Changes to iOS’s default look were something I’d hoped for, and the changes Apple made actually exceeded my expectations. Read on to see why.

Redesigned apps

Music

The music app has been completely redesigned in iOS 6, echoing the changes made to the iPad music app in iOS 5. The main browsing interface has a white theme, but the now playing interface is still black. The play/pause and skip buttons have been redesigned as well. Another change is the sliders for volume and progress, which use white and black instead of silver and blue. Also, the chrome effect for slider knobs will actually rotate as you tilt the device, which is a nice detail.

Phone

The keypad in the phone app has been changed to better match iOS’s new default theme. It uses a white color instead of the dark blue from iOS 5. The buttons have also been redesigned with lighter colors and a more three-dimensional look.

Reminders

You can now set priority for reminders and add notes to them. Notes will apear below the reminder in a smaller font. Reminders can also be reordered manually by hitting the Edit button. Last, you now have to swipe on the title of a reminder list to switch to another one instead of just anywhere on the list, and the dots to indicate which list you’re on are gone.

Game Center

Game Center can now plug into Facebook and recommend people from your friends list who also have Game Center. You can also now challenge players to beat your scores, and there’s a new challenges tab where you can see them.

Weather and Camera

The weather app has a new design with a flatter look and a subtle gradient running through it. The Camera app has a black toolbar at the bottom instead of the grey one from iOS 5.

Other changes

• If you watched the keynote, you may have noticed that the status bar was blue in a lot of the apps Apple showed. This isn’t the new color for the status bar, however. Instead, the status bar changes color depending on the color of an app’s toolbar. Rdio’s toolbar is bright blue, so the status bar changes to reflect that. Developers can override this behavior, it seems, as Safari uses a black status bar (which is another change).
• The share dialogue has been redesigned, and works much the same as the ones already in Garageband and iPhoto for iOS. Instead of a list, a grid of icons is shown, similar to the home screen. Also, sharing to messages, Facebook and Twitter have been added.
• The App Store now has Genius, but it isn’t working in the current beta so I can’t tell you much about how it works. Genius, as you’ll recall, is Apple’s intelligent recommendation service built into iTunes and the music app. Bringing it to the App Store makes sense as an alternative to browsing.
• iOS will stop correcting words not in the standard dictionary if you cancel the correction often enough. The word will instead be added to your personal dictionary and synced over iCloud.
• Apps downloaded from the App Store will now display a “new” badge until you launch them the first time.
• When you slide on a notification in the lock screen, the app zooms into view instead of just appearing.
• Notification Center can now show you Amber Alerts and other emergency alerts for your area.
• Spotlight will now tell you which folder an app is in when you search for it, which makes it easier to find.
• The search bar in Safari simply says “Search” instead of “Google,” yet another dig at the company.

Unfortunately, only registered developers have access to the iOS 6 beta, so most of our readers won’t be able to run it and take a look at the pending changes for themselves. We’ve got you covered, though, and we will continue to write about the impending changes as Apple adds them until the new software is released this fall.

Which changes are you most excited for in iOS 6? Tell us in the comments. 

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There’s only one difference between the old Smart Cover and new Smart Case, aside from the name, of course. The case is exactly that: A case. Unlike the old cover, which simply covers the display, the Smart Case adds protection for the back of the iPad. That’s important because I find it relatively easy to scratch up the iPad’s back as I’m constantly putting it down on its backside.

The new SmartCase is made from polyurethane in six colors — Light Gray, Dark Gray, Blue, Green, Pink and (PRODUCT) Red — and has cut-outs for the rear camera, headphone jack, mute button and external microphone port. The case covers the volume rocker and power button much like Apple’s iPhone bumper case does the same for iPhones. At no extra charge, Apple will custom engrave the back of the Smart Case, which works on both the iPad 2 and the new iPad.

Although I tend to keep my new iPad in a bedside clock / dock, the new Smart Case might be on my shopping list. After all, the iPad’s not just for use in bed, even though that’s where I tend to enjoy occasional web browsing, gaming and video consumption on Apple’s tablet.

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The mobile App Store app’s design was getting a little long in the tooth, so it’s good to see that in the developer preview of iOS 6 that Apple has done some major polishing.

