iOS 6 review

 iOS 6 review

The new version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 6, is not as good as it could be.

When Apple announced iOS 6 at WWDC in San Francisco in June, the headline feature was the new Maps app. Out went Google maps and in came Apple's own, complete with turn-by-turn navigation and an impressive looking 'flyover' mode.

The good news is that those features both work well - though in London, at least, 'flyover' is limited to an area smaller than Zone 1 of the Tube map. Unfortunately, in the version I tested, Apple's Maps are missing places such as railway stations and frequently misplace cafes and restaurants, often putting them streets away from their actual locations.

One location I found is sometimes a florist and at other times a cafe. Occasionally both appear on the map together. Even when they both appear, neither one is in its correct location.

Apple says that Maps is constantly being updated and these anomalies should soon be fixed. It's possible they will have been fixed by the time iOS 6 becomes available later today. Since Maps constantly draws data from the server and is therefore not reliant on an operating system update, the service should continue to improve.

As it is, it's disappointing and makes it impossible to recommend Apple Maps for finding local services. Street navigation appears just fine, though Apple's Maps are still more sparsely populated than the Google Maps they replace. Schools, for instance, and parks often appear on Google but are empty white spaces on Apple Maps.

Siri users will be pleased with the update that Apple's virtual assistant has been given. You can now ask it about films, restaurants and sport results. Perhaps most usefully, it can also now open apps. For me, though, Siri remains a feature that fell out of use about a month after the iPhone 4S came out. I slowly slipped back into my old touchscreen ways and my phone and I haven't really spoken since.

The third major feature is Passbook, a new app that handles tickets, loyalty cards and vouchers, keeping them in one place and using location awareness to deliver them to the lock screen when you need them. It's a clever idea and a good alternative to NFC, which is still limited in its availability but its success will depend on how many companies adopt it and how quickly.

Last year, iOS 5 brought Twitter integration to Apple's mobile operating system. This year, it's Facebook's turn. You can share links to Facebook from right across the OS and add Facebook information to your contacts book - without giving your information to Facebook in return.

There are design improvements across iOS 6. iTunes and the App Store have been redesigned, the iPad has a stylish new Clock app and even the Settings menu has had a tidy. The Bluetooth option has been promoted to the top level in Settings, for example, which will please a lot of people.

My favourite iOS 6 features are the tweaks that make life a little more convenient. It's now possible to send a call direct to voicemail, reply with a text or ask for a reminder to call back, for example.

And iOS 6 adds a Do Not Disturb mode that will turn off interruptions at the flick of a switch or during pre-set hours, such as at night. Of course, you can do that by flicking your phone to silent or just turning it off - the clever bit is in allowing certain calls to come through. So if you're expecting your partner to call to say when they'll be home, you can allow their call to come through but block all other interruptions.

Still, the feature I think I'll use most is iCloud tabs. Being able to push browser tabs between devices - from iPhone to iPad, say, or from iPad to Mac - is very useful and is something I've wanted to do for a while. There are other ways to do that, of course, but once again Apple has made it simple and embedded the feature at the heart of the OS.

A final feature worth mentioning is Shared Photo Streams - an easy way to share a selection of pictures with a group of people. Again, there are plenty of apps that do that now, not least Facebook, but Apple's system has the benefit of being right in the core Photos app and being incredibly simple to use.

There is a lot to be praised in iOS. It remains a stable, solid operating system with the sort of attention to detail for which Apple has become known. However, the highlight features in iOS 6 are underwhelming and, in the case of Maps, worryingly error prone.