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iOS 10 Review: fun, fresh, more functional than ever

By Nick Todorov

Updated: Sep 09, 2016, 12:36 PM

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iOS 10 Review: fun, fresh, more functional than ever

They call it the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. It is also among the most popular, having shipped on over a billion phones and 300 million tablets since its debut. Over the years, more than 2 million applications have been developed for it, and the figure is set to rise further in the foreseeable future. We're talking about Apple's iOS, and its latest release is shaping up to be its biggest yet.

Now, this isn't the first time we take an in-depth look at iOS 10. The platform has been available - albeit in beta form - since June, and back then, we gave you a quick preview of what was coming our way. Today, however, we finally got our hands on a final iOS 10 build - the same software that iPhone users will receive over the air on September 13. And here's what we have to say about it.

The lock screen, reimagined

From the very moment you have it installed, iOS 10 feels... different. Familiar, yet different nonetheless, with quirks and tweaks we'll all have to get used to.

The lock screen, for instance, has been subjected to the biggest, boldest redesign in the platform's history. Surprisingly, there's no more “swipe to unlock”. Instead, you wake up the display, then press the home button to get to your home screen. Killing a feature that has been a trademark of the OS since day one seems odd at first, and its omission will disturb many an iPhone user. But the sacrifice was made for the sake of designing a more functional lock screen – a swipe to the right is now used for quick access to widgets. More on the topic in a bit.

Speaking of the iOS lock screen, owners of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus surely know how fast their phone's fingerprint scanner is. It could be regarded as too fast in a way – pressing the home button unlocks the device instantly, not giving us a chance to peek at our lock screen notifications. To rectify this, iOS 10 wakes the screen as soon as we physically lift our iPhone up. This lets us catch up on notifications without having to press a single button. All in all, this is a neat addition to the lock screen experience, but we also think that it could have been executed better. The screen lights up only if we lift our device vertically, as if to hold it in our hand. The screen rarely turns on if the handset is lying on a table and we tilt it sideways – while we have it charging, for example.

Our iPhone 6s wakes up by magic!

It must be clarified that this lift-to-wake action works only on our iPhone 6s. The iPhone 6 and older models do not support the feature, as it requires an M9 coprocessor or better. And if you don't like it, there's an option to toggle it off in Display settings.

Another tweak we must highlight is the new camera shortcut. Sliding to the left from any point of the lock screen will instantly take us to the camera app, meaning that we don't have to aim for that tiny button in the corner anymore. The swipe has to be rather convincing, so it might not work for you from the first time, but you should get the hang of it quickly.

A new home for all your widgets

As we stated above, the swipe to unlock gesture has been removed in iOS 10. Instead, sliding a finger to the right on the lock screen takes us to a page with our widgets – arranged in a vertical list, with a quick search bar stuck permanently at the very top. The same swiping gesture also works on the iOS 10 home screen if you're looking at the first page of apps. Whether we like it or not, this is where widgets are meant to reside in the new iOS release. Meanwhile, the pull-down notifications panel is now just that – a panel with all your notifications and nothing more getting in the way. It's a change we don't mind, actually.

The iOS 10 notifications tray shows notifications only. Widgets are at a swipe's distance from your home screen

Still, we're not sure how to feel about the inclusion of widgets on the lock screen. It seems like an unnecessary complication – one that Android abandoned years ago. On the other hand, Android's implementation of lock screen widgets was never the most elegant one, while iOS 10's execution is simpler, therefore more promising. Folks who actually use iOS widgets might find it convenient to have them at a swipe's distance. And who knows, the new widget panel might grow on us over time.

3D Touch is more useful than ever

Apple gave the iPhone 6s 3D Touch to set it apart from the crowd, but didn't quite tap into the full potential of this admittedly innovative functionality. With iOS 10, however, our iPhone's force-sensing screen suddenly feels a lot more useful. That's not only because new shortcuts have been added to many of the stock apps – the Settings app now provides quick access to our Cellular Data controls, for instance, while the Phone app offers us to view recent calls or search for a particular contact. In iOS 10, 3D-touching an app will also display a widget, if available, which can be extremely convenient in many situations. To give a few examples, Phone lists our favorite contacts, Weather shows the current conditions, Activity displays how active we've been throughout the day, and Calendar gives us a glimpse at our agenda – all without the need to open any of these applications. This is practical innovation at its finest! Still, we can't overlook the fact that the new widgets panel, which we highlighted above, makes having widgets accessed by 3D Touch somewhat redundant.

Tidying up the Control Center

On the topic of 3D Touch, the feature is now baked into parts of Control Center. For example, hard-pressing on the flashlight offers three brightness settings, and the timer presents us with a few common duration presets. As for the panel itself, it has been reorganized and feels a bit less crowded as a result. Our music controls are now placed in their dedicated tab, with plenty of room for buttons, a progress bar, and album art to be shown.

