Hi Everyone,
I installed the GM release of iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 and things have been working pretty well for now. For the record, I am not jailbreaking my device for now (though I plan to in order to run My-Wi when I go on vacation next month to share my connection with my MacBook Air).
While iCloud is not enabled yet (I am not a developer) I can't get photo streaming to work, and of course iWork and such won't be updated until the 12th. Since I don't have a compatible iTunes version, Wi-Fi synching is also a no go yet. So those things will resolve themselves soon as the official release launches.
However, I have noticed a few bugs or unexpected changes in the software which look like will be around until at least iOS 5.1. I was thinking maybe we can start a thread to keep track of issues and any workarounds to resolve them.
Here are the issues I've had:
ISSUE 1: When previewing a podcast in iTunes, the minute I lock the phone or go back to the home screen the preview stops playing. This is annoying because I used this to get around the 20MB over 3G limitation when listening to podcasts on the go. (When the phone won't let you download the podcast because its too big, you can still listen to it via the preview button.)
I was typically able to hit the preview button on a 2 hour long podcast, close the screen or even go to another app, and just stream the whole thing over 3G in the background. Now it seems this will be very inconvenient if not impossible to do.
ISSUE 2: For some reason I occasionally get a message that says I am not subscribed to any cellular data service. This is incorrect, obviously. Also, it doesn't seem to impact my ability to get data. (Despite this message coming up in the middle of a browsing session, my websites load as normal and I am able to get e-mail, etc.)
I am hoping this may be resolved with a carrier settings update in the near future.
ISSUE 3: When I tried to play anything in the music app it just wouldn't play. I would select a song, hit play, the button would turn into a pause button but it would be stuck at 0:0. Even if I moved to another point in the song, it would just be stuck on that point and not move. Toggling between Pausing and Playing repeatedly did not help. No songs or podcasts or any audio files would play.
Luckily, this was immediately resolved by just restarting the phone. It only happened once for now, but I am hoping this was just a freak thing and not a recurring problem as it would get annoying to have to restart the phone that often.
Especially if one is relying on a tethered jailbreak, if this issue did come up you'd basically be stuck without being able to play any music on your phone until you got to your computer. That would really suck if you are out on an all day trip.
ISSUE 4: Trouble downloading podcasts. I tried to download a podcast and it would get to about 12KB and get stuck. No movement for a while. Maybe this is just the particular podcast, but I have never seen this happen before and it never happened even on this podcast (well not this specific episode, but same podcast) on iOS 4.X.
Also I noticed a podcast appeared in Music, but when I clicked on play it said I needed to be connected to a Wi-Fi network to play it. I believe this means Music app shows podcasts as available before they have finished downloading. Before, only once a download was finished would it appear as available for listening.
I have double checked this, and this is indeed what happens. As soon as you hit download on a podcast it appears in the Music app as available for listening despite it not finishing to download yet.
ISSUE 5: Battery Life. The battery life is taking some hits due to bugs in the software. I am pretty sure its bugs or glitches because while typically battery life is the same, there are some times when one of the issues mentioned above happens and the battery starts draining quickly.
(I am also not using the reminders app yet, and I know thats been another common complaint regarding its effects on battery)
For example, I tried to download a podcast and it was stuck on 12KB for a while. In just a matter of about 15 minutes the battery went from 100% to 93%. Pretty quick drain. Weird considering that the radios must have been on but no data was being transferred.
Also, at another point in time I had turned the phone off with 98% battery and when I turned it back on I had 96%.
I think that's all the issues I can think of so far. Everyone who is running the iOS 5 GM feel free to chime in!
I also think that Apple should provide a way to disable the 20MB limitation over 3G. I think instead of a prompt saying connect to a Wi-Fi network to download this, there should be a question instead. "This file download is XXX MB big. Would you like to proceed with the download or wait until you are connected to a Wi-Fi network?"
I pay for my data (not unlimited) so if I want to eat up some of that I should be able to rather than be forced to look for a Wi-Fi network.
