Last minute iOS rumors – BBM style messaging, widgets, and new lockscreen

Mon, Jun 6, 2011

News

Some last minute iOS 5 rumors are flying in and they’re interesting to say the least.

Joshua Topolsky, formerly of Engadget and now with This Is My Next has the inside skinny on what looks to be some serious and welcome iOS improvements.

First off is messaging.

The word is that Apple is readying its own MMS / SMS protocol which will be a native part of the phone. We’re not entirely clear on how this would work, but apparently it will be able to automatically identify iOS users and route the message accordingly. We’re told the functionality would be similar to third party applications like Textie, but with less fuss. If this pans out, both carriers and the folks in Waterloo should be very concerned about their ownership of messaging. This would be a game changing addition to the platform.

Then there are notifications. Corroborating a slew of recent rumors and mock-ups, Toposky’s source relays that notifications in iOS 5 will be in the form of a non-obtrusive drop down located on top of the screen – which not surprisingly is how they’re done in MobileNotifier, the developer of which Apple snatched up a few weeks ago. “The actual [notification] window, Topolsky writes, “looks more like a white, gradient Growl notification.”

As for accessing notifications once they’ve been dismissed, iOS 5 will reportedly feature a new gesture that lets users swipe from the top of the screen downwards to pull up the notification window. But in addition to housing notification information, the window will also be a place where users can store widgets like weather and stock information.

And one iOS improvement that’s been desired and rumored to be in the works for some time now is a revamped lock screen. The new lock screen will reportedly display notifications. To the left of each notification will be an app icon that if swiped to the right, will take you directly to that app and the corresponding notification.

Keynote time is less than an hour away!  Tension builds..

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