First look: iOS 9 brings Find My Friends widget, changes for Safari, Reminders, Camera

Posted:
in iPhone edited June 2015
Apple's next-generation mobile operating system includes a number of evolutionary updates to complement its new headline features, like a new Notification Center widget for Find My Friends and user interface tweaks to Safari, Reminders, and the Camera app.




With the new Find My Friends widget, pulling down the Notification Center shade reveals the location of your nearby friends, with an option to view the location of all the friends you have access to by opening the full Find My Friends app. Users will be able to quickly return to the app they were last in when they jumped to Find My Friends via a small back button in the upper left, which is a system-wide addition activated when opening an app via Notification Center or Spotlight.

Safari was on the receiving end of changes designed to simplify the address bar, with the "Request Desktop Site" and "Find On Page" options relocated to the share sheet.




Reminders adds a new meta-list that collates scheduled reminders from all other Reminders lists.




The Camera app has seen some attention with new, simplified iconography. Labels have been abandoned in favor of stylized glyphs --?"HDR Off" in iOS 8 simply becomes "HDR" with a slash through it, for instance.


Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    Just to clarify the scheduled pane in reminders isn't new just moved: previously it was a clock icon in the upper right corner not a "tile"
  • Reply 2 of 14
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,415member
    I like the cross out glyph! I don't like tapping then tap to turn it off.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    macinthe408macinthe408 Posts: 1,050member
    "Labels have been abandoned in favor of stylized glyphs."

    You wouldn't believe how much it costs to localize. This saves enough money in a year for Tim to get a new Aston Martin DB9.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    %u201CShare sheet%u201D is becoming a misnomer %u2014 I%u2019d never think to look there for %u201Cfind on page%u201D or %u201Crequest desktop site.%u201D Is it becoming a bucket for %u201Cthings we didn%u2019t know where else to put%u201D?
  • Reply 5 of 14

    Funny that it's the icons they're changing.   

     

    My annoyance with Camera app is you have to scroll through all the different camera operations just to get to the one you want.   Just took a pano and want to do video?  well swipe to square and it stops, then swipe to Photo and it stops, then swipe to video.   (doubly annoying if i want to move from Photo to Pano and accidentally go the wrong way and get video, which kills the music I'm listening to...)

     

    Br nice if it were a dropdown, or even 6 small icons and just tap what you want.

  • Reply 6 of 14
    ddawson100ddawson100 Posts: 513member
    Having Find My Friends in the widgets means it's going to run more frequently. That means it'll tap the GPS on my device and any friends. And drain battery faster, right?
  • Reply 7 of 14
    geekmeegeekmee Posts: 629member
    If Apple's competitors were ever to breathe a sigh of relief... It should be now... "Thank God!! They didn't introduce anything new!!!"
  • Reply 8 of 14
    pistispistis Posts: 247member
    geekmee wrote: »
    If Apple's competitors were ever to breathe a sigh of relief... It should be now... At least Apple didn't introduce anything new!!!
    Are you certain Apple doesn't have something new for the final release they haven't alluded to yet?
  • Reply 9 of 14
    I like the idea of labels. Stylized glyphs? The very term makes me want to barf. And then, because I'm a dog, eat it up. Yum!
  • Reply 10 of 14
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    I prefer text labels to glyphs for clarity, but at least they look more like buttons now.

  • Reply 11 of 14
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    geekmee wrote: »
    If Apple's competitors were ever to breathe a sigh of relief... It should be now... At least Apple didn't introduce anything new!!!

    let me guess, 6 months ago you were complaining that Apple should stop introducing all these new feature and focus on fixing iOS 8?
  • Reply 12 of 14
    geekmeegeekmee Posts: 629member
    Nope. You got the wrong guy... Mr. Troll.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    imac.usrimac.usr Posts: 29member

    I hope they fix the iOS bug where Camera constantly forgets your HDR setting and defaults to it being off.

  • Reply 14 of 14
    sleakajsleakaj Posts: 32member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ddawson100 View Post



    Having Find My Friends in the widgets means it's going to run more frequently. That means it'll tap the GPS on my device and any friends. And drain battery faster, right?

     

    Not necessarily. Phones these days don't need GPS to find their locations (it's just more accurate). Since they're always talking to the cell towers anyway, it's easy to triangulate the position of a device that way without using GPS.

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