Day 131 - IOS 9.3, is it really Worth the Download? - Quentin Inglis - BHS Sophomore

This post originally appeared on the blog of BHS Help Desk student Quentin Inglis. 

IOS 9.3 has been released and comes with many new features. Apple’s Classroom app was also announced recently.Each have their benefits which will significantly make many things easier. Pros, however, always come with cons. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of IOS 9.3 and then what Classroom has to offer.

Pros of IOS 9.3

IOS 9.3 adds a multitude of new features such as Night Shift and Notes lock and improvements to Apple Music and News. News is more customizable and lets you add a song to a playlist without saving it to your library in Apple Music.

Night Shift

Night Shift is very cool in the fact that it makes it so that when looking at your device at night, the blue light the device emits turns to orange, which is a lot more gentle on one’s eyes. The normal blue light emitted from the screen interferes with the brain’s ability to fall asleep; that’s why you can’t have a good night’s sleep when you’re on you’re device right before bed. This feature emits an orange light which does not interfere with the brain. The screen does not have an orange tint, your eyes adjust after a few seconds to see it normally. I myself have tested this out and I really like this new feature, seeing as though I use my phone a lot at night and in the early morning

Notes Lock

Have you ever noticed how unprotected the Notes app is? It can hold all your sensitive information and anyone can look at it if they have your phone. Well if this concerns you, download 9.3 because it introduces Note Lock. Notes Lock is connected with Touch ID and allows the user to set a fingerprint lock or password on their Notes to keep private information private. Now you can safely keep your bank account information or SS number or anything you want in your Notes app because of Notes Lock. I tested locking and unlocking notes in the app and it does work very well. You can lock specific notes and keep them unlocked if need be. This feature is very cool and I will definitely be using this in the future.

Cons of IOS 9.3

The cons are very small but very annoying. There are a multitude of bugs concerning Safari and other applications. Your device may power off at random times and apps may crash quite frequently. Links do not work most of the time and your device can freeze temporarily due to these bugs. I have had trouble with these bugs while attempting to surf the web to find out what bugs there are which is very ironic.

Final Verdict

I believe that IOS 9.3 is definitely worth a download but not right now. I would wait until IOS 9.3.1 drops so the bugs are patched and everything is safe because the bugs are very annoying right now. I rate this update 3.5/5 because of the multitude of bugs and little things wrong with it. I love the new features such as Night shift and Notes Lock but the bugs are overwhelming.

See Night Shift and Notes Lock in Action

Below is a brief screencast, created by Quentin, on how Night Shift and the Notes Lock features work. This is a great tutorial for anyone who uses an iPhone.