The day is upon us. No, not iPhone 5 day (that’s tomorrow). iOS 6 is here. If you have a compatible device, the upgrade steps are fairly simple; Settings → General → Software Update and do the obvious. The upgrade on each of my devices took 15-20 minutes.

Major changes that I care about (less useful, but “major changes can be found here and some useful, but seemingly unannounced ones can be found here)?

• Google Maps is out, instead replaced by Apple’s own implementation. We finally have proper turn-by-turn without third-party apps. As expected with such a huge undertaking, there are bugs. However, if you find yourself wanting or needing, navigating to http://maps.google.com in Safari will still do a pretty good job for you despite no longer being a native application.
• Siri got better. As an iPhone 4 and iPad 3 user, I didn’t have access to Siri previously, but word on the street is that it was pretty bad and not too useful. It has been added to my iPad 3 via iOS 6 and at first glance seems pretty cool. Wake up, hold the home button, ask about the weather, and receive an answer. Don’t have to hunt around for an app. I dig it.
• Facebook integration. You can now post straight from Camera, Maps, and Safari. Events now show up in Calendar, contacts are synchronized, and you can even ask Siri to post for you. I haven’t made that leap yet, but I’ll get there.
• Passbook. Leave all your keychain “dongles” at home. Or at least that’s what they say. I’ve launched the app and have no idea what to do with it; it simply provides me a link to the app store. Apple rarely fails in the intuition department, but they did here. After some Googling, I’ve found I need to download Passbook-enabled apps. Poor.
• FaceTime over cellular. Sounds great until you read the fine print; on most carriers it only works if you have a shared data plan. I’m really not a big fan of this push towards shared data.
• Offline Reading List. This is the minor feature that’s a majorly big deal to me. It’s no secret that I love the subject (Post #1, Post #2). I’m really happy to have a fully functional solution built-in at last. I will migrate to it in the next few days and likely write up my thoughts after some use.

Update, enjoy, and let me know your thoughts.