WWDC 2011 kicked off yesterday with Steve Jobs taking the stage as usual. Sadly, there wasn’t a new iPhone announced (because I’m waiting to replace mine). Nevertheless, I’m still looking forward to iOS 5. Here’s some of the features I thought were great:

1. Notification Center

I think this has been on everyone’s wishlist for a really long time. If you have no time to respond to the missed calls or SMSes, notifications are now shown on the lock screen so you can see what you’ve missed at a glance.

2. Camera Quick Access

I cannot stress how much I (am going to) love this feature! Because I’m paranoid, I have a complex password setup (which consists of numbers, letters and symbols) on my iPhone. By the time I unlock my phone, the moment is lost – it has happened so many times before. I hope the shortcut would still be available with a passcode set (and yet prevent unauthorized access to my photos).

3. Split Keyboard (iPad)

It’s really difficult to type on the iPad while holding it with both hands. Split keyboard allows you to thumb-type, it seems. I’d have to try this for myself.

4. Safari Reading List

I have been using Read It Later and it’s been really good. I’m not sure if Safari’s Reading List can be saved for offline reading, but having a “Read Later” button there would be really handy. I use Read It Later via a bookmarklet and it always takes a while to load the Javascript file from their servers.

5. iMessage

I use SMS more than I call on my phone. Currently, WhatsApp fills this void for me, and it has been doing a great job so far. The problem is, it doesn’t allow you to use it on the iPad. Even if it did, my chat history would be all over the place. Let’s hope iMessage can do a better job.

 

[Images from apple.com]