
The Apple iOS 9 Review - OberstKrueger
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9605/the-ios-9-review
======
wtetzner
> Obviously Windows has a similar implementation, but the unfortunate truth is
> that the Windows tablet market is almost non-existent at this point outside
> of the Surface lineup.

This struck me as an odd comment. Because the iOS tablet market _is_ non-
existent outside of the iPad lineup.

~~~
jasode
I'm guessing the author was talking about "Windows RT". And "Surface" in that
sentence meant the tablets running regular Windows. The WindowsRT tablets from
ASUS/Dell/Samsung didn't sell like Android and iOS.

If one does a search&replace: s/Windows/WindowsRT/ :

 _" Obviously Windows RT has a similar implementation, but the unfortunate
truth is that the Windows RT tablet market is almost non-existent at this
point outside of the Surface lineup."_

(I would appreciate if the downvoter who thought my interpretation was
incorrect to reply with the correct way to read the author's sentence. It
seems that Brandon Chester is quite aware of the difference between Windows RT
vs Windows tablets : [http://www.anandtech.com/show/8736/best-tablets-
holiday-2014...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8736/best-tablets-
holiday-2014/4))

~~~
gtk40
That seems like an unlikely meaning to me when Windows RT is effectively
discontinued as far as I can tell. There is no Windows RT equivalent of
Windows 10 and no Windows RT version of the Surface 3.

There are plenty of Windows tablets at all sorts of price points, but most
seem to be using x86 instead of ARM.

~~~
jasode
_> There is no Windows RT equivalent of Windows 10 _

The author didn't mention "Windows 10" specifically but instead, just
"Windows" which can include the previous incarnations (both Windows 8 &
Windows RT 8). The non-premium Windows RT had "multitasking" several years ago
when iOS did not and that was the particular point of comparison to trigger
his hard-to-parse statement. He also qualified his sentence with " _outside of
the Surface lineup_ " which seems like he was aware that Surface has turned
into a somewhat of a success story for Microsoft.

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-surface-hits-1bn-
reve...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-surface-hits-1bn-revenue-
mission-accomplished/)

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/microsoft-q3-2015-earning...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/microsoft-q3-2015-earnings/)

------
et1337
Anyone else snicker at the bit about page faults on page 8?

Apple is apparently now promoting the use of mmap:

> While this is a “solution”, it introduces the possibility of the user
> encountering page faults, which is an error/exception that occurs when the
> system is trying to access memory that is mapped into virtual memory but not
> actually loaded into RAM. This is something that, for the most part, has
> never existed on mobile devices.

~~~
epistasis
"the possibility of the user encountering page faults" is absolutely
hilarious. Clearly _trying_ to take a stab at Apple because the author thinks
that there should be more RAM in the boxes, and trying to come up with some
justification without understanding that page faults are a basic and normal
thing that happen all the time on any sort of modern device.

Also, regarding the "never existed", check out this post from 2010 from John
Carmack, discussing the challenges of dealing with iOS's mmap limitations at
the time:

[http://www.bethblog.com/2010/10/29/john-carmack-discusses-
ra...](http://www.bethblog.com/2010/10/29/john-carmack-discusses-rage-on-
iphoneipadipod-touch/)

------
dankilman
Something that has not been mentioned (because it is such a small feature) is
that you can now disable the vibration on a per alarm clock basis. I've been
waiting for this for several versions now. You could argue that 3rd party
alarm clock applications provide that, but they don't get the special
treatment the built-in app gets, mainly that alarms set are still activated
even if the app is closed. Maybe it is also the case for 3rd party but I
couldn't get it to work.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Yes, it's important. I've had to disable all vibration on my phone, which
increases chances of me missing things, because the lady downstairs doesn't
like vibration noise in the morning, haha.

