7:20 PM
Pete Vicentini Jr.
iOS 8 New Features
As expected, Apple today showed off a preview of its next-gen mobile operating system, iOS 8.This new version of iOS, which will come to iPhones and iPads in the fall, includes many new features.
The multi-tasking app screen which is accessed double clicking the home button is also enhanced. The screen will show a scrolling strip of your most recent contacts, identified by photos. From here you can call, message or facetime just by tapping on any of them.iCloud now can work with third-party storage providers like Box and OneDrive. Also, with iCloud Photo Library, any picture you take or receive can go directly to iCloud where you'll be able to view it (and all of your other photos) from any other device. Think of it as a sort of unified online photo library. You can edit those photos from one device and see the changes take effect on all your others. "Your device has access to more photos in the cloud than it can physically store locally so you can get at them all," Federighi said this morning.
With iCloud Drive you can store and edit any document in the cloud, and it's compatible with Windows devices, too.
iCloud users will get 5GB of free cloud storage, but they can upgrade to 20GB for 99 cents per month or 200GB for $3.99 per month.
The keyboard in iOS 8 gets a new feature that Android users had from far ago: predictive typing. Suggestions for what you might be typing next appear above the keyboard. The suggestions adapts depending on who you're talking to. For example, the sentence, "The meeting was..." could get suggestions like "rescheduled/cancelled" for one contact and "epic/awesome" for another.
in iOS 8 a service called HealthKit supports an app called Health. Which will give health and fitness app developers a centralized place on the iPhone to integrate their software with. Apple is also working with main health providers to get the most out of the service.
With the new Family Sharing push service, up to six family members can share any iTunes content that any of them has purchased. If you're a parent and your children have an affinity for buying things from iTunes with your credit, you'll love this feature. Once connected, those family members will be told to seek your permission and you will get a notification, allowing them to grant or deny the request.
Siri, our beloved assistant, will also get some enhancements, including song identification with Shazam, which lets Siri identify music around you and offer up the choice to purchase it directly from iTunes, and support for 22 more dictation languages.
In the future, those with the iPhone 5s will potentially be able to do more with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, as Apple is opening it up to third parties. Apple promised that data will be saved on the device, so those companies will not gain access to your fingerprint.
For developers, the new iOS SDK, which Apple CEO Tim Cook called “the biggest release since the launch of the App Store,” includes over 4,000 new developer APIs and changes.
One thing developers will love is something Apple calls “Metal.” This gives low level access to the graphics and compute hardware on Apple’s A7 processors. Apple said it dramatically reduces overhead and features more efficient multi-threading bringing console-level graphics to the iPhone and iPad. This new feature could give a 10x performance gain compared to iOS 7 in draw call speed.
Apple also promised a better explore tab, a trending searches list, and related searches within the App Store. A new editors' choice logo will also apply to noteworthy apps.
Source: Engadget, Mashable, PC Magazine
Pictures: Apple
