IOS 5.1 now available

[hecatae]

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1504


This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

Japanese language support for Siri (availability may be limited during initial rollout)
Photos can now be deleted from Photo Stream
Camera shortcut now always visible on Lock Screen for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
Camera face detection now highlights all detected faces
Redesigned Camera app for iPad
Genius Mixes and Genius playlists for iTunes Match subscribers
Audio for TV shows and movies on iPad optimized to sound louder and clearer
Podcast controls for playback speed and a 30 second rewind for iPad
Updated AT&T network indicator
Addresses bugs affecting battery life
Fixes an issue that occasionally caused audio to drop for outgoing calls

Anyone updated?

[Ben]

I was holding off until I got the notification but what the heck, I'll do it now and get back to you :)

6 minute download according to my iPhone 4S. *waits*

[Ben]

Well, update was uneventful, all seems to be working nicely.

I'm not sure if further tweaking the way the camera is accessed via the lock screen is necessary, but it's certainly more obvious now (some people didn't know it existed before) and I'm sure I'll get used to it :p

Battery life will be one to watch.

[Hands0n]

First day indications are that with 5.1 the battery life is significantly better! Incredibly so!!

[Ben]

I've been hammering mine over the last couple of hours actually and the battery life has been behaving very nicely. Good sign :)

[Hands0n]

Unplugged at 7am, a full day's use and it's now sat at 49% remains. That is pretty untypical.

[hecatae]

forced the other half to update last night, will see what she thinks

[Hands0n]

iPhones and iPads all updated. So far, so good.

[Ben]

Not done the iPad yet, might do that in a bit though before I lug it to London this evening.

All good so far. I've still got some funky stuff going on with alert tones, but that was happening before. SMS alert terminating early, for example.

[DBMandrake]

Well I've been using iOS 5.1 for a couple of days on my 3GS now and although its too early to be sure, I think two major areas have been addressed.

1) The extreme sluggishness and stuttering I've been experiencing recently on 5.0.1 seems to be completely gone. It hasn't turned the 3GS into a 4S by any means, but its turned its 3G like sluggishness back into 3GS performance.

Even just opening SMS and typing a message was a chore before, now SMS (and most other apps) open snappily and the keyboard clicks exactly in time with my typing without any lag.

Memory hungry apps like Downcast and Navigon run MUCH better now. Downcast was getting almost unusable since it would take 10-15 seconds to even start playing a video podcast, and had an extremely sluggish UI.

Apps don't seem to get evicted from memory in the background as much as before, yet the phone still runs snappily.

2) Battery life, standby time in particular seems to be MUCH better also. I was getting very poor standby time before, as I mentioned in another thread I have to turn my phone off at work except for breaks and yet my battery was down to 40% or so by dinner time, now it's more like 80%. Several hours of standby this afternoon and a small amount of use after a full charge and the battery will still on 97%!

The new camera access from the lock screen is a big improvement over the un-discoverable double click then tap the button of 5.0.1. Press the home button and swipe upwards and you're there. Brilliant. If you tap the icon the screen will bounce up and down slightly, which makes the swipe action discoverable by those who don't know about it. Well thought out.

That's about it really. For a x.1 update there are precious few new features, in fact I haven't noticed anything visible except the new camera access from the home screen. 5.1 is what 5.0 should have been IMHO, 5.0 with the bugs ironed out. Lets hope this is a really stable release that will last a while and stand the test of time. Early signs are good. :)

[Ben]

Really glad to hear you've observed real-world improvements on the 3GS. As this is a device Apple are still selling they definitely owed a bit of love to 3GS owners.

I've no complaints still. My battery life 'seems' better and everything's working as well as ever; the 4S continues to blow my socks off.

[DBMandrake]

Still no signs of any sluggishness so it looks like the months of beta testing they did for 5.1 paid off. Maybe 5.1 is the Snow Leopard of iOS :p (eg not many user visible changes, but a lot of work under the hood to clean up the code...)

I noticed one other nice little touch - in all previous versions of iOS if you closed all browser tabs in safari and later opened safari again, instead of getting a blank page you'd get an annoying pause, then the bookmarks menu popping up. Now the bookmarks menu no longer comes up automatically.

A small point perhaps but it used to annoy me no end that when I'd want to quickly open safari and do a google search I'd have to wait for the bookmarks menu to open then close it down again, as 9 times out of 10 I want to type a URL or do a search, not open a bookmark. (Although I have a lot of bookmarks synced with the PC I don't really use them on the phone...) If I want to open a bookmark I'll tap the bookmarks button myself, thanks very much ;)

[Ben]

I noticed one other nice little touch - in all previous versions of iOS if you closed all browser tabs in safari and later opened safari again, instead of getting a blank page you'd get an annoying pause, then the bookmarks menu popping up. Now the bookmarks menu no longer comes up automatically.
Right you are! Ahh, that's a mini revolution right there!

[Ben]

Ahoy there me hearties!

Guess what's back, back again? My iPhone 3GS! It already had 5.0.1 on, so I didn't have to go near iTunes, and it updated OTA straight away to 5.1. DBMandrake, you're right, 5.1 is really good on the 3GS. It's quick, smooth, and I'm on 97% battery after 8 hours of standby. This is on a 3GS bought at launch that has since had much heavy use abuse and also periods of complete inactivity (albeit stored with the correct levels of battery charge).

I think at £319 new, these are actually, gulp, reasonable value for money :S But then they must be, because Apple is clearly still shifting them.

[Hands0n]

My daughter has my old 3GS and is getting on fabulously with it. The 5.0.1 update did get her a bit miffed, it seemed to overload the 3GS. But the new 5.1 update has given the old girl (the phone, not the daughter) a whole new lease of life. She's loving it and says it is like a brand new iPhone!