As expected, WWDC is all about developers. Apple announced OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and IOS 8.
As a user, what does this mean? A ton. This really is the biggest release in a long time. I think it will be a revolutionary experience. I already enjoy iMessage in Mavericks. This release goes so far beyond that I think we will be delighted.
- OS X Yosemite
- It will be free, and this summer there will be a public beta program.
- The interface has been greatly refined
- Dark mode - instead of bright menus and dock, they can be dark
- Further minimization to window real estate
- Notification: Day at a glance like in iOS
- Spotlight
- Not stuck in the upper right corner anymore
- Bringing in many more resources, including internet resources for immediate data availability
- Mail Drop - up to 5GB attachments sent encrypted through iCloud
- Markup - draw on images right from mail - with smart help
- Safari
- A single bar (by default) frees screen real estate.
- Sharing, RSS feed reading in the side bar, sharing to people to communicated with most recently
- Tab view
- FAST - faster than ever, and more power efficient! HTML5 premium video means no netflix plugin and 2 extra hours of watching video
- iCloud Drive
- iOS 8 will not run on iPhone 4 - iPhone 4S is the minimum.
- Smart notifications let you stay in context/in app while responding to notifications from: texts, email, calendar, reminders, and even messages from apps!
- SMS
- recent and favorite contacts are easy to select via the multitasking interface
- easy marking as unread and flagging
- more recognition of data in emails for other uses, such as to add to calendar
- Safari
- Tab view is for iPad also
- Keyboard
- context smart word suggestions, learning about your context and tone!
- 3rd party keyboards are now possible!
- Family Sharing
- Now an official way to set up sharing as long as we use the same credit card.
- Approval of purchases being made on another iPhone!
- different iCloud accounts, and yet find family members anyway.
- Health app
- integrate data into one dashboard
- emergency card for the lock screen
- control what data to share with each app
- healthkit - enable sharing data with your doctor, or other apps
- Spotlight
- It searches more resources and understands context and location
- can search stores
- also works in Safari
- There is huge integration between devices - continuity. Why did Microsoft never do this?
- Air Drop - OS X and iOS can share.
- Handoff - pick up where you left off! This is amazing. Works either way - lets you pick up finishing an email, or a pages document, and more.
- Instant Hotspot - super easy to configure, works over the network!
- SMS - sent SMS (non-imessage) texts from iMessage!
- Add/remove people from conversations, name groups to communicate with, get out of conversations, silence conversations
- Smart voice messaging, listen and respond with the phone to your face
- share location information as part of the conversation
- see all attachments in a conversation
- send many photos and videos at the same time
- Phone - your computer can, partnering with your iPhone, accept and make calls!
- Photos
- every photo protected and available in original format via the iCloud Photo Library (on devices or on the web).
- new affordable storage options to put your whole library in the cloud without taking up all the room on your devices.
- Organization bits (moments, collections, years, favorites, albums) available on all platforms
- edits available on every device
- search and smart suggestions
- smart composition and photo editing tools
- Time-lapse videos!
- Metal - supposed to be 10x better than OpenGL
- Tools:
- lots of data sharing options
- PhotoKit and Camera API - embed photo editing tools directly into the photos app, and take photos with precise control over the camera
- add custom actions, for example a bing capability to translate a webpage! Weird and wow.
- Apps can target the notification center now
- Developers can make keyboards
- Access to TouchID
- HomeKit - central control of supported devices (with Siri support)
- CloudKit - develop cloud apps without other infrastructure ?!? Wow.
- SprteKit (2D), SceneKit (3D)
- Xcode brings: A new programming language - Swift for iOS (I really feel I have heard of this before)
- Very efficient (faster than C), modern
- Same compiler, so can live with objective-C programs
- Playgrounds - interesting real-time exploration of variables, their values, and their effect on the app
Whew. So much! What do you think? I think with these new features now, and with new hardware this fall, Apple will have a blockbuster year. I do not think any other company can match this feature set. It will likely drive a virtuous feedback loop inciting more mac purchases from iPhone users and more iPhone purchases from mac users.
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