Instead of the list view of featured apps, for instance, the new app stacks app categories and allows horizontal scrolling. It also replaces the darker, two-tone gray theme with a lighter gray, which gives it a much fresher look. In the picture above you might notice that the new App Store (right) bears a somewhat passing resemblance to app discovery service Appsfire‘s design of its app, though to be fair, Apple’s new app now also looks and feels a whole lot more like the desktop version of the App Store.

The bigger question is, besides design and usability features, what has Apple done to improve search and discovery? Apple scooped up mobile app discovery service Chomp in February, which gave many app shoppers hope Apple would have a more useful take on app discovery. With more than 650,000 apps available for download, sifting through those to find what you want can be a chore. This difficulty has in turn given rise to a category of services designed to mitigate this problem (subscription required), and Chomp was one of them.

One new thing seems to be a better presentation of related apps that pops up when you’re looking at a particular app, as you can see to the right. It seems more Amazon-like in recommending other apps that the same people bought. And Facebook’s integration with the App Store is also a way of serving up recommendations from friends: when a friend “likes” an app in the App Store, that’ll show up in your Facebook feed.

But is that it? Chomp helps in searching for apps by scouring app reviews and rankings, as well as blog and social media mentions to find the best of a type of app you’ve searched for, and it doesn’t appear that any of that is integrated into the new App Store app. The final version of iOS 6 doesn’t arrive until the fall, so let’s hope there’s more coming.

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When Apple announced a system-level integration with Facebook this morning, I uttered a silent groan and cursed under my breath. On Twitter, I was more polite. “Not so thrilled by the Facebook integration into the new IOS 6.0. I wonder what are the privacy precautions to deal with Facebook,” I wondered out loud.

I just don’t want Facebook constantly tracking me and I don’t want any information leaking especially on my iPhone. Perturbed, I tried to get more details on the integration from Apple. Here is what I understand about how it works – when using the system-level single sign-on, when you want to share something via Facebook, the system logs you into Facebook, shares whatever you want to share — a link, a video, a photo or whatever — and then logs you out.

You still need to go to the browser to login to Facebook (if you don’t enable auto-login). The contact and calendar data is shared only after you approve the sharing and also is a process that doesn’t allow constant sharing. In addition, there is no information being leaked from the system, I was assured. Apparently this is also how Twitter’s system level integration works.

However, despite all those assurances, I feel a little queasy by this partnership. I think am just going to skip the whole single sign-on option – I simply don’t trust Facebook. As someone on Twitter said: “Its an ideological mismatch: one company cares about users vs the other doesn’t. FB’s founder/management are careless w privacy.”

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A couple of those things made my eyes light up during this morning’s presentation, and the common theme is that all of them turn small annoyances into small delights. When you add them up, those features can create an easier, more enjoyable user experience. Here are the things in iOS 6 that I think are going to have an immediate, positive effect on my day-to-day use of my iPhone or iPad.

PassBook: a traveler’s BFF

I have serious love for this specific feature because it will make travel just slightly less painful. Here’s how it normally goes when I book a flight (and many of you know this routine well): open up the email from United with my mobile boarding pass, take a screenshot on my phone. At the front of the security line, I fumble around while finding the photo in my Photostream, hold it up to the scanner — wait a couple seconds, re-rotate my phone because the image has inevitably rotated from landscape to portrait — then get in line where I hope not to be sent through one of those X-ray scanning machines of death. And then this is all repeated when I actually board the plane.

What Apple has done with PassBook is make a depository for all my mobile travel documents. Any mobile boarding pass I download will automatically show up there — no hunting around for it. And even more conveniently, it’s location-sensitive. So when I’m at the airport, the boarding pass will pop up on my phone’s lock screen. The information in PassBook isn’t static either: If the gate information changes, it’ll alert me and reflect the change in the PassBook boarding pass. It’s not clear yet if availability will vary by airline, or if it will be universal.

This isn’t limited to air travel: Apple says it also can include Amtrak passes, which is convenient, since our nation’s train system is rolling out mobile boarding passes across its routes this summer.

SVP of iOS Software Scott Forstall at WWDC on Monday.

