Over the past six years, a massive cultural shift has happened. It’s changed how we interactive with one another. Learn new things. Entertain ourselves. Do our work. And live daily lives. All because of developers and the apps they create.
For five days, one thousand Apple engineers and five thousand developers will gather together. And life will be different as a result.
Although slightly melodramatic, the above prose sums up a certain annual event – Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Whilst it may not have been as magical as that, there were certainly some interesting software announcements on WWDC’s 25th birthday.
Android users, look away now. Apple fanboys, prepare your salivary glands, here is a summary of the keynotes from this years World Wide Developer’s Conference:
New OS and iOS
OS X Yosemite – According to Craig Federighi, senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, it promises an ‘incredible new design and amazing new apps, all engineered to work beautifully with iOS.’ Will also gain a new version of ‘Spotlight’ now that it is integrated with Bing.
iOS 8 – A free update, iOS 8 is simply an airbrush for iOS 7. The new OS grants users new features including interactive notifications, a better on-screen keyboard called QuickType and an improved version of Siri. We can see the Magic 8 ball going extinct any day now!
New Features
iCloud Drive – Something of a competitor to Google drive, this new addition to the iCloud will allow users to upload, share and sync files from a variety of Apple devices, including the new OS X Yosemite.
Mail Drop – Allows you to send attachments separately from your emails, and the Drive, using the iCloud. Simple and efficient, we like it.
Handoff – Using ‘proximity awareness’, Handoff will allow users to start an email on an iPhone and finish it on their Mac, and vice versa. Handoff – for those lazy enough not to finish an email or save it in drafts.
New Voice Message – Recording voice messages is now swipe-free! Users can simply raise the phone to their ear, record the message and lower it. Neat.
Healthkit – Apple’s brand-spanking new feature is integrated with Nike’s running app and the Mayo Clinic app, allowing users to take note and action on their fitness and health care. We may be fairly pro-Android, here, but we can’t deny Healthkit’s awesomeness.
Family Share – Families up to six can now share a variety of media and information, as well as receive notifications when attempting to purchase something on their account. No more “accidental” Angry Birds purchase of massive amounts.
TestFlight – This is a new beta-testing service which is said to be easier now for developers. Considering there were 5000 developers there at the time, that conference room must have been a pretty happy place!
Homekit – Homekit is essentially a tool that, using Siri, can control smart-controlled appliances in the house, such as lights and garage doors. Call it a universal remote for your ‘smart home’.
Cloudkit – Continuing the theme of ‘kits’ is the latest feature, Cloudkit, which allows developers to upload cloud apps and share some of the responsibility with Apple. With limits, of course, always with limits.
Metal – Gamers, rejoice! Metal is set to improve iOS gaming for good, improving performance by up to ten times. Trust us, it works, Plants vs Zombies never looked so good on a conference screen!
Swift – This new feature, described as ‘Objective-C without the baggage of C, is set to make programming language much more accessible to developers. Couple that with Metal, and iOS gaming is in safe hands.
In terms of cool stuff, that’s about it for this year’s WWDC conference. There were lots of updates to existing apps and features named in the keynotes, but we hope we’ve sparked your excitement with these new toys to play with.
To watch the keynote in full, you can find it here.