The iPhone maker is finally letting developers access more of its mobile OS. That’s great news — unless you’re in a department Apple wants to dominate.
Features of ios 8
Every photo, every edit, every album now lives in your iCloud Photo Library, easily viewable and consistent on all your devices. You can search thousands of your photos right from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Search by the date or time the photo was taken, location, or album name. Photos will have cross-device editing, making it more sensible to stay within Apple’s native gallery app than jump in and out of other editing tools that won’t work on desktop. There are also numerous upgrades, like editing tools that incorporate more functionality you might expect from high-end software like Adobe’s Photoshop, and new features — like time lapse video — that replace standalone apps as Apple did rather effectively with panoramas.
Messages lets you connect with friends and family. Tap to add your voice to any conversation. Send a video of what you’re seeing the moment you’re seeing it. And easily share your location so they know right where you are. Apple, with the messaging overhaul baked into iOS 8, has staked out a bold position on texting that it hopes can trump third-party offerings. Apple wants Messages to be the paramount text experience and one you use freely across Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Apple is sending a clear signal: We want to own messaging on our platform.
Typing has been made easier by suggesting contextually appropriate words to complete your sentences. It recognizes to whom you’re typing and whether you’re in Mail or Messages. Because your tone in an email may be different from your tone in a message.
Now your activity tracker, heart rate monitor, and other health and fitness apps can talk to each other. Which means they’ll be able to work even harder for you. And all the information is accessible in one easy-to-read dashboard.
Things are about to get even better for people with multiple Apple devices. iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Connected like never before. You can start an email on one device and seamlessly continue on another. iPhone owners can answer phone calls on their Mac or iPad, and even send SMS messages from any of them.
For developers:
Apple wants to be as friendly and accommodating as it can be to its developer community of more than 9 million coders and established companies with which it has a symbiotic relationship. But the iPhone maker is also being overtly clear concerning the app areas in which it wants to squash competitors big and small — namely messaging and personal media, which also includes cross-device sharing and storage for files. Apple states that this is the biggest release for developers since the introduction of the App Store. There are new tools to extend the reach of apps and opening up new opportunities to take advantage of iCloud, Touch ID, and more. So on one hand, it’s clear that Apple is taking a step in the right direction, acknowledging that opening up its mobile OS can be beneficial. On the other, Apple is drawing a line in the sand over which parts of its garden it wants to cultivate alone in its battle to admonish Android users and the staggering mobile OS market share Google commands.
sources: c/net, Apple