Welcome to the exciting world of iOS 5, the latest release of Apple's mobile operating system, which is packed with some great new features and improvements to the way things are done. The release of the iPhone 4, back in 2010, took the world by storm. Developers around the world have been embracing the new features, such as incorporating AirPlay features within their applications, making use of the retina display to provide crisp and high-definition graphics within their applications and games, as well as the accelerometer and gyroscope.

When Apple hosted their annual World Wide Developer Conference in June 2011, they introduced more than 200 new features, as well as an updated SDK that features over 1,500 new development APIs. This opened up a lot of ideas for many new applications and the way we do things currently, to be done differently. Some of the great new feature highlights are the ability to support the way in which notification messages are handled by using the new Notification Center , messaging has been greatly improved by using the new iMessage messaging application, and finally, the ability to organize and purchase all of your newspaper and magazine subscriptions using the new Newsstand application.

In this chapter, you will gain an insight into some of the fantastic new features and enhancements that have been incorporated into the latest iOS 5 release. We will also look at how to go about downloading and installing the Xcode developer tools and Software Development Kit (SDK).

In this chapter, we will:

We have a exciting journey ahead of us, so let's get started.