At the keynote event for its annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference today, Apple announced and previewed the next versions of the operating systems for its mobile devices and Macintosh computers. Both iOS 8 and Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite will be released to the public this fall and will be free of charge.
iOS 8 gets several major upgrades in basic functionality with changes to Siri, Spotlight search, and notifications. Siri can be invoked hands-free with the phrase “Hey, Siri” and will be able to offer song recognition and make purchases from the iTunes store. Spotlight will be able to search the App Store and provide information at a glance from sources like Wikipedia.
Notifications will be more interactive with actions possible without leaving the current app. For example, the notification for a new text message can be dragged downward and replied to immediately without needing to go the Messages app.
Apple is also offering developers more features that will allow them to share data between apps, show data on the lock screen within widgets, and and they will be able to use TouchID to protect apps (to unlock an app like Intuit’s Mint, for example).
Yosemite for Mac will feature a more streamlined interface, updates to Safari, Finder, and Mail, and even greater integration with iOS with Handoff, which lets users pick up editing a document easily when switching between an iOS device and a Mac. Sending files between Macs and iOS devices with AirDrop will also be possible with Yosemite.
iCloud Drive will store files in the cloud and synchronize automatically with users able to access files via Macs and iOS devices.
There are many more changes and new features and you can check out Apple’s press releases for iOS 8 and Yosemite if you want more details and marketing speak. I’m very excited for iOS 8 and the upgrades to Siri and notifications. What are you looking forward to most?