Everything you want to know about iOS 6, the OS behind the next iPhone

Just in the next few hours Apple will unveil the next iPhone which is rumored to be called the iPhone 5.
While a hardware redesign is certainly on the cards, most of the new functionality will come via iOS 6 that is the foundation of the iPhone. Apple has already released the Beta SDK for iOS 6 and it showed off the core feature set of the OS at WWDC, so most of the stuff that people are waiting to know, is already out there. We have detailed some of the key feature sets of iOS 6, read on for more.
Unlike what many had hoped for Apple is not planning on revamping the core UI of iOS. iOS 6 maintains the spartan yet elegant icon centric UI of iOS. However, Apple is introducing a number of new features.
With iOS 5, Apple introduced Twitter integration, iOS 6 will add another popular social network, Facebook. Previously users were highly dependent on the Facebook app to share content, but that will change with iOS 6 as Apple is introducing system wide, Facebook integration.
In fact, part of the charm behind iOS 6 is sharing. Apple has added sharing sheets that will enable users to quickly share content to Facebook, Twitter, and iCloud.
However, as Apple extends the sharing tentacles of iOS 6, it greatly reduces its dependence on Google for a lot of services. For instance the mapping service does not use Google’s back-end, but rather Apple is debuting its own 3D mapping solution equipped with a bevy of features like turn-by-turn navigation. Having said that, these features are not expected to work globally.
Even the YouTube app is now gone, but the good news is that Google yesterday released the YouTube app for iOS which is said to be much better than the solution that came pre-loaded on iOS. Part of the reason for this is that the original YouTube app was made by Apple and it only tapped into Google’s backend, just the way the Maps app used to work, but now this new app has been built by the YouTube engineers from the ground up.
Siri will receive a number of updates starting with better voice recognition. It will now open third party apps and has learnt a load of new stuff about sports. It will be able to pull information about Movies via Rotten Tomatoes. For restaurants it will pull information from Yelp and Open Table.
NFC is almost a given in the next iPhone and for that Apple has added a mobile wallet feature called Passbook.
The Safari Browser will learn a thing from Chrome and will be able to sync tabs across a gamut of Apple devices via iCloud. It will also enable sharing of content similar to the new Safari on Mountain Lion and will have an offline reader in the vein of Instapaper.
Users will be able to mail images directly off the Mail app in the compose screen. Users will have the option to have multiple signatures in addition to having a VIP inbox for important people.
Apple iPhone users have never been able to decline a call using an automated SMS. iOS 6 is about to change this abomination. And another neat feature that comes along with iOS 6 is ‘DoNotDisturb’ that helps the user to turn of notifications for a predetermined amount of time.
It should be noted that all these features will not be readily available to all iPhones or iPads, but only a select few devices will get the whole nine yards. Click here for the iOS 6 feature set device wise.