iOS 5

I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to the iOS 5 last night. It comes on the iPhone 4S which I plan on purchasing in mid November. (Part to let hype die down a bit, and part because I need to pay a few other bills first and I want the 32 gig iPhone) But I wanted to test drive it until I can get the 4S so that it is a seamless transition for me. So far, I love it!

The camera features (access from lock screen, cropping, editing, enhancing, sharing) are amazing. I can't wait to see what it does with the new camera on the 4S. I also like the notifications drop down. No more billboard overlapping what I am doing if I get an alert or a message. The iCloud is basically Mobile Me brought to the masses as part of iOS 5. I've had and loved Mobile Me for over a year and love it. iMessage is really cool too. I've been able to message my sister on her iPod (she has yet to get an iPhone but will be soon). Works like a mash up of text message and IM. And it's free to anyone on any device running iOS 5. There are a few other things, a couple new apps that will require some friends signing in to in order to use, that will come over time. But I love it.

Oh, and if you have an Apple TV and a Mac Book (or any computer) the Air Play feature is AMAZING! Put the devices on the same wifi and you can mirror through the Apple Tv onto your TV from what ever device you want. Pictures from iPhone? Yup. Music from Mac Book? Sure. Game from iPad? You betcha! It's really cool!

I installed it on my 3GS (capable on 3GS and later phones) and it took 30 minutes to download the software to my computer (pulling a 10mb download on wifi) and then another 45 minutes to basically wipe the old software in the phone, install iOS 5, then reinstall apps and music and video. Once this was complete there was some final installation steps on the phone itself. Once you got through all that you are good to go. And go you will. I think they hit a home run with this one.