. So Apple Maps/iOS5 combo is a write off. Probably iOS6 too. You want good mapping the next few years, stick with google. Maybe after that Apple will have something worth looking at, just as likely maybe not.

1) It's not a complete disaster. It has loads of problems, but in general it's very usable.

2) During the beta phase maps improved rapidly. It was not usable a few months ago. Now it is.

So it's not all bad and there already has been massive progress. I think in one year no one will care about this issue anymore. Google Maps will always be better, but the difference will become small enough that no one cares.

How much have you used the new maps in iOS 6? The new turn by turn directions. Apple finds my apartment building, whereas Google still puts it a mile away after 4 months. I've had Google find an address for me in the middle of a lake a couple of years back. It also routinely shows me completely unrelated answers every time I search for a business (ads presumably).

Yes, the Apple maps have a few rough spots. But google isn't perfect either. From what I've seen so far I prefer the new Apple maps.

I think it will get better for two reasons:

1) It's been a black eye for Apple and users are complaining

2) Apple has a lot of money to throw at the problem

Of course it will get better.

The real question is whether it will get better enough, fast enough.

There's certainly a limit to how much Apple will throw (they're not going to empty out their nest-egg to fix this), and throwing money at a problem doesn't always work so well.

In particular, public-transit and in general any "non-car" data is something their maps simply don't seem to even start addressing. This isn't entirely surprising as their data provider, tomtom, is a car-nav company, but it's a huge hole, and one Apple seems to have completely missed.

One of the reasons Google's public-transit directions took so many years to get good is because teasing the necessary data out of the many different regional agencies/companies that have it is a pain-staking and slow process.

The very poor coverage in many countries is presumably because Apple's existing data providers do not have good coverage of them, so Apple probably needs to contract with region-specific providers, integrate their data (which may not be simple) with the Apple maps infrastructure etc.

All of this is doable, but it takes time, maybe years. They really needed to do a lot of this, or at least a convincing chunk of it, before the big release, not "sometime in the future."

Certainly Apple has reasons to make their own maps, but by releasing such core functionality in a form that's very clearly not ready for prime time, they've damaged their (extremely valuable) reputation as "the company that does things right."

My 3GS works identically on v5 and v6. No performance or battery life degradation, no new lags. My friends with 4 and 4S tell that battery life actually improved, especially for 4S. Neither of us use jailbreaks of any kind.

PS: and as for iPad 2 I'm not sure about battery life, I rarely discharge it from 100 to 0 in one session.

tl;dr: iOS6 makes YouTube disappear, no solution for iPad yet

I updated my 3rd gen iPad to iOS6 immediately when the update came out since I wanted to check out if the increase in JavaScript performance is noticeable (it is).

However, here's why I regret updating: I've been using the iPad as a second screen on my desk to watch YouTube. After the update, I find that the YouTube icon is missing from its usual place on the home screen. After a quick app store and Google search I find out the truth: Not only there isn't an official iPad-optimized YouTube app anymore, but also that it has the disappointing release date of "in the coming months" [1].

I know the actual reason for the missing YouTube app has something to do with the licensing deals between Google and Apple, but as a generally happy Apple customer my perception is that this "update" makes my life harder.

[1] http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2012/09/introducing-new-y...

Why don't you use the web version? Works like a charm for me (better than the app ever did), no performance or stability issues, more functionality than the app had, better load times and more choice about video formats. I see no reason for an app, the web version is excellent.

The huge drawback for me is that the web version doesn't even go fullscreen. Seems kind of like pointless design decision.

What URL are you using on what device?

On my iPod touch http://YouTube.com redirects to http://m.YouTube.com goes full screen.

It also features a link to a YouTube app 'free in the App Store" :-)

Mobile YouTube on iPad.

Haha! I hadn’t even noticed that. I’m not sure that’s a problem, though. It’s not like I watch movies on YouTube and 16:9 videos use all available space on the screen, so that extra chrome is pretty irrelevant (so irrelevant that I didn’t even notice it).

solution for iPad is www.youtube.com

It works better than the app every did.

The YouTube mobile site is quite decent, but for me not having a real fullscreen mode for watching videos is a big issue compared to native apps.

The YouTube mobile site doesn't have the apple-mobile-web-app-capable meta tag and thus displays the address bar even if placed as a shortcut on the home screen.

Try Jasmine YouTube Client for iOS 6. I'm beginning to think this is better than the previous client.

http://itunes.apple.com/in/app/id554937050?mt=8

Thanks for the tip, giving it a try now!

This brings out another issue: The accuracy of search results in the App Store. When searching for "youtube" (sorted by relevance), these apps are listed before "Jasmine - YouTube Client":

- Video Downloader Super Lite

- SoundHound

- SloPro - 60fps Slow Motion Video

- Trololo Sounds (yes, really)

Also being an Android user, I'm used to going through quite a lot of noise when finding the right app though. Let's hope the situation will improve in both stores soon.

I haven't really had any problems with iOS 6 on my iPhone 4S. Then again, I live in a big city within the United States, so the map change was an adjustment rather than a disaster. But I can understand the negative feedback.

