Apple's new iOS 5

SAN FRANCISCO - As impressive as it was for Apple Inc. to sell four million new iPhones last week, millions more users will be affected by another release: iOS 5, the latest version of the operating system that runs every iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

The software

I've been testing the software and a lot of its claimed 200 new features for a couple of weeks and find it usually impressive. Nevertheless unlike the iPhone 4S, with its breakthrough Siri voice-based personal assistant, iOS 5 feels more catch-up than forge-ahead.

Many of the new features - secure texting, tabbed Web browsing, pull-down notifications - may already be familiar to users of devices running Google Inc.'s Android software, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone 7 and Innovation In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry. As usual, Apple's contribution is to polish the concepts, making them seamless and painless.

The end of the process

At the end of the process, I was presented on my Mac with an obscure, Windows-worthy error message. The new software in short appeared on the iPad, more than an hour from when I started. Afterwards that, things got a lot better.

ICloud automatically stores your content and data on Apple's remote servers, where they are accessible by all your enrolled devices. Take pictures with your iPhone and a new feature called Photo Stream will automatically push them up to the cloud, at the time down to your iPad, where they will pop up almost on the spur of the moment. Documents, apps, media and contacts work the same way.

The iCloud service is free

The iCloud service is free and replaces Apple's paid, problematic MobileMe. You get five gigabytes of online storage free, and can buy more; photos as then as content purchased from Apple's iTunes Store and App Store don't count against your storage limit.

Among the other new features of iOS 5, a couple stand out. One is iMessage, which allows you to directly text other iOS 5 users. For those using an iPhone, the service is fully integrated with the device's existing text app. And iMessages don't count against any message limits in your wireless-phone plan. To boot, iPad and iPod touch users as well can use those devices to text iPhones and each other.

The Notification Center

Then there's the Notification Center: Swipe your finger down from the top of any screen, and a windowshade-like overlay displays your alerts and reminders. And Twitter users will appreciate the ability to tweet directly from within Safari as then as the camera, photo, YouTube and map apps.

One thing I couldn't try was iTunes Match, which the company says will launch later this month. For $25 a year, Apple will scan your entire music library, looking for tunes you might have ripped yourself from a CD or downloaded from some source other than iTunes. If Apple has the same song, you'll get access to it on all your devices via iCloud; otherwise, it will upload your copy of the tune and give you full access to it.

Though it isn't being billed this way, the service is in substance offering absolution - at a nominal cost - to people who have illegally downloaded music. And they'll get access to Apple's high-quality versions even if their originals were of lower quality. It's a way to gain a benefit and assuage a guilty conscience together.