And while I’m particularly stoked about what it means for travel, PassBook is for more than that. It functions the same way for movie tickets as it does travel tickets and keeps track of membership and loyalty cards as well as some gift cards, like Starbucks mobile cards, which will reflect updated balances after use.

Calling it PassBook makes it sound like a place where you keep your money, but it’s not a payment system — though it certainly opens up some possibilities. It’s not clear Apple IF is on the NFC payment bandwagon, but at the very least, the company seems to be reserving the right to do some sort of iWallet someday.

Transit apps in featured maps

Speaking of travel, there are several cool things about Apple’s new maps application. But the decision to feature transit apps within maps is really smart. It’s not quite clear how it will be implemented, but Forstall said that Apple wasn’t going to build its own public transit apps. Instead, if I’m looking to see when the next BART train is arriving in San Francisco, it will suggest the iOS apps that will give me that information. If you live in SF, you very likely already have an app for this. But if you’re just in town for a trip, it’s something that makes Maps that much more useful. And for app discovery, it’s an interesting way of highlighting new travel-related apps outside of the App Store.

Email: attach photos, pull to refresh

These fall into the category of so-obvious-you-can’t-believe-it-wasn’t-there-before features. How many times have you started composing an email on your iPhone or iPad and realized you wanted to attach a photo? Naturally, I think of this after I’ve written a few paragraphs and have to grudgingly copy the email, open up Photos, select the photo I want, click “email photo,” re-address the email, paste my text in, and send. But not anymore! In iOS 6 you can attach photos into the email you’re composing. It’s so simple, but it removes a legitimate hassle.

And in another small tweak to email, Apple has taken a page from its friends at Twitter: You no longer have to reach across the screen with your thumb (assuming you’re right handed) to click the refresh arrow in the lower right corner for new mail. Now, it’s a more natural pull-to-refresh function.

Do Not Disturb

Since I don’t live in the same time zone as a lot of my friends and family, they end up sending me texts at weird hours. This inevitably causes my phone on my nightstand to vibrate and bring me out of my REM cycle. Which: ugh. (Love you, Mom.)

Do Not Disturb means I can flip a switch to keep those texts or calls or notifications at bay, either while I’m sleeping, or when I’m in a meeting, or if I just don’t want to be distracted. But the fine-tune controls make it even better: You can still let selected people through your DND mode, or you can put on an emergency mode, which means if you get two calls from the same person in three minutes, the second call will be let through.

Like PassBook and email photo attachments, this feature is one those that looks deceptively simple to implement, which makes it easy to argue that some of these should have been in iOS many versions ago. But the fact that they’re coming very soon — sometime this fall, according to Forstall — is what matters to me.

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The new model doesn’t plug into the wall like the old one. Instead, it looks just like an Apple TV, and even has the exact same dimensions, but comes in white instead of the Apple TV’s black. The back of the device features two Ethernet ports (one WAN, one LAN), a USB port and an analog/optical audio jack for speakers.

Among the new features of the device are support for simultaneous dual-band 802.11n, which means you can use both the 2.4GHz wireless band and the faster 5GHz band at the same time. AirTunes has been replaced with AirPlay, so you can send songs to an AirPort Express from your iPhone or iPad as well as your Mac. Also, if you have more than one AirPort Express connected to speakers, music can be played on all of them at the same time, which is pretty neat. (Update: Sorry, playing music on multiple speakers at once isn’t a new feature, as pointed out by a commenter. Sending songs to an AirPort from an iPhone or iPad also isn’t new, but is only supported on last-generation models that have 802.11n.)

The new AirPort Express is available now for $100. Now we’re left wondering when the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule will get updates, or if they’ve gone the way of the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

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When FaceTime first emerged, 9to5Mac performed some 3G tests on jailbroken iPhones to determine just how much bandwidth the app would consume. It’s findings: 3 MB per minute. So if you had a $30/2 GB plan from Verizon you could feasibly support 666 minutes of FaceTime calling, while a 3 GB plan at the same price from AT&T would give you an even 1000 minutes of video talk time.

Now look what those same carriers charge for voice minutes: For base level voice plans both AT&T and Verizon charge you me $40 for 450 minutes and $60 for 900 minutes. Making a FaceTime video call winds up being a heck of lot cheaper than a straight up phone call.

