Rathores blog

From improved core apps to better privacy options, there’s something for everyone.
With more than 200 new features and enhancements, there's a lot to like about iOS 6. Here are a few that hit the right note — well, at least for us.

Safari
Reading List - a feature introduced in iOS 5 that saves webpage links for later perusal - gains the ability to save webpages for offline viewing. Unfortunately, this offline reading feature isn't available for both the iPhone 3GS and the first-generation iPad. For owners of multiple iOS and Mac devices, iCloud Tabs will sync opened tabs to iCloud, and push to all your iOS 6 devices, so that you can pick up where you left off when you go from one device to another. Photo and video uploading can be done right within the browse due to support for common HTML input elements. Also, on the iPad, the maximum number of tabs you can open is now 25.

Mail
If you're afraid of missing email messages from important people (such as your spouse, your boss, or your clients), you can now mark contacts as VIPs. A VIP mailbox will hold all the messages from these people, and it'll sync up with all your other iOS 6 and iCloud-running devices. Mail will also finally get per account signatures (including HTML signatures), the ability to add videos and photos directly in the email, with support for pull-to-refresh. Enterprise users will be glad to know that Mail will now open password-protected Microsoft Office documents. You can also arrange inbox order in iOS6.

Privacy
At the tail end of the Path privacy saga (the popular social networking app was discovered to be secretly transmitting users’ contact information to, Apple stated that "any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release". In iOS 6, in addition to being asked for approval to grant an app access to a particular database, there's a new Privacy tab within Settings. Here, you can find apps that have previously requested access to your contacts, calendars, reminders, and photos data. You can revoke prior granted access, or allow access for an app that you've rejected before via a toggle.

Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb lets you suppress incoming phone rings and audio alerts, even those from apps. You can schedule a recurring time for it to kick in, say between midnight and 6am in the morning, when you're in bed. For more granular control, you can decide which incoming rails shouldn't be silenced (options include everyone, no one, those in your Favorites list, or a specific contact group). There's also a Repeated Calls toggle, which when enabled will allow a second call from the same person within three minutes to ring. The assumption is it must be something important for a person to keep calling you in such a short span of time.

Phone
In iOS 6, you can slide up to reply with a message or remind you to call the person back later. Choosing cither will effectively end the call. For the latter option, you can choose to be reminded lo call the person back in an hour or when you leave the place. You will be given three preset messages to forward but these can be easily written over in Settings > Phone under Reply with Message with your own personal greetings. The basic ones are: “I'll call you later.”, "I m on my way.", and "What's up'?". There are only three messages to choose from with "Custom", leading you to iMessage where you can draft out a personal message to reply to the number.

Passbook
Passbook is Apple’s answer to mobile payment. Think of the new iOS 6 feature as an intelligent mobile wallet of sorts - it stores important shopping-related items like your movie tickets, boarding passes, retail coupons, loyalty cards and credit card information electronically, all accessible in one place. Passhook is dynamic in many ways, take for instance with geo-location support, your iPhone can pull up the correct coupons or cards when you are near the relevant store; hoarding passes or gift cards will automatically update when important information changes. Best yet, Passbook is integrated with your lock screen to ensure that you get notifications almost immediately.

Features For The China Market
With about 10% of Apple’s total revenue in the January-to-March quarter coming from China, it's no wonder iOS 6 has the most number of China-related features of any iOS releases. Apple has added Baidu as a built-in search engine in Safari, support for Youku and Tudou, two of the largest video sharing and hosting websites in China, as well as Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese micro blogging website. Think of the latter as China's equivalent of Twitter and Facebook. Apple also touts improved text input, a new Chinese dictionary, and improved handwriting recognition, alongside an updated Sin that understands Mandarin and Cantonese. The message from Apple to developers is clear: "Get your apps ready for China."