IOS 10

Well, I updated my iPhone 5s, which I'm looking to replace in near future for the iPhone SE, not the 6-series or new 7-series because I don't like or want the larger size as I have an iPad Air, and I updated the iPad Air (1st version) to IOS 10.

I suspect IOS 10 is the last version for these devices, as Apple seems to drop the oldest models with new IOS upgrades. My original iPad (still working, but mostly a file backup) has long been obsolete with IOS versions (last IOS 5).

Onward with the story. This was probably the most frustrating upgrade I've had, not because upgrades often change user settings forcing you to walk through all the settings and reset them, if you remember what those were, but because of user functionality.

The first thing you notice is the new way to unlock the device, not through just a swipe but touching the Home button twice (once to wake it up and another to get the login screen). This takes time to remember, because a swipe right now brings the widgets.

And those widgets, something set for you by default and you can edit them. I removed all of them since I don't use that screen. I also don't use the pull down (from top) or up (from bottom) of screen for access to those features.

In short, I'm a curmudgeon who uses the apps. I don't need the shortcuts or summary screens, I just open the app I want. I still haven't gotten the 5s to recognize my fingerprint. It worked the first time for a few times and then never again, even removing and adding the same fingerprint back.

This measn I use the passcode. Anyway, after that there was the new icon (Home) for stuff Apple or somebody wants to sell, but I moved to the last page where I put all the used Apple icons in two folders. The good news is that you can now remove the former Apple apps, so I removed over half of them.

That done, all the apps worked as they have except Apple Music which is Apple's long-standing practice to screw it up everytime with the first version of any new IOS version, and true to form they did a masterful job in many ways.

First, it didn't display the picture for 21 of the 35 artists in the artist list, but it did show all the album artwork. In addition the user interface and functionality also sucks. I'm not sure what they're thinking how people use Music, but this design isn't it for me.

But that's not the worst of it. It's what Apple did with the library that really sucks. I had IOS 9 set for displaying only the music in the device, not any in the iCloud (none there anyway since I don't share my iTunes with Apple) and not any in iTunes.

The upgrade adds all the albums you've purchased from the iTunes store and adds them to catalog with the button to download them if you want. Why? I have them in iTunes, but that's another problem they have between iTunes and IOS Music.

To remove unwanted albums you have to do them individually, and yes, it took an hour to go through and remove all the albums not actually on the device, and get it back to the catalog I had with IOS 9. This really sucks on their part to assume what users want than asking or add a setting.

They did this by removing the control to restrict albums to just those on the device. Now it's all through the iCloud, which is the other problem. I don't use iCloud for backups or music, it's all done through iTunes.

But they broke that connection, and adding or removing songs in iTunes catalog for a device doesn't coordinate with IOS Music in the device. When I removed all the music (the sync button in iTunes), it didn't work. I had to remove all the music in Music on the device and reload through iTunes.

This is a problem Apple has to solve as many users still rely on iTunes to manage the content and music on their device(s). This may have been an initial problem which resolves itself, something I'm still testing adding or removing individual albums.

The good side of this was that I don't keep any music, or didn't, until the upgrade on my iPad. For some really stupid reason the upgrade to IOS 10 on the iPad duplicated the music catalog on the iPhone, so I had to manually remove all the albums from the iPad catalog.

I learned the music isn't really there on the iPad Air, it's only about 100 MB (it's 6 GB's on the iPhone) of just images and probably links to something, but not acutal music files. I have the setting in iTunes to not sync music with the iPad Air, but apparently Apple ignores that now.

It seems Apple wants you to do everything through the iCloud so they can see and control it, for you of course (great selling point about the accessing it anywhere), but it takes control away from you. Now I have add to the test adding and/or removing albums on iPhone to see if it's duplicated on the iPad Air.

Anyway, all the rest of IOS 10 seems innocuous to me, or doesn't interfer with anything I do with either device, so far anyway, but I'm sure I'll learn more and get just as angry with Apple as with the initial upgrade.

And yes, I'll keep ya'll posted.