Wednesday, September 17, 2014

iOS 8, to upgrade or not to upgrade?

Is it, now?
So I upgraded to iOS 8 on my iPhone 5S the second the update went live and the whole thing only took two hours, which considering past iOS upgrades wasn't too bad. My initial thoughts? The tweaks will take some getting used to but overall it seems a little speedier (unexpected!) and worth the time. I'm amused that the much vaunted Health app is DOA, but I'm sure that's just a momentary snag. I do like all the extra encryption running under the hood so that's good.

So overall, kudos to the developers and nicely done. If you have a 5 on up, this seems worth it.* Also, I love the option to view battery usage by app. You can bet a few apps on my phone will get tossed in the dustbin over the next week as I identify the worst culprits with the least return.

There are two gripes I do have, though:
  • Location services by app are no longer a clear toggle but a grayed out choice between "Always" and "Never" and that seems a bit sneaky. There's supposed to be an option for location only working when an app is open, but it doesn't seem to apply, or isn't yet baked into, 99% of the apps on my phone that use location services.
  • Photostream disappeared and now the only way to view all your photos is through the extremely clunky and virtually un-navigable "Collections" view. The only workaround seems to be selecting every photo in the "Moments" view and creating an album that way but it seems so tie consuming as to be not worth it. I can't imagine what Apple's rationale is for doing this but it's fucking annoying.
O.K., that whining aside—and I'm sure those are things I'll adapt to just as I adapt to everything else that changes or gets updated—this is a pretty solid update.

*Sorry, everyone with an iPhone 4S or lower, this upgrade will either kill your phone or simply isn't compatible with it at all. Yay for planned obsolescence, huh?

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