iOS 8 Features List – What’s New
Apple has announced iOS 8 at WWDC which is now available for download to
developers. iOS 8 comes with a huge list of new features for iPhone, iPad and
iPod Touch. The release is said to be “huge for developers and massive for
everyone else”. Some of the new features in iOS 8 include QuickType, beefed up
Messages, interactive notifications, 3rd party keyboard support, iCloud Drive,
health, Spotlight and much more. Hit the jump for the detailed iOS 8 features list
and what’s new in Apple’s latest firmware update.
developers. iOS 8 comes with a huge list of new features for iPhone, iPad and
iPod Touch. The release is said to be “huge for developers and massive for
everyone else”. Some of the new features in iOS 8 include QuickType, beefed up
Messages, interactive notifications, 3rd party keyboard support, iCloud Drive,
health, Spotlight and much more. Hit the jump for the detailed iOS 8 features list
and what’s new in Apple’s latest firmware update.
iOS 8 Messages Get Better
iOS 8 lets you connect with your friends and family like never before. You can
add voice, video and share your location easily through Messages.
You can easily add voice messages to a conversation. To do that tap and hold
new microphone button to talk and send it with a swipe up. To can listen to the
received audio messages as well. Similarly you can send video messages via
Messages conversation instantly. New group messages feature allows you to take
charge of the group conversation. You can easily add, drop, leave a conversation
or turn on Do Not Disturb mode to avoid a flood of notifications from a single
thread of conversation.
Another new feature in iOS 8 Messages app is that you can easily share your
location with your friends and also see their location if they have shared it. You
can configure the time for the visibility of your location. Another new feature is
that you can send multiple photos and video at once. There’s no need to go
through all the messages to find your sent or received photos/videos. There’s a
through all the messages to find your sent or received photos/videos. There’s a
new tab for that aggregating all your photos/videos.
Improved Spotlight in iOS 8
Spotlight in iOS 8 gets some major new features expanding the search sources
beyond your device. When you run a query in iOS 8 Spotlight, it intelligently
considers the context and location and then returns answers to that.
Now Spotlight gets results from Wikipedia with a picture and short summary. It
also provide results from news, nearby places for a search related to restaurant
or places, iTunes Store,App Store, iBooks Store, website suggestions, movie
show times. Spotlight now also works in Safari.
beyond your device. When you run a query in iOS 8 Spotlight, it intelligently
considers the context and location and then returns answers to that.
Now Spotlight gets results from Wikipedia with a picture and short summary. It
also provide results from news, nearby places for a search related to restaurant
or places, iTunes Store,App Store, iBooks Store, website suggestions, movie
show times. Spotlight now also works in Safari.
QuickType
QuickType is one of the cool new iOS 8 features. The new keyboard is intelligent
enough to offer appropriate words to complete the sentence. Word suggestions
are based on the context, the person you’re talking and the style of talking. With
QuickType, iOS 8 keyboard now predicts what you’ll likely be saying next, it
learns your text messaging style, the way you email to people, it knows to whom
you’re writing and the context of the discussion.
Interactive Notifications & design changes
iOS 8 makes it very convenient to respond to notifications. It comes with handy
shortcuts to the most contacted or favorite people. The new quick reply feature in
iOS 8 allows you to quickly respond to a text message without opening the
Messages app.
With interactive notifications, you can now focus on what you were doing. You
can respond to texts, email, Calendar notifications, reminders and messages from
apps like Facebook right from their notification banners – without leaving the app
you’re currently running.
3rd Party Keyboards
Apple has now opened up the keyboard to developers. Developers can now
submit their keyboards for iOS 8 to the app store. Once the custom keyboards
are available, users will be able to use their favorite keyboard, and choose their
favorite input method or layout. Custom keyboards will be available system-wide.
Health
There are a lot of quality apps available in the app store that provides accurate
data about heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol. Apple has
introduced a new health feature in iOS 8, which basically provides a dashboard
for all the information collected from all the health related applications. Which
means all your health related information from across all the apps will be
aggregated in one place.
Apple has provided developers with a new tool called Healthkit, allowing all the
health and fitness related apps to work together. Apple then collects all the data
from these apps and shows it in one place, means you don’t need to check all the
apps. Let the apps do its work and you’ll get the results on one dashboard.
Health dashboard provides a quick overview of your most recent health and
fitness related data in one place. You can also view each type of data individually.
You can also show an emergency card accessible from the lock screen.
iCloud Drive
In iOS 8, Apple has introduced Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive competitor:
the iCloud Drive. iCloud drive comes integrated with iOS 8 allowing you to work
on any file from a device of your choice, including your Mac and PC. With this
new iOS 8 feature you can store your files on iCloud Drive, edit your documents
from one device and the changes will reflect across all your devices and start
working on a file on one device and add the finishing touch in another.
on any file from a device of your choice, including your Mac and PC. With this
new iOS 8 feature you can store your files on iCloud Drive, edit your documents
from one device and the changes will reflect across all your devices and start
working on a file on one device and add the finishing touch in another.
Family Sharing
With Family Sharing features of iOS 8, you can easily share each other’s iTunes,
iBooks, and App Store purchases. One buys a new song, movie, or app,
everybody gets to share. You can also easily share family photos, a family
calendar, locations, and more. Set up family sharing on your device to
immediately access each other’s stuff such as music, movies, TV shows, books,
and apps. The best part of this is that you can share stuff without having to share
an Apple ID or passwords.
Before your children can make a purchase, they must ask your permission. A
notification appears on your device. You can review the request, then approve or
decline it.
Enterprise Features
iOS 8 comes with new security, productivity and device management features. In
addition to Mail and third-party apps, the Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Notes,
and Messages apps as well as user credentials are protected with a pass code
until after the device is unlocked following a reboot. S/MIME users can choose to
sign and encrypt individual messages for greater control over the security of mail
messages.
New productivity feature gives you more ways to get things more more quickly
and easily with apps like Mail and Calendar. Mail app also comes with a time
saving feature. In iOS 8, you can see meeting availability and more in Calendar
and get easier access to corporate documents.
iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Connected like never before.
With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, Apple has taken the connectivity between devices
to a whole new level. Now you can start writing an email on your iPhone and
pickup where you left off when you sit down at your Mac. Browse a web on your
Mac and continue from the same link from your iPhone. All you need to do is to
use the same iCloud account on all your devices. This Handoff feature can be
used with Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders,
Calendar, and Contacts.
With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, you can answer your phone calls from your iPad
and Mac as long as your devices are on the same Wi-Fi network. Same goes for
text messages. call and text message notifications appear on your iPad and Mac
as well from where you can respond to those calls or text messages.
Ref: iphoneheat
