New iOS5 out and ready for download!

Apple’s new iOS5 is now out and ready for download. The file is 774MB which is pretty big for a phone software but includes a slew of enhancements, updates and fixes for the iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad and last 2 generations of the iPod Touch.

I’ve actually been downloading iOS5 since this morning but the additional update for iTunes 10.5 practically bloated the download to around 1.3GB. And it’s not yet finished until now.

The complete lists of supported devices include:

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)

Here’s a quick preview video of what iOS5 can do:

The more promising improvements include:

• iCloud Support
• Built-in support for Twitter
• Notifications
• iMessage
• Newsstand

Still waiting to finish my download and share some impressions. Update to follow.

To download, just plug in your device to iTunes and select update then prepare for a very long wait.

Update: Finally finished downloading and installing it on my iPhone 4 and iPod Touch. The frustrating part is that for every device variant you have, it’s a totally new download. It’s 744MB for the iPhone 4 & the iPod Touch while only 707Mb for the iPad. Still it would have been better if they include the updates in one master file.

Here are several things I noticed after upgrading to iOS5:

• A set up wizard will introduce you to the new settings and help you decide to activate them or not. This includes iCloud, iMessage, Find My Phone and Syncing options.
• iCloud gives you up to 5GB of free online storage to sync with contents of your device but you can actually buy more space. I encountered errors in syncing with iCloud which is probably due to the massive traffic it has been getting since yesterday. Additional iCloud storage is $20 per 10GB.
• Twitter integration has been flawlessly improved. I was able to synchronize my contact list with data from my Twitter followers and pull additional data as well as the avatars.
• The drop-down notifications are nice and obviously copied from Android. The weather widget is there and it looks like the one from HTC Sense UI.
• Disk usage is now broken down into individual apps so you know which ones are taking how much space on your device.
• Wireless syncing with iTunes over WiFi works just very neatly. This feature was certainly copied from Microsoft Zune.