It is old news that the next version of the iOS has hit the streets, but it's worthwhile to measure just how much impact it has. The biggest change is not to the iPhone - as the changes there are merely evolutionary at best. But the iPad - well, after the 4.2 iOS loaded up it was like everything was brand new again. Multi-tasking and folders were the biggest benefits that I saw and quickly embraced. Beyond that the unified inbox is nice and various minor improvements with Safari.
I also like having the hard switch be a mute button. I know some people aren't too keen on it, but it feels more natural as it is right above the volume keys and that's a feature I use all the time. I rarely used the orientation lock.
Being on the same OS is also much more helpful to the coherence of iDevices in general. It was a bit jarring to have the iPhone running 4.x for so long. I literally was able to change the way I do things on the iPhone, only to come back and be stuck (to a large degree) in the past.
Features I care little to nothing about? Airplay (I don't have an AppleTV and it seems everyone else's apps don't work yet), AirPrint (why do you have a tablet device if you are going to print everything out?), Facetime improvements (what's the point if you don't have a camera? Maybe next gen...) and GameCenter (seems nice but not a lot of game devs using that platform yet so its rather lonely.)
So, as of now, big thumbs up. No crashes or performance issues here - just smooth sailing. Now I guess the big question is what will iPad version 2 look like?
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