Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation were one of the main selling points for Android in US and couple of more countries. Even if you liked iOS more, free satnav could change your mind. Enter Apple Maps. It will not just take part of Google's revenue from maps, but also from Android sales, at least in US.
What I'm missing from announcement is availability by country. I really hope that Apple goes worldwide with this; that will finally push Google to do the same, adding vector maps and full offline mode on the way. Until then, I'm stuck with quirky Navfree.
Facebook integration is nothing to write home about. Due to different concept of iOS, such integrations are done at OS level (more about that in the near future). On Android sharing with anything exists for a long time and, thanks to intent concept, it is really easy to add new services. Address book integration exists since 4.0, but Facebook doesn't provide one. Google+ integration is, as you could imagine, full featured, while LinkedIn provides just people data and no status updates in address book. Facebook and Twitter on iOS is actually not much, but as those are the most popular social apps, it will be enough for most people. I just hope that big news for iOS 7 won't be LinkedIn integration.
I can't say much about Siri improvements; there is no Croatian version and those tools are too sensitive to foreign accent. I like the Rotten Tomatoes integration, though. It is always my first stop to check how good is the movie.
Replying to phone call with custom text message is also already seen on ICS. I really like "Remind me" option for missed calls, but it's pity I can't both reply with text message and be reminded. On Android, some task managers can integrate with telephony and offer to create new task based on call. Any.do will do.
"Do not Disturb" is nice feature, especially combined with VIP numbers. I find just turning it on and off a bit oversimplified. I'm using Llama for the same purpose, but there I can define that I would like to turn quiet mode at night, but only if I'm at home, or early afternoon during weekend when kids are sleeping. If I'm on the meeting, I can switch to quiet for the assumed length of meeting so I don't forget to switch it off, and if I'm neither at home or work I want it loud. As you probably already figure out, I prefer power over simplicity.
As my wallet gets bloated with cards and phone bloated with apps, I can appreciate application like Passbook. It can reduce clutter in both cases. Apple can probably get decent numbers of partners on board, but without making it open standard, I'm not sure it will gain much popularity.
iOS 6 provides many fine and useful features. However, I don't see much invention and out-of-the-box thinking here. Be it in OS or apps, most features exist on both platforms. Quite boring for tech lover like myself. I'm still hoping that Windows phone will shake the market a bit. This should happen at the same time as Android tablets become popular.
Photo credit: Apple
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