Before you get the bright idea of replacing your voice service entirely with FaceTime and a data SIM card, know there are some limitations, the biggest of which is FaceTime only works between Apple products. 3G network coverage, even over Verizon’s extensive CDMA network, can be spotty, and just because there is a 3G signal available to you doesn’t guarantee you’ll get enough of bandwidth to support a video call. Carriers’ circuit-switched voice services may be expensive, but for the most part they work — a claim we can’t yet make for 3G.

Of course, supplementing your voice service with FaceTime might not be a bad idea especially if a lot of your contacts own iPhones, iPads and Macs. Knocking $20 to $30 off your minute plans (AT&T and Verizon both sell unlimited voice for $70 a month) and replacing it with the next higher tier of data could wind up saving you a lot of money. Many consumers might not even need to bother with a data plan upgrade. According to a recent report from Ericsson, iPhone users only consume on average 350 MB of month of data over global HSPA networks, which puts them well out of reach of most data caps.

As for the operators — who already claim their 3G networks are overtaxed — this is probably not an ideal development. Not only would a sudden deluge of FaceTime calls load up their networks even more, the service could start impacting their voice revenues. Since they make far more for on a minute of voice than they would on a minute of FaceTime data, they have far more to lose.

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You see, app platforms are fundamentally a numbers game. Apple CEO Tim Cook made as much clear when he boasted about the latest iOS numbers early on during the keynote, stating that there are now 650,000 iOS apps out there. Out of those, 225,000 have been specifically designed for the iPad – something he contrasted with “just a few hundred” apps for Android tablets.

There are two reasons for this, and one is not quite as obvious. Of course, there are many more iPads out there, making it a much more desirable platform to develop for. But iOS and Android also treat apps fundamentally different. Android apps scale gracefully to bigger screen sizes, making it possible to use many apps that were originally designed for phones on tablets as well. Apple, on the other hand, only offers users the little-loved 2x view of an iPhone app, with results in many cases that are pretty ugly. That’s done on purpose: Developers are forced to build native iPad apps if they want to be used on the tablet. The carrot for this stick is the iPad’s huge user base.

But in the TV space, Apple has a much smaller installed base. Sure, Apple TVs sell pretty well. Cook recently said that the company sold 2.7 million units in six months, which is more than any of its competitors in the smart TV companion box space. But it’s a far cry from the 40.5 million iPads the company sold in 2011. And a smaller device footprint equals less money and opportunities for developers.

This is where we get back to the screen scaling. Google TV has sold far fewer devices than Apple – the latest number suggest that there are less than one million Google TV devices in use. However, the platform is based on Android, so users can still access thousands of Android apps, which gracefully scale up to the big screen. Apple on the other hand would start out with much smaller numbers, and essentially be where Android tablets are today – which is not a place the company wants to be in.

Sure, one could argue that developers would nonetheless jump on the opportunity and build their own apps for the platform, just to be there when it grows up. But for that, Apple would have to give them some guidance and show where it wants to go with Apple TV. Is it an accessory, an Airplay receiver? Or will it evolve into a full-fledged TV platform, complete with its own TV set and access to premium content?

The latest Apple TV UI upgrade didn’t seem to suggest much room for innovation, or even additional apps, for that matter. To become relevant, Apple would have to think big, and not just in terms of screen size. Simply opening up the SDK for the current-generation platform wouldn’t cut it. Apple knows that, and it simply didn’t want to bother with small numbers.

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Here’s a look at some of the 200 new features for iOS device owners in the next iteration of Apple’s mobile platform, expected to debut this fall and available to developers in beta today. The new software will be supported on the 3GS and later iPhone, iPad 2 / new iPad and fourth generation iPod touch.

Look who’s talking (again)

Siri gains more functionality in iOS 6, bringing additional conversation-like queries. You can ask Siri more questions about sports, such as the score of a particular recent game, the date and time of a future game or statistics of an athlete, for example. OpenTable users can make dining reservations through Siri and thanks to a partnership through Rotten Tomatoes, Siri can provide movie showtimes, previews or the chance to buy tickets for a show. And users can now launch apps by asking Siri, which is also supported on the iPad with iOS 6.

