Updating to iOS 5.1? Here are a couple of things to know
The iOS 5.1 update is now live for iPhone and iPad. Usually when Apple updates the iOS, it’s fairly chaotic with bogged servers and apps not working. Many users often wait a few days to let the early adopters hash things out.
iOS 5.1 has been in beta, though, for such a long time, it looks like Apple have worked out nearly all of the bugs in this iOS release. I updated this evening and this has been one of the more trouble-free iOS updates for me on both an iPhone 4 and 4S.
Click past the jump for a few thoughts on the update. >>>
One of the new features of iOS 5 is over the air system updates. I tested out both a wired and WiFi update of the iOS and not only was the WiFi update as easy as the wired iTunes update, it was also significantly faster. After backing up both iPhones, my iPhone 4S took about an hour and ten minutes to update. My slower iPhone 4 took about 35 minutes to update. Your mileage may vary depending on the speed of your internet connection. Both updates went very smooth.
There is already a heated debate about whether or not the new 4G network indicator is accurate or not or if it’s merely AT&T trying to coerce Apple into playing along with their marketing plans. I personally like the new 4G indicator here when I’m on AT&T’s faster HSPA+ networks.
The new lock screen camera is a wash for me. A flick or a button push — I never had a problem with the lock screen camera button in iOS 5.0. It’ll take me all of 3 tries to get used to the new gesture. Apple has done away with the push button. Lock screen camera access is now flick only. And you can now get to the camera from the actual unlock screen. You no longer have to press the home button twice.
Sometimes, an iOS update will break an app — typically older or poorly coded apps. As we find any photo apps that break in iOS 5.1, we’ll update the listing in our iPhone Photo App Compatibility grid. So far, though, iOS 5.1 seems like a pretty smooth update and I suspect that nearly any app that worked in 5.0 will work in 5.1 as well.
The new 5.1 update finally addresses the battery performance issues of 5.0. Hopefully, I’ll now be able to get through the day without having to top off my 4S.
Have you updated to iOS 5.1 yet or are you going to wait? If you’ve updated, how’s your experience been with 5.1 so far? Let us know in the comments below.
=M=
~~~~
Marty is a self-employed graphic designer in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex. He is an avid Rangers baseball, Chicago Cubs, Packers and Highbury Arsenal fan. In addition to capturing random moments with whatever camera is close by (usually his iPhone), his other interests include coffee, film, music, and traveling in seats 5E and 5F with his fiancé.
24 Comments »
Leave a comment!
For me, it only took 14 min on both iPad 2 and 4S. Got 3 recent files including a broken video file appearing in Photos. They are old photo and videos accidentally regurgitated from iOS system trash bin I guess.
Anyway, looks like there's a new bro in iOS photography: iPad 2's kid bro, (2012) iPad!
The first very welcome bug fix that I noticed was that the hated move/scale bug is gone!
Whats that?
doing it now.. seems to be downloading at a good speed..
I don’t care for the lock screen camera button. I password protect my device and when it is locked, I want it to be locked. I don’t want anyone else to be able to use it to take photos. I hope there is a way to disable this feature.
A few bugs I noticed – when selecting "edit" in the camera roll (which I typically use to crop only for a quick twitter post or something) the phone reboots entirely. Same goes for a few other apps. Might just be that my phone is too full.
But it loaded fairly quickly on both the 4s and the iPad 2… Love that we can do it over the air now – I haaaaate iTunes!
This is the first time I updated iOS without having to sync to iTunes. Worked fine.
Simultaneously downloaded the updates for my iPad2 and iPhone 4S – about 15mins to download and maybe 6-8minutes to install. Nothing seems to be broken yet, everything seems slightly zippier.
I'm very happy about being able to delete photos from photostream
LOVE the camera home screen swipe. One flick and boom, camera launched.
For some reason my battery is draining faster now than befor the update.? I thought the update made the battery last longer. Hope it get better!
