iOS 10 preview: Apple goes back to ignoring the iPad in a wide-ranging update

I’ve spent most of the last six months buying a house, so you’ll need to forgive me if I have houses and house metaphors on the brain. I’ve found them helpful while trying to nail down iOS 10.

Imagine iOS 6 as a fundamentally solid house in need of some major remodeling. iOS 7 was largely a cosmetic update, putting on some new siding (or maybe a nice brick façade) and giving all the rooms a nice paint job. iOS 8 with its under-the-hood changes was roughly equivalent to replacing wiring and plumbing—stuff that’s harder to see but makes a big difference in everyday usage. iOS 9 gave an extensive makeover to one particular room (let’s call it “the iPad”) that had been basically fine for a while but wasn’t being used to its fullest potential.

In the context of this overextended metaphor, iOS 10 is best thought of as an effort to redo multiple other rooms in the house, knocking out some figurative walls and removing metaphorical ugly dropped ceilings. For the first time in a while, Apple is making notable changes to the way basic things like the lock screen, the notification center, and Siri look and work.

We've had a couple of days to play with the second developer build of iOS 10, which Apple tells us is more-or-less identical to the public beta being released today. The short turnaround time means there are a couple of major areas of the operating system—Music, Photos, Maps, and News are probably the most significant—that I’ve glossed over here in favor of spending more time in other areas. Evaluating features that depend on third-party app support will need to wait until more of those apps are ready.

Finally, a lot of what's outlined here will be subject to change between now and the time the final Golden Master build is issued in the fall. We’ll be able to go into more depth in our final review in a couple of months.