At today's WWDC keynote Apple unveiled a ton of new software features and enhancements for its Macs, Apple Watch, and the brand new Apple Music service. Of course for many the biggest star of the show was iOS 9. As it has done every years since the original iPhone’s debut, a large part of this year’s keynote was dedicated to showing off the major new features of iOS 9. However, this year instead of deciding to pack the next version of iOS with new feature after new feature, the company took the step of focusing on making iOS 9 more stable.
Don’t worry, though. It’s not quite as dull as it sounds, as there are plenty of new features to get excited about. Apple has revamped Siri yet again, made some pretty significant improvements to Apple Maps, added in split screen multitasking to the iPad and released a new keyboard, again, only for the iPad.
“iOS 9 is packed with more intelligence throughout, and delivers big updates to the apps customers use most — Maps supports public transit, a redesigned Notes app provides great new ways to capture ideas, and a beautiful News app delivers content that’s personalised to your interests,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “With our new iPad features, users can take advantage of the power of iPad, working in two apps at the same time with Split View, Slide Over or Picture-in-Picture.”
iOS 9 is now available to download to those inside Apple’s developer program –– but you DO NOT want to install it on your daily driver. The software is in beta and is intended for use by developers only. Regular consumers, especially aboard handsets used as daily drivers, need not apply –– just yet, anyway.
Therefore, it goes without saying: if you’re not a developer, DO NOT download the software, unless, A) you’re using an old iPhone or iPad or B) you’re OK with voiding the warranty of your iPhone or iPad.
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Power management inside the first beta of iOS 9 is woefully bad, apps crash and third party content, in some instances, wouldn’t even load, though this is to be expected inside a developer preview of new software.
Aside from all of these things, though, there are larger initiatives at work in Apple’s ecosystem that will begin to yield some very impressive results in the weeks and months to come. Apple is now far more open to giving developers access to its core APIs, which means more integration between third party applications and core iOS applications, as well as things like Apple Music –– a cross platform service –– and Android Migration assistant to make the switch from Android to iOS all the more easier.
There are a ton of new features, but for now these listed below are, in our opinion, the most significant:
INSANE Improvements To Battery Life
One of the biggest things we’re excited about, however, are the developments Apple is making in its war against poor battery life. The iPhone 6 Plus has an exceptional battery life, so good in fact it is difficult to switch to another phone for very long –– you just miss it too much. However, Apple isn’t done yet –– and the latest development will bring even BIGGER improvements to battery life across the board. It’s called “Low Power” mode and it is likely to be a very big deal.
“Across the entire operating system, apps and key technologies have been made more efficient to trim battery usage wherever possible — so you get more battery life for the things you do every day. Thanks to ambient light and proximity sensors, your iPhone knows if it’s facedown on the table and prevents the screen from turning on, even when you receive a notification. And the new Low Power mode lets you extend your battery life even further,” noted Apple at WWDC 2015.
Transit Maps
Yeah, Apple’s Maps app got off to a horrible start because of a piss poor POI (point of interest) database when the service was unveiled a few years ago. But also another feature Maps lacked was transit directions. Well, no more! In iOS 9 Apple Maps offer a new feature called transit that will show bus, metro, and train directions in the app. Transit will be available in a limited number of cities at first: Baltimore, New York, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, and dozens in China. From the brief dome onstage it looks like Apple may have gotten Transit right–indeed, it looks much better than the transit directions in Google Maps.
Proactive
A major new feature of iOS 9 is called Proactive. This is a system-wide feature that allows your iOS device to learn your habits and provide recommendations to you based on place, time of day, and activity. How does Proactive work? Well, it’s a lot like Google Now. For example, if Proactive sees you’ve got a meeting at 2pm, it will alert you beforehand and notify you when you have to leave and the best way to get to the meeting based on current traffic conditions. If you like to listen to music at 7am when you work out, Proactive will automatically have your music cued up for you at that time when you plug your headphones in. If you like reading Flipboard at night before you go to bed, Proactive will pull of the Clipboard app automatically at your bedtime.
iPad Split screen Multitasking
A huge new feature of iOS 9 is limited to the iPad–split screen multitasking. In iOS 9 any recent iPad will support multitasking. The way this works is while using an app on the iPad you can swipe left from the side of your screen to pull up a SlideOver window. This window features any app of your choice. For example, if your main app is the Mail app, you can SlideOver the Messages app, which will appear as a column on the side of the screen. When using a SlideOver app only that app is usable. However as soon as your tap the divider, the iPad goes into multitasking mode and allows you to have two usable apps side by side. You can then position two apps on the single screen at the same time and use them both. It’s quite a cool feature and one that is going to make the iPad a much more desktop-like productivity machine.
The best keyboard EVER (iPad only)
My favorite new feature of iOS 9 is also one that is limited to the iPad. There’s a new QuickType keyboard that allows you to use the keyboard as a trackpad by placing two fingers on it and moving them around. Doing so will allow you to move the text entry cursor in any app around the screen. For example, in the Notes app you can place two fingers on the keyboard, slide them around, and watch the cursor on the note move around on the screen. This makes adjusting the cursor position on screen infinitely less frustrating than needing to tap its position on the screen to move it as you need to do now.
Picture in Picture (iPad only)
Another big iOS 9 feature (and one related to multitasking) is, again, iPad-only. Now the iPad supports picture-in-picture (PIP). So, if you have a video app you can encapsulate the playing video in its own window and then open up another app (such as Mail) to get some work done. The video will play on the screen floating above the other app. You can move the PIP around the screen to place it wherever you want and you can even adjust the size of the PIP window.
News app
A surprise announcement was the new News app. That’s right, the loathed Newsstand app has been shutter in favor of News. The new News app is kinda like Flipboard, but pretty looking. With it you'll be able to create a custom magazine tailored to your interest with content from major providers like The New York Times, Conde Nast, and more–in addition to smaller websites.
Apple Pay and Wallet
The most exciting news for us UK folk was the announcement of Apple Pay coming to the UK in July (before iOS 9 ships). But beyond that, Apple Pay in iOS 9 is set to get loyalty card support, more retailers, and the Passbook app is renamed Wallet to reflect the fact that Apple wants to kill the traditional physical wallet and replace it with an all-digital one.
Notes, Android Migration, and More
But iOS 9 doesn’t stop there. As usual it’s got a ton of smaller features too. There’s the new Notes app, which allows you to make rich text notes complete with images and smart links. There’s also a new Android Migration assistant to make it easy for Android switchers to migrate over to iPhone. And then there’s better battery life, smaller file sizes for software updates, and improved security to boot. We’ll have more details of iOS 9 as the week goes on, so be sure to check back soon!
Click on over to PAGE 2 for our preemptive feature on 10 Things iOS 9 Needs To Succeed.