This is also the first time (in recent history) that hardcore Apple fans are finding themselves responding to critics by saying, "Yes, that's a valid point, but..." rather than "No, you're wrong because..." Chink in the armor.

I'm guessing the Google Maps app will be out in a month or two. Apple probably won't approve it right away, as a good quality Maps app would really make Google look like the hero, swooping in to save us from Apple's lesser service. Once the response to iOS6 has blown over it'll turn up in the App Store, lots of people will download it, and things will be more or less back to normal (apart from the bruising to Apple's reputation).

I was under the impression that any app apple bundled with iOS was supposed to have monopoly and that a similar one wouldn't be approved. Has that changed?

Yes.

Apple already rejected Google Maps in the past in the form of Latitude.

Apple did eventually reverse themselves on this, but here's the original blog post from Google about it (they originally supported iOS through Mobile Safari because of Apple's rejection).

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-latitude-now...

> We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.

It took almost two years for Apple to cave.

Latitude is already available for iOS. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-latitude/id306586497?m...

Latitude is available for iOS, so that means we should not fear they will reject maps... Right?

My iPhone 4 feels faster (no benchmarks, maybe it's just the reboot) with iOS6, and I like the shared photo streams. Battery life seems to be largely the same.

Yeah, my 4 feels snappier, but I'm having a hard time working out if it's largely a psychological thing.

I don't believe it is completely psychological. The big area on iOS 5 where I saw lag was the keyboard. A lot of times it would lag a few keys behind and then catch up in a burst. iOS 6 seems to have fixed that, or at least I haven't seen it do that yet.

If you live in NYC, hold off. The integration between apple maps and third-party transit apps is anything but seamless. The new Apple map doesn't show the names of the train lines so you can't pan around the map and see "oh, there's the nearest 4/5 stop". Launching a transit app takes too many taps and you have to exit and relaunch maps to get back to it - no longer is it convenient to switch between views of "how long would this take via transit" and "how long would this take in a cab".

On the flip side, there's one GOOD feature in nyc rarely remarked on: Having switched to vector-based maps means you can now pretty reliably pan and zoom the map even when you have no signal because you're in the subway.

The problem for me with the Maps app isn't that it isn't accurate for the few things I tried (turn-by-turn for navigating to/from work & my daughter's preschool), it's for the other things that I might try in the future.

It's an issue of trust. What problems might I run into in the future, when I am in a position where I cannot fall-back on the Safari version of Google Maps? Low/no signal conditions where I am trying to navigate unknown areas are times when I can't have something that is good enough, most of the time. That's why I downgraded to 5.1.1. Google Maps hasn't let me down yet, and there's no reason why I need to upgrade to iOS 6. The new features are only nice-to-haves.

Not in in 3 months or so. Like any other software in the current trend of fast develop/launch. After that, it will be a way more bug-free and performance-tuned that in there initial launch. I do always the same with programs, apps and games and it always save me a lot of problems.

I haven't found any show-stopping or even new bugs yet with normal usage since the update came out. The new iPod app looks and feels quite nice.

Just go ahead and upgrade; you'll end up wanting some iOS6 feature / app eventually, might as well get it out of the way now.

Unless you rely on an obscure feature like transit directions that is.

I seriously doubt that after all the publicity the new maps have gotten since the release of iOS 6, that someone who A) needed a feature not present in Apple maps and B) wouldn't be mostly content with maps.google.com would be asking if they should upgrade or not.

I think you overestimate how close the average smartphone user pays attention. The phone pops up and says there's a new version of the OS available for free, maybe along with something about all these new features. Most people don't read tech news and Apple doesn't normally remove features that tens of millions of people rely on every day.

Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, the button was not showing up. (is there a "cool down" on HN?)

I agree with the spirit of your post, but while it's not another antennagate, the "iOS6 maps suck" meme is definitely in the mainstream media consciousness[1]

[1]Google news search "ios6"

Well, what features do people here think are worth the upgrade?

I for one like the new privacy settings.

Passbook could be really interesting, but I think it'll be well over a year, before people in my country consider taking advantage of it.

I watch coursera classes on my iPad 3. Before, a 10 minute video was using 5~9% of the battery. On iOS6 it goes down 1%, 2% at max.

Oddly enough, the one thing that I really love is a much greater willingness to hop off of a weak WiFi network and onto cellular data. With iOS 5, my iPhone would stay on my home network long after I'd moved out of range, often forcing me to manually disable WiFi in order to e.g. get driving directions or listen to music in my car. With iOS 6, this problem is basically gone. It will struggle with WiFi for a few seconds, then give up and disconnect.

I only had that in the betas, then in the GM I don't have the option any more – I assumed they'd taken it out… Maybe I need to reinstall.

I can't find the option to explicitly use cellular when WiFi sucks, but it still seems much more willing to give up on WiFi connections. If the WiFi is strong but not connected to the internet, however, it still won't drop back to cellular, as I understand that prerelease option did.

Do not disturb is pretty awesome.

I'm sure there are still people running Windows 2000 because they are stubborn about upgrades.

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