iOS 8 for iPhone and iPad - The 5 Major Features

iOS 8 for iPhone and iPad - The 5 Major Features

by Marc Jason

iOS 8, also codenamed as Okemo, was announced by Apple on 2nd of June 2014 at WWDC, with the first developer beta seeded the same day. If Apple sticks to the pattern established over the course of the last two years, that would pin the iOS 8 release date as on or around September 17, 2014.

The major new features of iOS 8 include Continuity, Extensibility, QuickType, Health, iCloud Drive, and Family Sharing, as well as major improvements for Photos, Messages, Spotlight, and more. It's likely that there will also be more hardware dependent features upgraded in the new version.

Continuity:

• Offers seamless and secure experience between iPhone, iPad & Mac
• Handoff activity to continue it right where you left off on OS X, or vice-versa
• Airdrop to push data between all your devices, and Instant Hotspot, so your Mac or iPad Wi-Fi can use your iPhone or iPad's cellular connection to get online automatically
• Help attend phone calls, SMS and MMS messages from your iPhone on your iPad or Mac.

Extensibility:

• Interactive notifications, inter-app communications, widgets, Document Picker, and third-party keyboards enabling
• Photo filters and editing tools to present themselves in other apps access
• Access to the "Today View" in Notification Center for third party widgets, iCloud Drive and Document Picker so that files be open in any app

Messages:

• Quickly create and send video & audio messages
• Large thumbnails making existing photos and videos easy to add, even in volume.
• A new "Details" section to let you see and share location as well as all photos & videos that are part of the conversation
• Invoke do-not-disturb on specific conversations on group messages, or drop out entirely with a couple of taps

Family Sharing:

• Up to 6 people can co-mingle their iTunes music, movies, TV shows, books, apps, and games, all at the same time
• Even if you have different Apple IDs and passwords, all that matters is having the same credit card on all the shared accounts
• Approve every in-app purchase made by your children - a notification appears on the iOS devices informing you about an in-app purchase on one of children's iOS devices
• Automatically sets up a shared Photo Stream, shared Calendar, and allows shared location and shared Find my iPhone/iPad

Photos:

• iCloud Photo Library
• Store every photo and video you take with your iPhone or iPad in iCloud
• iCloud Photo Library also stores non-destructive edits of photos/videos and more
• Smart search and smart suggestion to make it easier for you to find your photos later, with time, location, and album sorting
• A new time-lapse mode for the Camera app, and smart composition tools to quickly crop and straighten photos.
• Smart adjustments so you can either automatically fix a photo, or manually tweak brightness, contrast, exposure, highlights, shadows, and colors
• Access to third-party filters as well to set everything just the way you like it as well

Health:

• Health is designed to collect all your health & fitness information in one app.
• Create an emergency card so that any critical information about you is readily available when you need it most
• HealthKit to make it easy for App Store apps and accessories to share their information with medical professionals when required