I installed the GM release of iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 and things have been working pretty well for now. For the record, I am not jailbreaking my device for now (though I plan to in order to run My-Wi when I go on vacation next month to share my connection with my MacBook Air).
While iCloud is not enabled yet (I am not a developer) I can't get photo streaming to work, and of course iWork and such won't be updated until the 12th. Since I don't have a compatible iTunes version, Wi-Fi synching is also a no go yet. So those things will resolve themselves soon as the official release launches.
However, I have noticed a few bugs or unexpected changes in the software which look like will be around until at least iOS 5.1. I was thinking maybe we can start a thread to keep track of issues and any workarounds to resolve them.
Here are the issues I've had:
ISSUE 1: When previewing a podcast in iTunes, the minute I lock the phone or go back to the home screen the preview stops playing. This is annoying because I used this to get around the 20MB over 3G limitation when listening to podcasts on the go. (When the phone won't let you download the podcast because its too big, you can still listen to it via the preview button.)
I was typically able to hit the preview button on a 2 hour long podcast, close the screen or even go to another app, and just stream the whole thing over 3G in the background. Now it seems this will be very inconvenient if not impossible to do.
ISSUE 2: For some reason I occasionally get a message that says I am not subscribed to any cellular data service. This is incorrect, obviously. Also, it doesn't seem to impact my ability to get data. (Despite this message coming up in the middle of a browsing session, my websites load as normal and I am able to get e-mail, etc.)
I am hoping this may be resolved with a carrier settings update in the near future.
ISSUE 3: When I tried to play anything in the music app it just wouldn't play. I would select a song, hit play, the button would turn into a pause button but it would be stuck at 0:0. Even if I moved to another point in the song, it would just be stuck on that point and not move. Toggling between Pausing and Playing repeatedly did not help. No songs or podcasts or any audio files would play.
Luckily, this was immediately resolved by just restarting the phone. It only happened once for now, but I am hoping this was just a freak thing and not a recurring problem as it would get annoying to have to restart the phone that often.
Especially if one is relying on a tethered jailbreak, if this issue did come up you'd basically be stuck without being able to play any music on your phone until you got to your computer. That would really suck if you are out on an all day trip.
ISSUE 4: Trouble downloading podcasts. I tried to download a podcast and it would get to about 12KB and get stuck. No movement for a while. Maybe this is just the particular podcast, but I have never seen this happen before and it never happened even on this podcast (well not this specific episode, but same podcast) on iOS 4.X.
Also I noticed a podcast appeared in Music, but when I clicked on play it said I needed to be connected to a Wi-Fi network to play it. I believe this means Music app shows podcasts as available before they have finished downloading. Before, only once a download was finished would it appear as available for listening.
I have double checked this, and this is indeed what happens. As soon as you hit download on a podcast it appears in the Music app as available for listening despite it not finishing to download yet.
ISSUE 5: Battery Life. The battery life is taking some hits due to bugs in the software. I am pretty sure its bugs or glitches because while typically battery life is the same, there are some times when one of the issues mentioned above happens and the battery starts draining quickly.
(I am also not using the reminders app yet, and I know thats been another common complaint regarding its effects on battery)
For example, I tried to download a podcast and it was stuck on 12KB for a while. In just a matter of about 15 minutes the battery went from 100% to 93%. Pretty quick drain. Weird considering that the radios must have been on but no data was being transferred.
Also, at another point in time I had turned the phone off with 98% battery and when I turned it back on I had 96%.
I think that's all the issues I can think of so far. Everyone who is running the iOS 5 GM feel free to chime in!
I also think that Apple should provide a way to disable the 20MB limitation over 3G. I think instead of a prompt saying connect to a Wi-Fi network to download this, there should be a question instead. "This file download is XXX MB big. Would you like to proceed with the download or wait until you are connected to a Wi-Fi network?"
I pay for my data (not unlimited) so if I want to eat up some of that I should be able to rather than be forced to look for a Wi-Fi network.
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