iOS 5 beta 7

Finally pulled the trigger and registered on the Apple iOS developer program. First thing I did is, of course, download iOS 5 beta 7 and the required iTunes 10.5 beta 7. As soon as the downloads completed, I extracted the iOS 5 ipsw file and installed iTunes. Since this is the first time I’m installing iOS5, there’s no OTA update, and I had to update via iTunes:

1. Back up iPhone.
2. Restore iPhone. But press and hold the alt key before clicking the Restore button. This will let you select a specific ipsw file.
3. Select the iOS 5 beta 7 ipsw file.
4. Wait for the restore and sync to complete.

iOS 5 generally looks just like iOS 4. There were some minor cosmetic changes here and there but the biggest ones I noticed were:

1. Notification System – Instead of the old pop-up notifications, you can now opt for discreet notification banners that slide down from the top of the screen and quickly slide up. To (re)view pending notifications, there’s a pull-down notification screen. Pending notifications are also viewable on the lock screen. And by sliding (to unlock) the particular notification, you directly go to and access the notification in its corresponding app.
2. Widgets – The lock screen can also hold widgets, though right now there’s only the Weather and Stocks widgets. I’m pretty sure Apple will let app developers come up with widget extensions soon enough.
3. Browser – There’s now “Reader” full-screen feature accessible on the address bar. In addition, there’s open link “in background”. Which means to say open a new tab and stay in the current tab (as opposed to open a new tab and automatically go to new tab). Finally, there’s  “Reading List” which is a cloud-based bookmark.
4. iMessage – the SMS app is now iMessage. It is a text messaging platform over data that works on iOS devices (for now). It will default to SMS when it is not available to you or the other party.
5. Camera –  The camera app can now be accessed directly from the lock screen. And you can take a shot by pressing the + button. There’s also a switchable grid to help in framing photos.
6. Photos – You can now create and delete albums. You can add photos across albums. There’s also basic photo editing (rotate, enhance, red-eye removal, and crop). I’m not about to delete PS Express though.
7. iCloud – Store  mail, contacts, etc in the cloud.
8. Twitter Integration – You can tweet directly from Apple’s built-in apps.

All pretty good and much-needed enhancements. Supposedly there are more enhancements in the final that were not included in the public beta. Can’t wait!