Apple’s new iOS 6 has been demoed at yesterday’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) 2012 keynote speech. This update to the iOS operating system includes over 200 new features to the platform. Here are just a few of the stand out features that you can look forward to when the new update comes out in the fall.
Siri: Apple’s Siri voice assistant’s performance was highly improved. Along with sport stats, and movies, Apple has greatly improved the performance of Siri with restaurants, and even allowed Siri to open Apple apps and third party apps as well. The functionality of Siri has been greatly extended and will make a great addition to iOS 6. Apple has also extended Siri’s capabilities to many more countries and languages. A few of the updated languages are French Canadian, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin. The biggest feature yet for Siri will be the fact that it comes to iPad.
Facebook integration: Apple has been working very closely with Facebook to make the best Facebook experience ever on a mobile device. Facebook has been integrated into iOS 6 and into settings. All you need to do is enter your email and password and you’re ready to go! You no longer have to re-login every time you enter another app, including Facebook’s app. They are making it very easy to post things on Facebook from other apps as well. You can post photos from the photos app, post about websites from Safari, and you can “talk some smack from the game center” as Scott Forstall said at the WWDC. You can also access Facebook from the notification center as well. And finally, Facebook is integrated with Siri so all you need to do is talk and post.
FaceTime: FaceTime has been known to be the best way to have a video conference with someone, but there’s only one catch. It only works over wifi. FaceTime is now being enabled over cellular, so now whether you have a wifi or cellular data connection, you can FaceTime with anybody. Plus, instead of just using your Apple ID for FaceTime account to work, you can use your phone number as well. Same thing with iMessage.
Safari: Safari is the best and most popular mobile web browser on the planet. About two thirds of all mobile web traffic comes from Safari and iOS. iCloud tabs is now on Safari icons. Another thing that is now available is an offline reading list. Reading list was added in iOS 5 so you can read it while online. Now, as soon as you add a story to reading list it downloads it to your device. Safari is now also given the capability to have your own photos uploaded onto it straight from camera roll or iPhoto.
Photo Stream: Photo Stream is one of the really nice free features in iPhone. It is the best way to get all of your photos on all of your devices. Now, Shared Photo Streams is being added. It is a really easy way to share photos with friends. All you have to do is choose photos you want to send and choose the friends you want them sent to and that’s it, your done! They will be sent to your iDevices, Macs, and PC’s. It can be viewed on your tv using Apple TV as well.
Passbook: Passbook is a brand new app in iOS 6. It is the simplest way to get all of your passes in one place. Nowadays there are many great apps that allow you to get airplane tickets and save the barcode within app. But the problem is that the amount of apps begin to pile up and it becomes overwhelming to fumble around looking for them. Passbook takes them all and puts them together, making them easier to find.
Maps: Apple has built a whole new map app from the ground up. This app has been a worldwide effort in covering the world. For local searches they installed over 100 million US businesses. There is also traffic service so you can see how the traffic is on your destined route. They are also putting in turn by turn navigation. It is a very simple process, all you have to do is press the quick navigation icon and you’re on your way. During travel, the surrounding area is monitored in case a faster route is needed. All these functions are available from the lock screen as well. And to make it better, it is integrated with Siri so you can ask for directions to the desired location. You can also ask questions as you are going, such as “Where can I get gas?” And it will direct you to a gas station along your route. And of course the kids can ask the infamous question “Are we there yet?”. A brand new feature that Apple is adding to Maps is called FlyOver. They have flown over thousands of cities to make a graphic 3D model of the places. The map itself is vector based so you rotate in all directions. The graphics of the cities become more and more spectacular as you zoom in.
It appears that Apple has done it once again. They were able to take our favorite apps and re-revolutionize them. Apple, keep the good work up!
Thanks for reading,
Dillon