I am not supposed to be blogging for Octagon this month – I have two ebooks to write one for Octagon on the cybersecurity bases you have to cover and one for Smart Thinking covering a ransomware plan – but as I am writing this over breakfast on Sunday neither Diana or Kamila can complain.
First thing to say about this update is that Apple has given you a choice – if change is something you do not like – then stick with iOS 14. Apple has committed to issuing security and bug patches for iOS 14 for the foreseeable future. So don’t change. Also it gives you a chance to wait for people like me to find out where the bugs are in iOS 15 before you jump in.
Yes I updated as soon as iOS 15 became available – should you do that? Well if you jump in quickly you can get to experience the inevitable bugs that Apple has left behind – but to be fair a 2 trillion dollar company will struggle to employ enough testers and coders to make the software right. Now you may say that code is complex and we should cut them some slack – and if the bugs were buried deep I could agree. However the bugs I have seen are in your face display issues with the weather app, the map app and the smart stack. All things that were put front and centre in the Apple launch event for iOS 15. Whoops.
Let me get the one more negative thing out of the way. The Facetime sharing was demonstrated at the launch event but is not included in the release yet – so what we saw was smoke and mirrors. This is a feature I was particularly interested in. Maybe they could not afford enough staff to deliver what they showed us?
Now the hits. The weather app. The new display and extra information it displays and animated displays for rainfall etc are excellent. The air quality maps and information are a favourite.
Siri has been changed so it can work for certain tasks when you are offline. Although it has many limitations at the moment I am sure Apple will expand the option set as users highlight the tasks they need from Siri when they have no internet.
I really like the improved Focus settings and I have actually spent the time to create a Personal Focus setting for myself. This included (at last) fixing my personal address book in iCloud (I synced it to Outlook as editing on the iPhone or online is tedious to the point of impossible). With this personal address book I went about creating the people and organisations who can send me notifications after 22.00 and before 06.00 and at weekends adding several other small tweaks along the way.
The times I chose are probably later and earlier than someone who is using this function so to place limits on when work can disturb them, but I do own the company. I have allowed the overnight answering service to get through. That being said I can see the potential for this on both sides of the work life balance. Users can control and limit work in their personal lives – I have mine set up to control rather than block work. But when at work, particularly on company owned iPhones, a Focus could be created to stop those Facebook and Instagram notifications interrupting the work flow.
The much discussed Safari change of putting the URL/search bar at the bottom of the display is now easily fixed – it is a personal choice in setting. I tried it at the bottom. There was nothing really wrong with it but I put it back to the top as it felt more comfortable.
So should you update? Well yes. Eventually you will have to when Apple stops providing updates to iOS 14 – but this time round you can choose to delay the enevitable. Apple is also providing this update to much older iPhones than before which is good – for owners of older devices and the planet. However the older phones will have a performance hit with this extended life and not all the features will be available on older hardware.
If you do not update, are you missing out? No not really this feels like a half step when I comes to new stuff. Just get it when you get it.
Enough – I have to get on with the ebooks. Watch the following video for a balanced description of iOS including some new features on the iPad that I do not have time here to discuss.
Then watch this. It is titled for “click bait” but actually it is another great hands on description of the features of iOS 15.
“Click bait!” Oh I wish I had time to tell you what I think of that…
Do you need help with updates and patches? Have you updated and now things do not work. We have a wide range of experience here at Octagon across all the platforms and technical staff who always update ahead of the pack so call us to get you out of that fix.
