Apple’s iOS 5 – New Notifications, Twitter Integration and Widgets

iOS 5 Notifications Photo

iOS 5 Notifications Photo

Unlike previous WWDC keynote events where Apple would announce next gen iPhone this year the company is focussing on software. iOS 5, the next generation software update for iOS devices, will be previewed during Steve Jobs keynote later today.

It is widely believed that Apple will completely revamp the current obtrusive notification system with something which is more elegant and user friendly. The company may have hired Peter Hajas the developer of a popular jailbreak tweak which replaces Apple’s notification system with an unobtrusive way of showing and managing notifications below the status bar.

Now, TechCrunch has published a photo of what they believe could be the new notification system in iOS 5. The publication later updated their post saying that according to their sources its the “right idea”.

Notifications that come down from the top bar could be how Apple ends up doing things in iOS 5. After all, this would mimic already existing functionality — when tethering, a blue strip appears along the top; when on the phone, it’s a green strip. Might notifications (or at least Twitter notifications) produce a gray strip?

Twitter integration is expected to be major part of the keynote event. The new image upload service announced by the social networking site is believed to be tied to photos app on iOS devices natively. If rumors about Twitter being integrated at system level turn out to be true then we could be seeing much deeper integration and not just limited to uploading photos.

Robert Scoble recently shared that he has actual knowledge about iOS 5 and Twitter integration and expects it to be “huge”.

Next week will be a huge week for those of us who have lived on Twitter for last few years. Apple is building Twitter in deeply into iOS 5.

Going by what Apple thinks about processes running in the background it would be unlikely for the company to introduce widgets which require constant connection to stay updated. However, the rumor mill has been consistently speculating that widgets would indeed make its appearance in iOS 5.

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