Apple iOS 8: Better desktop integration, new keyboard, a ton of developer features, coming this fall

Shawn Knight

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Apple on Monday kicked off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Craig Federighi, senior VP of Software Engineering at Apple, drew the assignment of unveiling one -- well pretty much all -- of the biggest highlights of the keynote, iOS 8.

As anticipated, iOS 8 includes a wealth of updates and new features starting with interactive notifications. With the update, users will be able to pull down from a notification and reply to it right there without having to leave what they’re doing.

Speaking of, Messaging also receives a number of enhancements. Group messaging now allows users to name threads, remove people from a conversation that is already under way, leave a thread at any time and even assign a “do not disturb” policy on a per-thread basis.

Additionally, users can add location data, pictures and other attachments to threads. There’s now a talk button that allows users to add voice messages directly to the thread. But perhaps best yet, all of the media is self-destructing so it won’t clutter up the thread as it grows.

Federighi showed off a new "QuickType" keyboard that supports predictive typing suggestions (not unlike Android) and contextual answers. For example, if someone sends you a message that asks if you’d like to see a movie or go to dinner, the predictive text will offer up choices like “dinner” or “a movie” to choose from without requiring you to type the entire answer. The service will learn your behavior and suggest common phrases as answers. All of this learning is done locally to protect privacy.

Family Share is another new feature that’s likely to be a big hit. Federighi likened it to the fridge of yesteryear where people would share pictures and leave messages for others in the family. Apple’s take on that theme allows up to six family members to create a family link in iOS so they can share things like photo streams, reminder lists, calendars and even have access to Find My Friends.

Users can also share purchased media although the songs, movies and whatnot must all be purchased from the same credit card. In the event there are children on the account with access to this central credit card, parents can configure the service to notify them for authorization whenever their child attempts to purchase something with the card.

Apple also updated Photos in iOS 8 with smarter editing controls for light, color, auto straightening and cropping. Searching through images is improved through the use of location and now, all pictures you snap will be available on all devices through iCloud.

These images will be saved in their original format in full resolution which means you’ll likely need some additional space. For that, Apple is rolling out a new pricing structure in which the first 5GB of storage will still be free but after that, pricing starts at $0.99 per month for 20GB of storage or $3.99 for 200GB of space.

Apple only briefly touched on its health and home automation initiatives which are strongly tied to what developers start to do with them, but we did learn about HealthKit, a hub for all health-related app data. It’s being marketed as an improvement over current solutions that force you to visit each app to view the vitals they collect.

Other updates include Continuity integration, improved enterprise features, iCloud Drive, Siri song recognition, better mail management and more.

iOS 8 is available in beta today for developers and will arrive as a consumer product this fall.

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The number of software updates announced was staggering, memo to stagnant MS who just announced their failure to deliver one update people were begging for more than a year - the Start menu.

That's MS bending over for Apple. All things considered, MS in medicine stands for Multiple Sclerosis, becomes somewhat appropriate here too.
 
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Heh, some of these features have been on my BB10 device for a while now.
And an update to the keyboard stuff finally? I do not know 1 person who legitimately likes autocorrect lol
 
iOS has been pretty much the same exact thing since it came out. With only a couple of changes and upgrades for every version. IMHO, I think that they should just start again from scratch and make something new and more modern with a different style.

That is part of the reason why I never bought an iPhone. Ive always gone Android. Especially when I bought my first iTouch. I realized that its the SAME OS. The only difference is that you cant make calls.
 
Finally support for 3rd party keyboards. The new APIs introduced are truly great. I cannot wait for developers to exploit the features to the fullest.
 
And no one cares to use or knows how to use any of it. I know someone with an iphone for 3 years and he still hasn't set up his voice mail yet.
 
Oh my God, it's almost like Android has had these features out for a long while.... again.

It never ceases to amaze me how Apple's 'enhancements' are always simple catch-ups to modern technology..
 
Widgets, app video previews, and support for third party keyboards, Apple is playing catch up to Android. Seems really bizarre how Jobs said that Android was a stolen product and how he would "go thermonuclear" and now Apple is copying Android features (and has been for a while, remember the notification center?) , and Apple won't actually litigate against Google because they know they have the resources to defend themselves (thus the so called "cease-fire") so they prey on smaller companies like Samsung, HTC, Motorola, etc.
 
Seems like Jobs was the only person who had original ideas, now Apple is going the way all corporations go: "Hey, company X did Y, it seems to make money, we do Y too". Even if it's ugly, stupid or the customers will hate. Another headless stomach, welcome to the race. Amazing how rare in American capitalism people who have brains get into a managerial position.
 
So, apples's new trend is to go vintage, a get a closer look to those ancient win 8 tiles...
#vintage mac ?!?!

The number of software updates announced was staggering, memo to stagnant MS who just announced their failure to deliver one update people were begging for more than a year - the Start menu.

That's MS bending over for Apple. All things considered, MS in medicine stands for Multiple Sclerosis, becomes somewhat appropriate here too.
 
So, apples's new trend is to go vintage, a get a closer look to those ancient win 8 tiles...
#vintage mac ?!?!

I may have been a bit harsh and/or excited on the day, but many changes were very good. And when MS announced on the same day they are not even going to get us the menu they promised, it all looked really bad.
 
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