Apple Releases iOS 5 : What's New? Why You Should Upgrade, Why You Should Not ~ Blog O'Nerd

As it was announced on the event of iPhone 4S release, Apple has released iOS 5 to public on 12th of October. Apple also released iTunes 10.5 which will support iOS 5 and also brings a few new features. iOS 5 is said to be bringing around 200 new features. So now when finally the latest iOS is released, I will try to show its all new features and why you should upgrade and why you should wait before upgrading.

iOS 5 is compatible with the following devices :

iPod touch 3rd generation
iPod touch 4th generation
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPhone 4S
iPad
iPad 2

iOS 5 : What Is New?
The major features of iOS 5 includes the following.

Notification Center
With iOS 5, Apple brings all new way of push notifications. You will get all notifications in one place, which is called the Notification Center. It will show all calendar alerts, missed calls, application alerts, instant message notifications there.

iMessage
iMessage is iOS' very own instant messaging service. iMessage is just like Black Berry's BB Messenger service. Over 3G or Wi Fi, you can send and receive unlimited messages to and from another Apple iDevice running on iOS 5. You can even track your messages with message delivery receipts or read receipts.

Twitter Integration
Yes you read that right. Twitter is now integrated into your iDevice. Just sign in to Twitter once and tweet directly from any app like Photos, Safari, Camera or YouTube. For example, you can take a photo and tweet it directly from Camera or Photo app.

Wi-Fi Syncing
The name says it all. Now you won't need to attach your iDevice with computer every time you want to sync it. You can do it wireless. Your device can be synced with your computer using a shared Wi-Fi connection.

PC Free
PC Free? what does that mean? It is a new feature Apple is bringing. Now you don't need to connect your newly purchased iDevice to iTunes in order to activate it. It can be activated right from the device itself. So just take your device out of the box and turn it on and activate it. You can also download and upgrade your iOS right from the device. Easy-peasy, isn't it?

Camera and Photos
Camera and Photos apps gets better. You can get Camera short-cut on your lock screen. So anytime you want to take a pic, you can open camera from lock screen - no need to swipe it to unlock, open camera app and then, take the pic. Also, you can use the volume buttons to take photos. You iDevice never had a button for taking a pic right? Well now it has. You can open camera app and use volume buttons to take a pic.
In Photos app, you get a few extra feature. You can edit photos, crop them, remove red-eye etc.

Newsstand
Newsstand allows you to organize all your magazines and subscriptions in one place.

Reminders
Reminders gets a makeover boy. Now reminders can act as to-do lists. So you can create a list of things-to-do today or in future. For example, you can create a list of reminders and once you complete an event, check it as done. Like - Buy eggs - Meet Suzanne - Call Boss - etc etc. You can set due dates for these events too and you can set a location for your reminders. As Apple says, as soon as you reach super market parking lot, you will get reminder about the event you've set on that location for example - buy eggs.

There are many more misc. features also in iOS 5 which will make your iOS more pleasant to use.

Now lets talk about why you should upgrade and why not to upgrade to iOS 5.

Why should I upgrade to iOS 5?

The reason for upgrading is the iOS upgrade itself. You get all new features in this iOS upgrade. By upgrading to ioS 5, you'll get your device more stability, its a major upgrade after all.

Why I should not upgrade to iOS 5, just now?

There are a few reasons why you should not upgrade to iOS 5 just now. First of all, if you rely on unlock, you need to wait for the latest unlock which will work will iOS 5. Plus, there is jailbreak available for iOS 5 but it is a tethered jailbreak meaning that every time you reboot your iDevice, you need to connect it to your computer and run the jailbreak utility in order to boot it. So I would recommend you should wait for jailbreak developers to release a more stable, untethered jailbreak.
The new jailbreak is likely to be availabe after the new iPhone 4S is released and they test the jailbreak on it. Also the new carrier unlock will be available only after the iPhone 4S is released. Reason, same as jailbreak. They will need to test the unlock with iPhone 4 which is most likely not gonna happen any soon. The new unlock may not cover the latest baseband upgrades and will only support the preserved basebands. Anyway you should wait for the confirmation.
Many jailbreak apps and tweaks are not yet updated for iOS 5. So even if you jailbreak, you will not get to use those tweaks. You will have to wait before the jailbreak app developers update and make them compatible with iOS 5.
You should also note that starting from iOS 5, Apple has implemented a new method to stop downgrading of iOS. You may not be able to restore back once you upgrade to iOS 5. Jailbreak devs are working on it to find a way out and you should wait until any further announcements.

At the time of writing this, large amount of people are trying to download iOS 5 from iTunes and many of them are receiving error 3200 in iTunes. Apple's servers are shivering and trying hard to keep up with the bandwidth demand.

Any updates in future about jailbreak and unlock, I will let you know.

Update #1 - To learn how to jailbreak (tethered) and unlock iOS 5 while preserving baseband, read this post.

Download iOS 5 - direct links