iOS Operating System

You know how to use iPhone from the first time you pick it up. That’s because the revolutionary Multi-Touch interface in iOS was designed for your finger. And the simple, beautiful Home screen is the easiest place to start. From built-in apps to over 500,000 apps available from the App Store. From making a FaceTime call to editing a video with iMovie. Everything you touch is easy, intuitive, and fun.

Over 200 new features.

The features included with iOS 5 make iPhone even more powerful, innovative, and fun to use. Here are just a few. Learn more about iOS 5

Notification Center

It’s the one place where you’ll see what’s up. iPhone works with your apps to let you know about missed messages, calendar invitations, friend requests, and more. New notifications appear discreetly at the top of your screen. And you can see a summary of recent notifications when you swipe down from the top of any screen.
Learn more about Notification Center

Messages with iMessage

Now you can text it up with fellow iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users running iOS 5. Messages with iMessage are unlimited.¹ And secure, too. Talk to all your friends or family at once with group messaging. See who’s reading with delivery and read receipts. And if words aren’t enough, send photos, videos, locations, and contacts.
Learn more about Messages

Reminders

You’ll never miss an important deadline, errand, or grocery item thanks to Reminders. Create lists of things to do that you can check off as you go. Even add due dates and locations — pick up mustard at the store after work, for example. Reminders knows exactly when and where to send you an alert.
Learn more about Reminders

Twitter Integration

Twitter is integrated into iOS 5, so you can sign in once under Settings and begin tweeting directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, and Maps. You can even start typing a friend’s Twitter handle and iOS will autocomplete the rest from your contacts.

Photos

Touch up photos right on your iPhone — without the help of photo editing software on a computer. Crop, rotate, enhance, and remove red-eye. Then organize your shots into albums, so you know exactly where your favorites are when the next photo-sharing opportunity presents itself.
Learn more about Photos

Camera Enhancements

Here’s a photo op for your photo ops. Now you can access the Camera app right from the Lock screen. Use grid lines and pinch-to-zoom gestures to get your shot just right. Focus with a tap. Then press the volume-up button and take your photo.
Learn more about Camera

The world’s largest collection of mobile apps.

With thousands of apps in practically every category, iOS is the platform for the world’s largest collection of mobile apps. Apple gives third-party developers a rich set of tools and APIs, and they’ve created apps and games that redefine what a mobile device can do. Where do you find these apps? Just browse the App Store on your iPhone and download them with a tap.
Learn more about apps from the App Store

Performance and stability that lead the industry.

iOS is a desktop-class operating system that’s been reinvented for mobile devices. Because it’s based on the world’s most advanced computer operating system — OS X — performance in iOS is fast and stability is rock-solid. It manages power efficiently and delivers outstanding battery life. iOS even ensures that performance and battery life don’t suffer when you’re multitasking with multiple apps open at the same time.

Hardware and software made for each other.

Because Apple makes both the iPhone hardware and the operating system, everything works together seamlessly and intelligently. This integration enables apps to take full advantage of iPhone hardware features such as the Retina display, the Multi-Touch interface, the accelerometer, the three-axis gyro, accelerated graphics, and more. FaceTime is a perfect example. It uses both iPhone cameras, the display, the microphone, and your Wi-Fi connection.
Learn more about iPhone features

Multi-Touch technology.

You already know how to use iPhone, because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. Nobody does Multi-Touch better than Apple.

Really long battery life.

The power-efficient A5 chip and iOS 5 deliver outstanding battery life. So you can keep making calls, checking email, and browsing the web.

Safe and secure by design.

iOS is highly secure from the moment you turn on your iPhone. All apps run in a safe environment, so a website or app can’t access data from other apps. iOS also supports encrypted network communication to protect your sensitive information. To guard your privacy, apps requesting location information are required to get your permission first. You can set a passcode lock to prevent unauthorized access to your device and configure iPhone to delete all your data after too many unsuccessful passcode attempts. And in case your iPhone is lost or stolen, Find My iPhone allows you to locate it on a map and remotely delete all your data. When you get it back, you can restore everything from your last backup.²

It comes with built-in parental controls.

Parental controls built into iOS help you manage just about everything your child can do on iPhone. Set custom restrictions for Safari, Camera, FaceTime, Game Center, YouTube, Location Services, and more. Even manage access to stuff you’ve already purchased from the iTunes Store and App Store.

Ready for business.

Businesses around the world are choosing iPhone for its enterprise-ready features and powerful security. iOS works with Microsoft Exchange and standards-based servers to deliver over-the-air push email, calendar, and contacts. iOS protects your data by encrypting information in three separate areas: in transmission, at rest on the device, and when backed up to iTunes. You can securely access private corporate networks through industry-standard VPN protocols. And companies can easily deploy iPhone across an enterprise using configuration profiles.

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Accessibility built in.

iOS comes standard with a wide range of accessibility features that help people with disabilities experience everything iPhone has to offer. For example, the built-in VoiceOver screen-reading technology allows those who are blind or have low vision to hear a description of the item they’re touching on the screen. iOS also offers out-of-the-box support for over 30 wireless braille displays and many other award-winning accessibility features, such as dynamic screen magnification, playback of closed-captioned video, mono audio, white on black text, and more.
Learn more about accessibility and iPhone

Works all over the world.

iPhone and iOS are made to be used around the world. The user interface is localized into over 30 languages, and you can easily switch between them. Because the keyboard is software-based, you can select from over 50 different layouts with support for language-specific features including diacritic marks on characters, handwritten input for Chinese, and contextual character options for Japanese. In addition, the built-in dictionaries support over 50 languages, VoiceOver reads screens in 36 languages, and Voice Control understands over 20 languages.