APPLE IOS 9: ALL THE BEST NEW FEATURES AND UK RELEASE DATE

APPLE IOS 9: ALL THE BEST NEW FEATURES AND UK RELEASE DATE

Posted on June 14, 2015 by odaysaed Leave a comment Edit Post

As expected, Apple has just unveiled the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 9, as part of itsWWDC 2015 keynote. There’s loads of cool new features to look forward to, with iOS 9 expected to get a consumer release in the autumn alongside the next version of the iPhone (the iPhone 6S?). Here’s a roundup of some of the best.

UK Release Date and Availability

There’s no official word on the UK release date of iOS 9, but based on past experience, we’d expect it to roll out sometime in September, following the launch of the next-generation iPhone. A developer preview is now available, and for the first time with an iOS release, a public beta will also be available from July and you canregister your interest here. Apple’s iOS 9 will support all devices that currently are able to run iOS 8.

As always with preview software, it’s only really advisable to download the early builds if you’re a developer, as it’s going to be buggy, unstable, hard to use, drain your battery life, and make a bunch of your apps pretty much unusable. If you do download the developer preview, make sure you backup all your data first.

New Multitasking Features

Ever tried to use an iPad for work? It’s possible, but far from perfect, at least compared to more robust devices like laptops. So iPad users should be happy to hear that iOS 9 on the iPad will now come with improved multitasking tools. At the heart of iOS 9’s new multitasking features is a new app called SplitView, which will let you have two apps running on-screen simultaneously, so you can use both at the same time. In addition, you have SlideOver, which lets you swipe in another app from the side of the screen, and Picture-in-Picture mode, which lets you keep a single app running in the corner of the screen while you do something else, whether for work or play.

SplitView is only available for the iPad Air 2, but SlideOver and Picture-in-Picture will also be available on the the iPad Air, as well as the iPad Mini 2 and 3.

There’s also a new QuickType keyboard for the iPad, featuring a bunch of formatting options. You can now swipe with two fingers to create a trackpad to select and edit text. If you’re using a keyboard, you also get some new shortcuts to switch between apps, which we’ll talk more about when we’ve had a proper play with it.

Apple Pay

Oh hey, Apple Pay is finally coming to the UK, isn’t that nice? Sarcasm aside, it actually looks better than expected, with loads of major High Street retailers, public bodies, and mainstream banks already signed up ahead of its release in July. Perhaps most usefully, TfL is among the first to support Apple Pay in the UK. Click below for more information.

Swift 2

Last year at WWDC, Apple unveiled a brand new programming language called Swift. At this year’s event, Apple announced its successor, Swift 2. The key development here is that Swift 2 will be open source, supporting compilers and libraries for OS X and iOS, as well as Linux, by the end of the year.

HomeKit

HomeKit is Apple’s move into the smart home space. Now, HomeKit will let you access your smart home devices remotely through iCloud, so you can take control of your home without even being in the same country. Apple didn’t announce specific devices that will be released with HomeKit compatibility, but it did say that smart lighting, sensors, carbon monoxide alarms, thermostats and more will be able to be controlled from your iOS device.

Privacy

Apple went a bit overboard emphasising how important security was to iOS 9, noting that all of your information – such as the random marriage proposals you throw at Siri – will stay on your phone. That’s right: everything will be anonymous, and will be based on a random identifying number.

Siri and Proactive

Apple claims that iOS 9 will do a whole bunch of stuff, including improving battery life, enhancing performance, and bolstering security. But the biggest change to Siri in particular is the introduction of a new, Google Now-style feature, which Apple is calling Proactive.

Basically, Proactive is a location-aware, automatic feed that sits on the left-hand side of your home screen and updates itself in accordance with what you’re doing. Apple noted that the system will be tied to emails – the example it used was getting invitations to events, which Proactive will then send to your calendar automatically, along with intelligently serving up other relevant information, like driving directions and departure times, or playing your workout music when you plug in your headphones at the gym. Because Google doesn’t already do all of that…

Siri will also come with improved search functionality, letting you search through your iPhone much easier than you could before. Just tell her a command, like ‘find my photos from last summer’ and she’ll bring them up for you immediately. It’s similar to the improvements to Spotlight in OS X 10 El Captain.

Spotlight in iOS 9

Spotlight in iOS 9 is a lot more powerful and predictive. Pulling it up will show you your most recent contacts, as well as apps that you tend to launch at certain times of the day. You can also search within apps like Netflix and Vimeo, do basic maths, and more. More importantly, Spotlight now has an API, so this feature can (and hopefully will) come to many more apps soon.

Apps

As part of iOS 9, a bunch of Apple’s native smartphone and tablet apps are going to be getting updated, including the popular Notes app. Apple says it’ll be making it easier to find and organise your notes, plus offering the ability to doodle notes directly into the app, and giving you the option of backing your notes up to iCloud.

A brand new app was also unveiled at WWDC 2015, dubbed ‘News’. A bit like Flipboard, News is a personalised news feed designed to surface content relevant to you. Apple highlighted the design effort that gone into News, promising articles will actually look like they belong in a newspaper, with a few smaller animations and videos thrown in for good measure. Apple added that News will cover more than a million different topics, so if you want to follow niche areas, you’ll be able to do that. In other words, if you like mobile tech but don’t like Android or Windows Phone, you can just, you know, follow iOS-related fodder.

Apple Maps

Not long after Google announced the addition of real-time transit information to its mapping product, Apple also confirmed that its Maps platform will be integrating public transport details in a bunch of cities around the world, including London. Ask for directions on public transport and, as well as telling you route options, Apple Maps will highlight the walking time between your changeover. The new-look Apple Maps will integrate with Siri, of course, so you can ask it for directions rather than having to go into the Maps app to type our your requests.

Battery Life

Apple claimed that the battery life of its related hardware products was being optimised for iOS 9, potentially adding an extra hour of battery life on an iPhone. On top of this, it will also be adding a new low power mode (it’ll be interesting to see how closely this resembles Airplane Mode, which already lets you put your device in a low power mode when you’re trying to conserve juice).