iOS 5.1 coming in March with quicker camera access

Among the many rumours and reports of the next iPad, comes a report on Apple’s next update to its mobile OS.  Boy Genius Report have managed to get their hands on a copy of iOS 5.1, which is reported to be out on the 9th of March. Apparently, iOS 5.1 will provide Japanese support for Siri and also change up the lock screen to make it easier to access the camera. iPhone 4S has been available in Japan, since October and adding Japanese support to Siri will make it the fourth language that Siri supports. Currently, you can speak to Siri in English (in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia), French (in France) and German (in Germany). Apple says that they’re planning to add support for more languages to Siri, Japanese being one of them. The others will include, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean. Which, of course, means we can look forward to more YouTube flooding of adventures with Siri videos in various languages. 

iOS 5.1 incoming

The other change that iOS 5.1 will bring is better camera access from the lock screen itself. iOS 5 brought with it the ability to access the camera from the lock screen. Users had to double click the home screen button and press the camera icon, next to the slider. This did allow for quicker access to the camera, especially when users wanted to take pictures of moments that were virtually fleeting. Placing the icon in the lock screen also made sense, because many competing devices have dedicated camera buttons enabling quicker launch of the camera. In iOS 5, to access the camera quicker, users will have to access their homescreen and then swipe a finger upwards to launch the camera. This process may or may not be quicker depending on if the user has a password set up for their phone. 

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Of course, these are only reports and Apple, as usual, is not making an official comment on any of these statements. We’ll have to wait and see what they dish out in March, which is also around when we might get a glimpse at the next iPad, we’ve been hearing so much about.