iOS 5 To Feature New Notification System and Widgets?

Apple has been long rumored to be working on a better notification system for iOS. We’ve reported on various rumors and reports which suggest that the next major software update, iOS 5, will indeed revamp current notifications.

Push notifications introduced as a part of iPhone OS 3.0 turned out to be a great way to maintain persistent IP connection to the phone and let third-party developers ping Apple’s notification server to send you alerts. However, as more and more developers adopted the notification system it was clear that iOS now required a “notification manager”.

If you receive a notification the current version of iOS requires you to take action right at that moment or else you won’t be able to see what the notification was about. Of-course the app icon will put on a badge so that you can take action later but this isn’t the most efficient manner in which notifications could be handled.

Android OS has been repeatedly praised for offering a better way to handle notifications not just relating to third party apps but also include app updates, SMS alerts and more.

If the latest rumors are to be believed then we can be sure about Apple finally responding to customer requests for a better way to manage notifications in iOS 5. According to a new report published by TechCrunch Apple intends to offer a “completely revamped” notifications system and include “widgets” too.

We believe that a better notification system could certainly be in the works but we are not entirely convinced about widgets. Apple’s focus has always been to provide good battery life while making sure that users get the best performance. So, unless Apple engineers have come up with a unique way to let users access widgets without compromising on battery life and CPU performance the support for widgets would certainly have to wait.

Many users and designers have posted their ideas and concepts for Apple’s notification system and widgets. Jan-Michael Cart recently released his version and posted the concept video on YouTube:

iOS 5 is also rumored to feature deeper voice integration by utilizing Nuance’s voice recognition technology and Siri’s AI based search capabilities.

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