The Mobile Contrarian: iOS 6 and its disappointing "new" features

We understand that Apple lives and dies by its marketing, so the team has to have certain key points to hit, which make the whole reveal seem more impressive than it is, but it's really just smoke. 100 million businesses in Apple Maps? That sounds very impressive, but only because we've never heard statistics on how many places exist in the databases of competitors like Google Maps or Nokia Maps. For all we know, 100 million businesses may actually be a pretty small amount comparatively. And then, of course, we always have to keep in mind that Apple is far more likely to use the word "new" to mean "new for Apple". 

Admittedly, Apple seems to be in a year where the really "new" stuff will be hardware based. Apple tends to focus one year on hardware (iPhone 3G, iPhone 4), and one year on software improvements (iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4S). The trouble with that rotation is that every year, something will be disappointing. If Apple is going to carefully plan out software feature rollouts, it seems like it could stagger things better to make it more even from year to year. Of course, we fully expect to be writing another article very similar to this at the end of the month when Google shows off Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, because while Apple focuses on software one year and hardware the next, Google tends to focus on big UI and feature changes with one update (Froyo, ICS), and performance/under-the-hood enhancements the next (Gingerbread, and we're expecting Jelly Bean). 

We fully understand that Apple wanted to be rid of Google Maps if for no other reason than because Google had become a competitor in the mobile space. Apple cut Google Search from the loop with Siri, and took away the Google name from the Maps app and search bar, and has now dropped Google Maps completely. Of course, the time crunch went against Apple. As we said when we saw Apple's Maps plans really forming, Google already had a huge head-start in this field. This forced Apple's hand. The company could either allow Google Maps for iOS to be updated and keep using Google Maps until Apple's Maps were more mature, or it could reduce expectations by keeping Google Maps from updates, and introducing a competent alternative. From a business standpoint, what Apple did makes sense, but from a user perspective, it's troubling to see such a basic feature like turn-by-turn navigation to take so long. And, time will tell just how long it keeps Google Maps off the platform. We'd expect Google to be submitting apps to the iTunes App Store fairly soon, and unless Apple is willing to kick out all of the current turn-by-turn apps under the anti-competitive rule of not duplicating iOS features, Google should get through.  

Overall, iOS 6 should prove to be a nice enough update, more so for new iPad users who will finally get full access to Siri. Although, let's not forget that iPad 1 users won't even get iOS 6, and iPad 2 users will get it, but won't get Siri (just remember: Android is "fragmented", not iOS!) Apple Maps looks like a nice enough app, and the Siri improvements also look to boost the functionality, but there was no killer feature for iOS 6. iOS 4 had multitasking, iOS 5 had the Notification Center, iMessages, iCloud, and eventually Siri, but iOS 6 doesn't have that really amazing feature. 

We were hoping that it would finally be an answer to widgets/Live Tiles, especially given the hiring of Jan-Michael Cart, the designer who came up with such an amazing, elegant, and very Appley concept for an iOS dynamic icon system, as well as a potential widget solution. Unfortunately, neither of those solutions made it into iOS 6, so it looks like another year of waiting at least before iOS users get some sort of widget option. 

Apple doesn't always like to introduce new features right after a competitor has introduced something similar, and when it does, it tends to add significant bonus options. For example, the new options on incoming phone calls in iOS 6 look like quite like Android 4.0's new quick replies, but the addition of the "remind" and "Do Not Disturb" options add enough value as to make it okay. Still, we think that iOS needs to have something similar to the Windows Phone People app (sorry Android, but you need to have a working People app to be included here). Apple has the supposed "deep integration" with Twitter and Facebook, but that doesn't include an option to see your contacts' posts in an easy way. 

Either of those two ideas could have been the real hook to make iOS 6 more interesting. Even a couple smaller updates that people didn't expect would have been nice enough to make the overall announcement a bit better. We are getting a redesign of the iTunes App Store, which is nice, but there's still no easy way to test apps before buying, or return apps that are unwanted. That could have been a pretty nice addition. Even allowing for different sound profiles would have been nice. 

iOS 6 looks like a nice enough update, and the added features should make current iOS users pretty happy, but we can't imagine these being the features that sway disgruntled Android users to the iOS shores. When the biggest update is a Maps app, which is trying to live up to maps offerings from 2-3 years ago, it's hard to get excited for this update. Luckily, the iPhone 5 should make up for this disappointment.