iOS 9: Stability, Smarter Siri, and a Better iPad Experience

Apple announced iOS 9 at WWDC 2015 on June 8, 2015 and it was post officially released on September 16, 2015. After years of more significant feature-based updates, Apple designed iOS 9 to fundamentally change the way iPads and iPhones interact and introduce new technologies like split-screen multitasking; meanwhile, all the underlying work would not only be complete but improved on the iPhone.

More importantly, iOS 9 runs on all devices that were able to run iOS 8 back in the day, even going so far as to include older hardware like the iPhone 4s and iPad 2—four-year-old devices at launch. All of this broad compatibility highlighted Apple is spending some with efficiency and the idea of providing value people are paying for.

Performance And Efficiency: Less Is Assuredly More

Apple has made sure that iOS 9 runs better and faster on older devices, in fact they are calling this a major performance update.

The teardown is just under 1GB smaller than it was in iOS 8 (4.6 GB vs. 5.6GB on iOS 8)

Especially on older iPhones and iPads, app launch times, multitasking and responsiveness were all significantly better.

Low Power Mode has remained something of a curiosity, too: when iOS 9 appeared users found it could eke an extra three hours out of battery life through changes in the background and visual effects shown.

The result was iOS 9, one of the best iPhone software releases in years, with an emphasis on performance and longevity.

Siri and Search Becomes More Proactive: Intelligence Mainstream

On the new types of contextual assistance that were blooming in 2015, provides detail on approaches (i.e., intelligent and proactive Siri/Spotlight) : With iOS 9 Apple began moving towards smarter systems similar to those showing up across disparate platforms.

Siri ~ For the first time, it was possible to change suggestions from Siri, who could also now make app recommendations for you with contacts, calendar events and news based on your usage patterns.

Deeper app indexing and third-party app results also made search a more significant feature.

Siri also got some new features, including

“Remind me of this” (Safari, Mail).

Simply find photos or videos: by date, location, or album

This was an early step towards more context-aware, on-device assistant with user privacy in mind.

The iPad Multitasking New Epoch of Productivity

iOS 9 brought transformative multitasking features for iPad, particularly the Air 2 and newer:

Slide Over — simultaneously set up a second app in panel without exiting the current app.

Split View: Run two compatible apps simultaneously—only available with iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, and the new iPad Pro

Picture-in-Picture (PiP)Shrink videos or FaceTime calls into a movable window for people to continue playback while using other apps.

These are the features that made iPad into a more powerful productivity device, and laid the future of iPadOS.

Notes: A Major Upgrade

The Notes app got a complete overhaul, turning it into the most powerful note-taking app ever built for iOS.

From then on users could sketch with their finger, add checklists, insert photos and attach web links or maps.

Notes added rich text editing and a new attachment browser.

Content was always in sync across devices with seamless iCloud syncing.

This turned Notes into a proper competitor to third-party apps such as Evernote or Google Keep.

Maps: Transit Directions Arrive

Transit directions are Transit routing made an enormous difference to the usability of Apple Maps:

The cities that it was initially available in offered train, subway, and bus routes with station layouts and entrances/exits information.

Apple also included a Nearby function that would help users find local restaurants, stores, and gas stations based on where they were.

You’ll find that this brought Apple Maps one step closer to complete urban navigational feature parity with Google Maps.

News App: A New Way to Read

Apple News is an app that debuted with iOS 9, replacing Newsstand.

Meaning, it took content from popular sources and curated them into clean magazine style.

Leveraged on-device intelligence to tailor stories as per users interests and reading patterns.

Featured mobile-optimized rich media, animations, and interactivity.

The News app was Apple’s opening salvo in the realm of content aggregation, and while initially available only in the U.Smscorlib it later expanded into a handful of additional countries.

Mobile Payments: Apple Pay and Wallet Take Two

Passbook was renamed Wallet, and Apple Pay can now be used with store-branded credit cards, loyalty programs, and rewards cards.

APPLE PAY Apple Pay: expanded to multiple markets, supported by more banks and merchants.

Wallet took center stage in the mobile payment and identity experience.

Security and Privacy

Important privacy and security improvements, unveiled with iOS 9.

Enhancements for two-factor authentication (2FA) were made, making it mandatory to prove the user identity when logging into a device.

Apps Got More iCloud Drive-ier, with Better User Permission granularity

Devices with Touch ID were made to use six-digit passcodes instead of four.

Apple threw a spotlight on privacy by having all proactive features and Siri suggestions processed 100% on-device

Other Notable Features

QuickType keyboard: Shortcuts for cut, copy and paste, as well as a ‘trackpad mode’ on the iPad when typing.

Third-party apps and messaging came to CarPlay.

It also made incremental part completion and features for handoff/continuity, the ability to seamlessly work across your iOS and macOS devices, much better.

iOS 9. x Updates: Gradual Improvements

What’s New In iOS 9.1: Live Photos, Apple News to UK and More!

iOS 9.2: Additional speed enhancements, Apple Music gains you ask for

iOS 9.3 was the last big update to iOS that Apple issued, which brought features like Night Shift, Touch ID for Notes, a Classroom app for teachers and multi-user support on iPads for educators.

iOS 9.3.5 — A security patch to close a loophole that allowed Pegasus spyware to infect iPhones.

In Summary

IPIOS 9 — the increment that would turbo-charge every iPhone this side of inception. It brought a robust multitasking solution to iPad, improved Siri and Search, realigned core apps like Notes and Maps on the right paths, and laid important privacy groundwork for machine learning features that would eventually become iOS tentpoles. Nothing sexy, but vital — returning stability, intelligence and sanity to iOS development.