Apple iOS 5: need to know

Safari web browser

The Safari web browser has received a couple of features that steps on the toes of both advertisers and app developers. The existing Reader feature in Safari 5 on Windows and Mac will also be available in the iOS 5 version of Safari. This strips out advertisements and reformats multi page articles as a single page for easier reading. The desktop version is useful, but not all webpages work with it, so it'll be interesting to see how well the iOS 5 version works. Normal people will love it, advertisers will doubtless object.

Desktop-style tabbed browsing finally makes its way to the iPad which, until now, has used the thumbnail-view style tabbed browsing inherited from the lower-resolution iPhone. It's therefore highly likely that desktop-style tabs will remain an iPad-only feature.

The Reading List feature, which was widely leaked before its official unveiling, allows users to cache articles for later offline reading, either on their iOS 5 device or on their computer. This sounds highly similar to the popular Instapaper app which we're big fans of.

Newsstand

Magazine and newspaper subscriptions in iOS apps have been available for a while, mainly in the US for American publications. Newsstand is a separate store for magazine and newspaper apps and subscriptions. It'll also be interesting to see if this encourages more British titles to sign up to the Newsstand store.

Taking photos on an iPhone is currently an involved and sluggish process, but Apple claims this has been sped up in iOS 5.

Taking photos with the Camera app

Taking photos on an iPhone is currently an involved and sluggish process, but Apple claims this has been sped up in iOS 5. From the lock screen, double click the Home button to access the Camera app and take a photo. If your phone is locked with a passcode, you'll be able to take a photo but not view older images. The volume up button can now be used to take photos too.

Third-party camera app developers may be disheartened to learn that editing features, such as crop, rotate, red eye reduction and a one-tap auto enhance mode are now built into the Photos app.