At their most recent keynote address, Apple unveiled their latest operating system, iOS 10. If you’re a developer, it’s available to you today. For the rest, a public beta will be released in July and the official release date will come in the fall of 2016. Let’s dig right into the features and what’s new with iOS 10!
Raise to Wake
As the name suggests, with iOS 10 you’ll simply be able to lift your phone up to get an overview of your notifications and updates. With 3D Touch, you’ll be able to interact and respond immediately from the lock-screen. As many experts have noted, this is similar to what Google has been working on within Android devices. Raise to Wake isn’t the only iOS 10 feature that seeks to compete with Google.
Siri Improvements
Personal assistants, like Siri, seem to improve every year, but when will the next major leap in this technology come? Apple wants you to its coming with iOS 10. One of the major changes will be the ability for third-party apps to work with Siri. For example, you will be able to ask Siri to get you a ride through Lyft. Based on the same deep learning system that Google uses, Siri will use more contextual awareness in order to give you intelligent suggestions. You’ll also be able to talk to Siri in a more normal, natural way.
Messaging
The most frequently used app within iOS is Messages and it seems as though Apple realizes that because the app is receiving a major overhaul. Apple wants to change the way you text by allowing you to use your own handwriting within texts, change the size of message bubbles to indicate tone and use a variety of new stickers, animations and draw-over capabilities for multimedia messaging. In a way, texting is becoming more like Snapchat. Invisible Ink will allow users to send photos that remain hidden or blurry until they swipe to reveal it to the receiver. In their keynote, Apple used a picture of an engagement ring as an example.
Apple Maps
In a new survey, nearly 70 percent of iPhone users said they preferred Google Maps over Apple Maps. This is a preference that Apple clearly wants to change so they completely re-designed their Maps in iOS 10. Following the trend of intelligent assistance, more predictive features will be available such as restaurant suggestions and alternative routes. Maps will also be opened up to developers which will allow users to book restaurants, pay for rides and more all without leaving the Maps app.
iOS 10 will be compatible on all Apple devices except for the iPhone 4s, iPad 2 and the iPod touch 5th generation. There are many more features coming to iOS 10 than the few listed above. You can learn more from Apple here. A quick tip on when to download a new operating system: if you don’t care about experiencing it first, wait until after the fall 2016 release so Apple can work out all the bugs.
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