Beyond Twitter: iOS 5 could integrate Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and MySpace

9to5 Staff

Liz Gannes writesfor All Things D that Apple’s social integration in iOS 5 includes much more than Twitter, which was formally announced during the WWDC 2011 keynote on Monday. Look no further than contact cards in a developer version of iOS 5, Gannes writes:

The contact information page in the iOS 5 address book has a field not just for Twitter, but also offers space to add friends’ handles on Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Myspace. Alongside a person’s email address and phone number, an iOS user can also add links to their accounts around the Web. Then Apple auto-populates the URL for each of the services. Clicking on the account name opens up Safari to that person’s profile page.

In addition to four additional social networks, iOS 5 contact cards also include an option to add custom service by pasting a profile URL.

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iOS 5: Know when wife is calling – customize vibration patterns

9to5 Staff


Custom vibrations in Settings (left) and the new interface to customize vibration patterns (right)

iOS 5 comes with a bunch of accessibility improvements, like the AssistiveTouch feature that lets you use your device with adaptive accessories and even create your own gestures. Another easily overlooked addition: Custom vibrations, on a per-contact basis, as pointed out by MacRumors. This is kinda cool, not just for the hearing impaired but for the rest of us as well. Example: If you’re in a meeting and your device is in silent mode, you can tell when your wife is calling based on a vibration pattern – how cool is that?

But why stop there? Combine custom vibrations with LED flash on incoming calls, ringtones, the iTunes Tone Store where you can buy custom alert sounds and deep Twitter integration which automatically adds Twitter user names and photos to your contact cards and suddenly iOS 5 looks pretty strong in the customization department. Here’s a quick guide to customizing vibrations for your contacts…

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Cool iOS 5 trick: Swipe for camera roll

9to5 Staff

This is a pretty cool trick that works in the Camera app on iOS 5: Simply swipe your finger from left to right to bring the camera album roll up. Continue swiping from left to right to flip through your images. If you go too far, tap once to reveal the on-screen toolbar with image controls and hit Done to immediately return to your camera. Pretty neat. Thanks, Jared!

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Standard Emoji keyboard arrives to iOS 5, here's how to enable it

9to5 Staff


Because Emoji is now a standard international keyboard in iOS 5, you can easily add some mood to your iMessages and liven up any text entry with emoticons without having to download a bunch of apps from the App Store to access it

One of the little things appearing briefly in a slide during Apple’s keynote talk Monday was the Emoji keyboard in iOS 5. Originating from Japan, the emoji picture characters are standardized and many phones support them without requiring a Japanese operator (heck, even Gmail supports emojis). The Emoji keyboard is not new to the iPhone, but those who’ve used it in iOS 4 are painfully aware it has never been designed to work like a normal keyboard for the rest of us. You either had to use third-party Emoji apps from the App Store to access it or use emoticons via the clunky Japanese Romaji keyboard. Not anymore, Emoji is now a standard international keyboard accessible in any app. Here’s how it is enabled…

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iMessage: What you need to know

9to5 Staff

Apple’s iOS software wizard Scott Forstall saved iMessage as the last of the ten big iOS 5 features in Monday’s WWDC keynote talk. We’ve shown iMessage in action in our eleven-minute overview of iOS 5 features and the iOS 5 features page teases with some interesting capabilities promising to override costly text messages whenever possible:

With iMessage, we’ve created a new messaging service for all iOS 5 users. You can send unlimited text messages via WiFi or 3G from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to anyone with one of those devices. iMessage is built into the Messages app so you can send text, photos, videos, locations and contacts. Leep everyone in the loop with group messaging. Track your messages with delivery receipts and optional read receipts, see when someone’s typing and enjoy secure encryption for text messages. Even start a conversation on one of your iOS devices and pick up where you left off on another.

That pitch leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For example, do iMessages count against my text messaging plan? Where do I sing up for iMessage? What if the person on the other end cannot receive iMessages? What about sending iMessages to non-Apple devices? Here’s what we have found out so far…

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Apple's iMessage takes its toll on RIM

9to5 Staff

Well, what do you know, it looks like Apple’s ambitious messaging service unveiled Monday as part of the iOS 5 software is seen as a threat to Research In Motion’s popular BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging protocol for BlackBerry devices. According to TechRadar, investors punished the BlackBerry maker’s stock Tuesday as they digested Apple’s iMessage:

iMessage announced by Apple on Monday will challenge RIM’s highly popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant chat service which has given the Canadian company an edge over its rivals. The Apple announcement made investors more jittery, plunging RIM stock on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and Wall Street Tuesday. It slipped more than three percent in Toronto to close at $36.92, and 2.8 percent on Nasdaq to close at $37.82.

Why are investors worried about iMessage affecting RIM’s chat service?

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