Hm let’s see, it seems as tho my battery life is okay haven’t used it enough to really find out. But the camera on the lockscreen no longer works. Also cannot edit photo without iPod rebooting. So far i just really want to know how I can go back to regular iOS 5 anyone know how?
Went very smoothly on the whole here – the update downloaded fast, installed fast (on 4S, 3GS and iPad 2), no issues I've noticed so far. The new lock-screen camera access is a good improvement.
What didn't go so well: updating my apps afterwards. There were also updates for the iWork apps and garageband, and iPhoto to try out. A huge amount to download and install – and at this point my phone ran out of disk space. All the downloads stopped, and I couldn't delete anything. Deleting an app on the home screen, I'd go to the settings/usage screen and see the app still listed. Deleting from the usage screen, it would just show as "deleting…" and stay that way. A couple of reboots fixed it though. Lesson here: make sure you have plenty of free space!
Compatibility: No issues so far – as a dev I can say that very little has changed on the API side, so in theory at least there shouldn't be any issues. I did have one nasty surprise though: NightCap was crashing continuously. That's not good, as I wrote it and have tested it plenty with the betas.. panic time! Reinstalling the app didn't help, but restarting the iPhone again fixed it – very weird! So if you get any app issues a quick reboot might be enough.
Thanks for all your hard work on NightCap! It's a great app! I shut down all my apps on my iPhone4 before I did the upgrade to iOS 5.1. NightCap came through with flying colors — no crashes for me.
Took all of 15 minutes to update my 4G and about the same for my iPad 2 ..
My camera+ app disappeared! I can only use it if I find it in Spotlight Search first! I tried rebooting to no avail…
after the upgrade 8 previously deleted images appeared on my camera roll and it seems as if my battery is draining faster
Updated to 5.1 in bout 16 mins, everything works perfect, zappier and just smoooooth. I like the one flick camera cause double tapping and then select was looonggggg. My battery is still flicking crapp. Doing my head in cause I have to charge twice a day and I don’t get up till 11am (in uk). Gonna try a fresh clean install (previous was over wifi) and see if that makes battery better by calibrating it or something….if not I’ll just take it back to apple store for a straight swap (see of they will give me black one as none in stock when got mine) mine for a new one. Apple are the top dogs in mobile, iPad, laptop and desktop…. Never get a virus, everything runs smooth, close lid and open it back up 2 days later and baam everything is the same. Anyways off to bed now. Peace
Updated to 5.1 in bout 16 mins, everything works perfect, zappier and just smoooooth. I like the one flick camera cause double tapping and then select was looonggggg. My battery is still flicking crapp. Doing my head in cause I have to charge twice a day and I don’t get up till 11am (in uk). Gonna try a fresh clean install (previous was over wifi) and see if that makes battery better by calibrating it or something….if not I’ll just take it back to apple store for a straight swap (see of they will give me black one as none in stock when got mine) mine for a new one.
how to update iphone 4 to ios 5.1?
my Iphone 4S broke down completely during the update, lost all my pictures and vidoes.
I have the first gen iPad and after the update I ended up with three last import folders in photos. The photos had been deleted months ago but some came back. Two of the folders were empty. I was able to delete the one folder with the photos in it but now I have two last import folders that are empty and can not be deleted. I went so fare to restore afte doin soft and hard resets but to no avail. Don't want to start over so will have to live with them.
My update was quick and smooth. However, my home button is now not working properly and I have to push it hard and several times before it will work. It is very frustrating. It happened immediately after the upgrade. Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, is there anything that can be done?
I has the same issue with the home button not working properly after the update!
I'm just wondering whether all of my music will be wiped out when I perform the update? I have my music set to "manually manage" so I'm afraid that it'll all be erased, esp because I use more than one computer to update my ipod.
My internet on (4s) is crawling slow ever since the update. Really regretting it. May be just the conspiracy theorist in me, but wondering if they throw in a bug to older models to make you ‘want’ to buy a new one
grrr