Perhaps most interesting is a Siri feature called Eyes Free. Apple is working with car makers to include a button that activates Siri so drivers don’t have to take their hands off the wheel or their eyes off the road. Several car makers have committed to bring Eyes Free to vehicles within the next 12 months.

Apple friends Facebook

After integrating Twitter in iOS 5, Facebook is the new partner for iOS 6, with deep integration into Apple’s mobile platform. Photos can be shared directly to Facebook and a new widget in the iOS Notification Center has a quick post button for both Facebook and Twitter, making it faster to update a status. Facebook is also hooked into the iTunes App Store, showing which Facebook friends have liked an app, movie, album, or song. The deep integration includes birthdays of Facebook friends, which will appear in the Calendar app.

A smarter way to communicate

New options are added to the Phone app in iOS 6; many of which can help save time during communication. Added to the decline and answer buttons for incoming calls are two new options: Reply with message and Remind me later. Some canned messages are available for the first option, but you can create a custom response as well. The phone can remind you to make a call back based on time or location; similar to how Reminders works. Apple has added a “Do Not Disturb” option as well. Set it and your phone won’t make a sound or light up the screen when a call or message comes in.

And similar to how Google Voice operates, you can answer calls on multiple devices by unifying phone numbers with either email: Someone can call your iPhone but you can take the call on your Mac, for example. That’s especially handy now that FaceTime can be used on mobile broadband networks in iOS 6. If you’re working over a 3G connection on a Mac laptop and someone calls your phone, you can take that video chat on the Mac.

Safari Photos, and Mail

Apple’s mobile browser gains iCloud tabs so you can view the open Safari tabs on Macs from an iOS device. An offline reading list is added as well; save web pages to the list and you can read them when you’re not connected, which is good for saving on data charges and battery life. Photos can be directly uploaded to photo sharing sites in Safari, which helps alleviate some of the missing methods to share photos. And Safari gains full screen mode in landscape; helpful to see more information and less chrome.

PhotoStream gets a little more social, but within Apple’s ecosystem. You can set up photo sharing group invites in PhotoStream for friends, family and other groups. That’s a bit redundant from Facebook and other services to share pics, but it’s a welcome feature.

E-mail gains a VIP status feature. Use it to mark certain contacts as VIPs and their messages will appear in a special mailbox that’s front and center. And finally, Apple has made it easier to insert photos or videos into a mail message. Last up in mail: A pull to refresh gesture. (Yay!)

Hey, we’ve got a wallet (of sorts) too

In terms of mobile payments, iOS has seen a number of solutions, but the newest native one is Passbook. This platform allows developers to create methods for storing payment cards and tickets for events or travel. Think of the Starbucks mobile payment app with barcodes but on a larger basis so that any company can let iOS users pay for goods or board a vehicle with a barcode scan. By making this available to developers, iOS 6 offers a consistent experience for cards and passes.

We’ve got our own Maps now

As rumored, Apple is bringing its own map solution to iOS 6 including a crowd-sourced traffic service with accident notification. Turn-by-turn navigation is also part of the mapping program,  will be free and is integrated into Siri. The maps will also re-route or suggest a new road due to traffic and such. A new Flyover feature shows off beautiful 3-D interactive map imagery, similar to what Google announced last week.

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At Apple’s WWDC conference today, the company announced several updates to the OS X Mountain Lion operating system, many of which users were able to preview earlier this year. The updates rely heavily on the iCloud and syncing of personal data across multiple devices.

Mountain Lion will be in the Apple App Store sometime in July, and will sell for $19.99.

Dictation software on the Mac will allow users to dictate text everywhere, including in Twitter and Microsoft Word, a new step forward in Apple-Microsoft integration.

With the iCloud messages and notifications, users will be able to get messages across their devices, from the laptop to iPad to iPhone. Changes to Safari include the addition on an iCloud tab, allowing users to pick up web browsing across different devices, which was announced in the preview earlier this year.

Updates also include the “Power Nap” feature for the laptop, which will allow refreshing of a user’s email, Photostream, calendar appointments and notifications while the laptop is in sleep mode. The device will also receive automatic updates without turning on the fan. And the new Mountain Lion will allow “mirroring” with the Apple TV, to allow users to show a presentation or slideshow on a bigger screen.

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