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‘Hidden’ new features of iOS 4.3

James Thornton

James Thornton

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The new iOS 4.3 is now out in the wild and ready to install. The update to the operating system brings some major new features to iPhones, iPods and iPads, which you can read about in great detail on Apple’s iOS 4.3 Software Update page.

The big changes are the ability to stream to an Apple TV via AirPlay, Safari improvements that speed up performance, iTunes Home Sharing, and the Personal Hotspot for iPhone that turns your phone into a wifi hub for other users.

As with all new iOS updates, Apple has also take the opportunity to make some smaller tweaks in order to clean various nooks and crannies of the operating system. In case you don’t notice them when you update, here are some of the unsung new features of iOS 4.3 – compared with how they worked in iOS 4.2. You can view a full list of changes here.

Scrubbing in videos

Changes to the video player now give you much more control over the speed of playback. Fine Scrubbing allows you to move through videos by seconds or frames. There are also options for Quarter Scrubbing, Half Speed Scrubbing and Hi-Speed Scrubbing.

Video scrobble

Abort app downloads

Unlike previous versions of the operating system, iOS 4.3 allows you to stop an app from downloading while it’s still in progress. This saves you having to wait for the whole thing to download then deleting it.

App store cancel

New font in Notes

Great news for fans of the Notes application – the font has been changed!

Fonts

Repeat text alerts (iPhone only)

iOS 4.3 helps to ensure that you never miss a text message. You can now set the amount of times that a text tone repeats, up to 10 times.

Text Alert repeating

Location Services

The Location Services menu now appears in a more prominent position in the Settings menu

Location Services

Slideshow options (iPhone only)

The often overlooked Slideshow feature of iOS has now been moved to the Photos app, giving it better visibility.

Slideshow options

New add contact photo interface

The interface for taking a picture for a contact has also been tweaked to make it more user friendly.

Add contact photo

James Thornton

James Thornton

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