Exploring iOS 5

Apple recently released the latest beta for its highly anticipated iOS 5. I can’t say all the 200+ new features they’re hyping is worth it but there are a few I love. Then again, I never explorered that far into iOS 4 so some of these feature might or might not already exist in iOS 4. If you do not have a developer account and haven’t yet tried iOS 5, let me know if any of the below features work just as well in iOS 4. Also, what are your favourite iOS 5 feature? Tweet me or comment below.

1). iPod/Music App gesture control
In iOS 5, you can swipe left or right on the album art to skip to the next track or rewind to the previous track. Very handy if you listen to your iPod while driving. No 3rd party App required.

2). Pinch to close
To minimize an app to the background, instead of clicking the home button, you can pinch the screen with 4 or more fingers.

3). Camera button on Lock Screen
This is a well advertised feature of iOS 5. You can now quickly access your iPhone camera from lock screen. This is still buggy in beta but should prove extremely useful.

4). iCloud Sync
You can now enable iCloud Sync for all your photos and more. As you take pictures on your iPhone it syncs automatically to your other iDevices such as your iPad. Keeping your albums nicely identical.

5). Tabbed Browsing in Safari
For anyone who had many pages on the go, switching between them was always a pain since everytime you switch the page reloads. In iOS 5, tabbed browsing allows you to quickly jump between windows without reloading the page. Reader and Twitter integration is also a bonus.