Earlier this week, Apple announced the newest version of their
mobile operating system iOS 8, at their annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
The new iOS version is aimed at extensively integrating the use of Apple devices
into daily life activities. Therefore many new exciting features and upgrades
have been added. The new improvements are as follows:
Touch ID
Application developers will be able to use fingerprint
authentication to protect apps, especially those that involve handling sensitive
information.
Siri
Users will be able to activate Siri hands-free with the
phrase “hey, Siri”. It supports 22 new dictation languages and has streaming
voice recognition to show users results as they speak. There’s also integration
with Shazam for song recognition.
Keyboard
Apple has now added support for third party keyboard apps
such as Swype. A new feature called QuickType also adds predictive suggestions
based on users’ habits.
iMessage
Apple has singled out iMessage to be its most used app and
has added some pretty interesting improvements. You will be able to add message
threads and remove people from them. Audio and video messages, and location sharing
within the app are notably interesting additions; with the ability to reply
audio messages by putting the phone to your ear, and the message automatically sending
when you lower the phone.
Healthkit
This is a new app which will enable access and retrieval of
health data and also integration with other health apps. The app is also
expected to enable healthcare institutions exchange health data remotely with their
patients.
Notification
Center
This improvement interests me the most; users can now have
basic access to applications from the notification center without having to
launch the app. For example: reply messages or like posts on Facebook. All this
can be done without having to close an app that you are already using. I’m looking
forward to seeing how this will look.
Extensibility
This feature will enable apps to extend their features with
other apps. For example: being able to edit a photo with a third party photo
editing app, within the native photo app. Widgets have also been introduced.
Family Sharing
A family or group of people of up to six will be able to share
reminders, photos, calendar events etc. A particularly cool thing is that music
and app purchases can also be shared so long as the family uses the same credit
card. Therefore parents will be notified about purchases their children make
and can approve or disapprove them.
Release Date
The exact release date has not been announced yet but it
should be somewhere around autumn. I will however keep you updated. Unfortunately,
iphone 4 users will be left out of this upgrade; here is the list of devices that
will support iOS 8:
- iPhone 4S
- iPhone 5
- iPhone 5C
- iPhone 5S
- iPod Touch 5th generation
- iPad 2
- iPad with Retina Display
- iPad Air
- iPad Mini
- iPad Mini with Retina Display