------
Amorymeltzer
The new battery widget seems cool. It's clearly designed for the watch but
it's nice it works for other connected devices. My wife never has any idea how
charged her bluetooth headset is, she'd find this incredibly helpful.

~~~
antsar
There have been Bluetooth battery level indicators since at least iOS 7, for
Bluetooth devices which support the feature. Admittedly, those were harder to
read and did not show a percentage. Here's a screenshot:

[http://community.silabs.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-
id/391...](http://community.silabs.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-
id/3915i627E9B4ADE9B59EF)

~~~
selectodude
That feature was added to iPhone OS 1.1.1 with the Apple Bluetooth Headset.

------
kozukumi
Just found out (the hard way) that content block extensions for Safari does
_not_ work on an iPhone 5c which sucks. According to Apple it is due to
performance (the 5c uses the same SoC as the 5).

I can't help but think this is a massive failure on Apple's part as my
daughter has a 5c as do most of her friends as they are/were the best (read:
cheapest) option to get an iPhone. I would have loved to be able to load a
content blocker on her phone to block adult content as well as ads.

They missed a trick there imho.

~~~
mcbain
Content blocking requires an ARMv8 processor (so 5S and later) - must be a
requirement of whatever they are using for regex.

~~~
Watabou
Apparently it's a performance issue.

From apple[1]: Note: Apps containing content blocking extensions for Safari on
iOS are available only on 64-bit devices, due to performance limitations of
32-bit devices.

    
    
        [1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewInSafari/Articles/Safari_9.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014305-CH9-SW9

------
pimlottc
> The satellite imagery in Google Maps is also much better; it never turns to
> black and white like Apple Maps, and is noticeably higher in detail and
> resolution.

That's not been my experience; at least in San Francisco, the satellite
imagery in Apple Maps is remarkably good and noticeably sharper than in Google
Maps. I wouldn't be surprised though if this varied by region.

~~~
kozukumi
Agreed, I find Apple Maps to generally look much better than Google Maps in
London (more specifically west London).

~~~
freehunter
I've never seen Apple Maps turn to black and white on satellite, and I live in
fucking _Michigan_. Both of you live in huge, techie, heavily populated
cities. I live in Michigan, and the satellite maps are just fine.

------
ZanyProgrammer
I noticed the moralistic hand wringing about the propriety of ad blockers.

~~~
freehunter
Which is odd, it seems like people who are outspoken against ad blockers are
either becoming more numerous or are becoming louder. I recently had a
conversation here where someone was arguing that ad blocking is akin to MP3
pirating:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10222013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10222013)

~~~
scintill76
Even a few months ago, I was kind of like that. Then I started thinking about
it in terms of my own "autonomy", for lack of a better word -- what gives them
the right to "force" my browser to make extra requests to download and display
ads, to use my home network for that, to use my bandwidth and data cap for it,
to use my CPU, to use my eyes and brain to look and understand the ad. They
have no technical ability to enforce some of that, and any agreement that
viewing ads is "payment" is implicit and thus the moral argument is weak. They
don't even implement some technical measures they could do, such as YouTube
bundling video ads directly into the stream so it would be harder to detect
and block, so maybe they don't really care enough either.

At some point it starts sounding too much like "it's stealing to watch
broadcast TV if you mute your TV and look away from the screen during ads",
and hopefully most people would say that position is insane. (And yes, I do
recognize that automatic blocking is a bit different, but at the same time,
sending instructions that your computer download and display something to you
is different than changing the radio waves from a representation of a show to
a representation of an ad.)

It only works because the majority of TV watchers and internet users are too
lazy or unskilled to block ads. When the majority are blocking ads, the model
will either change, or blocking be explicitly criminalized (a session of
Congress I'd pay to watch.)

~~~
freehunter
Courts have ruled that Tivo automatically skipping ads is perfectly okay.
That's literally automating the activity you're talking about! So yeah, not
really any different.

~~~
scintill76
Maybe relevant case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Broadcasting_Co._v._Dish_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Broadcasting_Co._v._Dish_Network,_LLC)
It's a bit more complicated since it involves a contract between the provider
of the ad-skipping device and the content creator. Hmm, it could get
interesting if contracts arose between browser vendors and advertisers.