The iOS 10 Control Center adds a dedicated panel for music. 3D Touch is also there

Messages – now 264% more fun

Messages is the most used stock app in iOS, which is why giving it some attention in iOS 10 makes perfect sense. All in all, the new rendition of the application is practically the same when it comes to core functionality. You use it to send regular texts and iMessages to fellow iOS users, just like before. Messages can now make a firmer statement, however.

The Messages app in iOS 10 lets you add effects to your texts (iMessage only) – confetti, balloons, fireworks or lasers can fly in the background, while text bubbles can be made bigger or smaller, depending on the nature of the message you're sending. But the most peculiar addition is called Invisible Ink. In a nutshell, it obscures the text or image you're sending. Then the recipient reveals the big surprise with a swipe. Furthermore, you can send hand-written messages or doodle on images before sending them. Stickers, emoji predictions, and bigger emojis have been thrown in as well.

The iOS 10 effects added to Messages look sweet

Of course, we don't see everyone using these flashy effects on a daily basis. Chances are teens will love them, but we see them as superfluous, even childish to an extent. In fact, it took us a while to get the hang of the aforementioned doodling option. Perhaps we're getting old.

On the other hand, we really appreciate the fact that links are automatically turned into previews of the content they lead to. That videos play right in the chat box is also cool.

There's also the addition of apps into Messages. While there's few of them yet, practical uses include sending money via Square Cash or ordering food via DoorDash. This is also where you get new stickers for your chats.

Siri just leveled up

More people use Siri than you might think. She serves over 2 billion requests each week, and the number will surely grow once iOS 10 is out.

The new release will open Siri to developers, which will give her the ability to interact with some types of third-party applications – ones involving audio or video calls, messaging, sending or receiving payments, searching photos, booking a ride, or managing workouts. In plain words, you'll be able to ask her to get you a Uber ride, start your exercise routine on Runtastic, search for puppies on Pinterest, or make a call over Skype. And these are just some of the many possibilities iOS 10 unlocks.

At this time, Siri interaction with third-party apps is limited, but we're confident developers will take advantage of the functionality as iOS 10 spreads out.

Photos are turning into memories

Have you ever wanted a way to dig out all the cat photos in your library? Well, even if you haven't, Photos in iOS 10 is smart enough to do that. Using advanced techniques, the app can recognize scenes and common objects – cars, flowers, animals, even sunrise and sunset photos. All computations are done locally, Apple brags, to put the chance of unwanted data access to a minimum. This new ability is fun and useful indeed, although its recognition abilities are far from flawless. We hope to see things improve in the future.

The app's image analysis abilities extend into facial recognition. Pretty much every person that you take a picture of (with their face in it, of course) gets their own album. This makes it easy to access all the photos of people who matter the most.

No less cool is the new Memories feature, which is special enough to deserve its own tab. It automatically generates photo albums of events, which makes it great for reliving a recent vacation, for example. Images deemed interesting by the Photos app are highlighted, and the location where they were taken is shown on a map. What's awesome is that a movie containing both images and video of the particular event are generated automatically, with background music and all. It's nothing new as a concept, but we find it nice having nonetheless.

Apple Music turns it to 11

Apple Music in iOS 10 gets a welcome redesign

While Apple Music is proving popular among iOS users with its 17 million paid subscribers, the app itself could use some fine-tuning. That's exactly what we're getting with iOS 10. The new user interface is simpler to navigate, making it easier to get to the music we want to listen to. We really appreciate that our library is now in focus, with all playlists, artists, songs, and albums accessible in a tap. There's also a separate section for all the music that's been downloaded, which is nice. And for those who like singing along, lyrics have been added, accessible with a swipe up in the Now Playing screen. If you're not sure what you feel like playing, Apple Music will help you out with its daily curated playlists and the selection of music chosen according to your taste.

Conclusion

Even though we're wrapping things up, there's actually a lot more coming with iOS 10. For example, the clock app reminds you when it is bedtime and tracks your sleep habits, collaborative notes are being added to the Notes app, Maps is getting an overhaul, the Phone app can warn you if an unknown caller is actually spam, the Home app lets you interact with IoT smart products, Apple News is getting subscriptions, many stock applications can be removed, and the list goes on. But even the fraction of iOS 10 changes we covered is enough to back Apple's words – this is going to be the biggest iOS update yet.

You see, we've reached a point where our phones can do so much and they do it really well. Coming up with new ideas – ideas to make phones more practical, more functional, or more fun to use – is becoming increasingly challenging. Yet Apple has not run out of steam yet. It isn't even close, and iOS 10 proves it. The additions brought by the new software aren't just there because we're expecting to see something new in iOS. They're there to make iPhones and iPads truly better.

And for developers, iOS 10 marks the beginning of a new chapter – one where Apple's platform is more open than ever. Having access to Messages, Siri, Phone, and Maps will pave the way for more engaging, more functional apps to enter the App Store.

At the end of the day, iOS 10 is looking really great. Sure, there are tweaks here and there we're not thrilled about, but overall, there's nothing dealbreaking, there's nothing we can't adapt to. That said, feel free to hit that Install button once the Software Update notification comes your way – on September 13.