Folks over at BlogdoiPhone claims that they have got their hands on to the iOS 5.1 Pre-GM release. Among other new features they’ve discovered a new slide-to-camera shortcut on the lockscreen and Siri Japanese support.
Currently, to open the Camera application without having to unlock your phone, you must double-tap the Home button to display the button for the camera (see details of this in our book Secrets of iOS 5 ). This is impractical and yet many people do not notice that this functionality exists.
Fortunately iOS 5.1 Apple will change this, leaving a permanently active camera icon on the screen locked. To take a picture, just slide your finger up the icon, making the camera screen appears.
Apple has seeded 3 betas for iOS 5.1 (beta 1, beta 2, beta 3) to the developers to date. The latest beta was released more than a month ago. iOS 5.1 final released is expected to be pushed to general public on or around March 9th alongside iPad 3.
Since the release of iOS 5 last year, user can activate the camera icon right from their lock screen by pressing the home button twice. But the rumored Pre-GM version of iOS 5.1 shows that the camera icon will constantly appear on the lockscreen and instead of a stationary image, it’s a slider. Sliding up the camera icon will open the camera app.
Later, BGR also got a hold of leaked iOS 5.1 GM and confirms the two new changes: Siri Japanese support and Camera slider icon of the lock screen.