------
teamhappy
Is there a list of features you want to disable if you care about privacy?

~~~
Watabou
There's a dedicated "Privacy" setting in the Settings app. You could disable
everything from there, including some Location Services, even the ones used
for system services like Cell Network Search and setting the time zone.

Additionally, you can turn off Siri completely under Siri settings. You can
also turn off Siri and Bing/Spotlight suggestions under Spotlight settings.
iCloud could also be turned off.

That said, by turning the above features off, why are you using a smartphone
in the first place?

Apple has been making great strides in user privacy lately, and I think they
genuinely care about our privacy, what with them encrypting everything and not
having the keys to decrypt it themselves (so they say).

I choose to trust my privacy with Apple. They've given me no reason to doubt
them, yet.

~~~
Silhouette
_That said, by turning the above features off, why are you using a smartphone
in the first place?_

Cheap shot but surprisingly close answer: Because I couldn't find a feature
phone with decent build quality any more.

Slightly less cheap shot and still remarkably accurate answer: Because almost
all I want in a smartphone is the phone itself plus mobile Web access on a
usefully large screen.

My interest in mobile devices really has very little to do with apps, even
less to do with cloud services, and absolutely nothing to do with "digital
assistants".

~~~
freehunter
Oddly enough, I feel the opposite. I can't find a smartphone with decent build
quality anymore. The iPhone 5s was the last phone where I thought it both
looked and felt good, but it's still so damn fragile. The Lumia 920 was the
last device where I felt it was strong enough to withstand a normal level of
use without treating it like an expensive hunk of glass and metal.

Big screen, I can understand. But build quality... for $700 you can do a lot
better in an expensive feature phone than a cheap iPhone.

------
firloop
Can the URL be changed to [http://www.anandtech.com/print/9605/the-
ios-9-review](http://www.anandtech.com/print/9605/the-ios-9-review) which has
all the content on one page?

~~~
micampe
I disagree. HN should not do this.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I think the downvoting you're receiving is unjustified. Content creators have
a right to monetize in a manner they choose, even if it is shortsighted or
easily bypassed. I would think the entrepreneurial crowd on HN would agree
with that in principal.

~~~
freehunter
Then perhaps they shouldn't provide an option to view it as one page...?

~~~
brazzledazzle
They provide an option to print which consequently puts the content on one
page. Which you, me and everyone else is aware of.

Let's be real here: It's not even in your interest as someone that doesn't
care for this to become the norm for aggregators like HN because content
creators will start doing annoying stuff like referrer checks or other cat and
mouse bullshit.

------
fgtx
You should _REALLY_ consider adding an option to "show entire article".

~~~
jdminhbg
Hit the Print This Article link.

------
beedogs
The new app-switcher screen is terrible. Shockingly terrible.

------
callumprentice
Can anyone point me to a more in-depth analysis than this rather superficial
look?

:)

~~~
speg
[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/ios-9-thoroughly-
review...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/ios-9-thoroughly-reviewed/)

Ars thoroughly reviews iOS 9.

------
anjc
The attempts to resolve cognitive dissonance by fanboys is a sight to behold.
I'm not sure why people can't say "I prefer Apple, but iOS 9's split screen
multitasking implementation is the same as Microsoft's from years ago". Rather
than "It's not the same at all, because it's not about the feature, it's about
how the feature is implemented" and all of these similar un-attackable
arguments.

~~~
MCRed
You do realize there are multiple ways to implement a feature, right? And if
you want to talk about having two windows on a screen at once, that feature
didn't originate on the surface, but on the 1984 Macintosh (with overlapping
windows) and before that at Xerox (where Apple licensed some of the
technology.)

~~~
anjc
The splitscreen implementation is completely different from windowed operating
systems. I think every single person on hackernews is at least vaguely aware
of the history of computing.

