Updated iOS 8.1 fixes and adds to Apple's free iPhone, iPad update
Apple is bringing iOS and OS X together is simpler waysUpdate: iOS 8.1 launches on Monday. Here's an explainer of all iOS 8 features before you download it.Apple's all-important iOS 8 update is available to download with new features that round of the flat iOS 7 design even if you don't upgrade to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. As we mentioned in our full iOS 8 review,
instead of a dramatic redesign, this year's mobile operating system
update ties everything together with the overarching theme of
"convergence." iOS 8.1, launching Monday, features tighter Mac OS X Yosemite integration while further loosening the restrictions on Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor for the same-day Apple Pay launch. New
software kits also bring once fragmented security and health gadgets
together, something that this year's "one more thing" surprise, the Apple Watch, will takes advantage of in early 2015.
Cut to the chase What is it? The next iteration of Apple's mobile platform When is it out? Download it now, iOS 8.1 on Monday What does it cost? iOS 8 is free download
Compatibility
When it comes to iOS 8.1 and iOS 8 compatibility, Apple requires an iPhone 4S or newer and iPad 2 or newer to update to the latest software. Only the iPhone 4 is cut from the list. Both the iPads mini and iPad mini 2 tablets and the forever alone iPod touch 5th generation are also going to work with the new iOS, just like they did with iOS 7. No one besides 2010's iPhone 4 gets left behind.
iOS 8 works on almost as many devices as iOS 7That
said, reports of the iOS 8 software running slower on the iPhone 4S and
iPad 2 means that owners of such older hardware should proceed with
caution.
iOS 8 updates and problems
While we wait for the iOS 8.1, the latest version of iOS 8 is the safe-to-download iOS 8.0.2 update.
It fixes a bug so Healthkit apps can populate the App Store and tie
into Apple's Health app. Third-party keyboards should be glitch-free
too. Release notes for this patch mirror the ones found in iOS 8.0.1,
which Apple released one a week after iOS 8 launched. It was quickly
pulled as it introduced problems like breaking Touch ID and cellular.
iOS 8 problems delayed Healthkit apps that tied into its Health ecosystemThis sent downloaders scrambling to downgrade, in some cases, to iOS 7. It also slowed iOS 8 adoption. But 8.0.2 fixed problems for the unlucky Health-app-hungry masses who sprang for the flawed update.Not all of iOS 8's biggest bugs have been addressed by the iOS 8.0.2 update. A number of people are still waiting to have WiFi and battery drain problems resolved and there's a precarious iCloud Drive bug that can delete your iWork docs. iOS 8.1 brings Apple Pay
to new iPhones and iPads and promises to usher in all of these
necessary fixes. It'll also bring back the missing "camera roll" album
to photos when it releases on Monday.
Touch ID for all
Apple's
fingerprint scanner has been limited to bypassing the lockscreen and
buying iTunes Store content, but iOS 8 changes all of that as app
developers get access to the five-digit login tool. All
sorts of apps can use the biometric scanning home button instead of
pesky passwords. It only applies to the Touch ID-enabled iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. But the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 are rumored to include the sensor.
Forgetting your password may be a thing of the pastAt WWDC, personal financial management Mint.com
illustrated how third-party Touch ID use will expand beyond its iOS 7
lockscreen and iTunes confines. 1Password uses the same home button
authentication the easier password management.PayPal sent its developers
to Apple's Touch ID session at the conference, meaning all of your eBay
and e-commerce transactions may be complete with the touch of the home
button when upgrading to iOS 8. While PayPal doesn't think highly of Apple Pay, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus digital wallet idea is likely to be ready for iOS 8.1 in October in the US and in 2015 in the UK. In
due time, "Forget password" will become a thing of the past, replaced
by the pores in your fingertips. It should act as a much more unique
method of protecting your valuable data. This Touch ID convenience is on top of the fact that iOS 8 Apple Pay system of scanning credit cards via an iPhone or iPad camera and automatically filling in the details to make shopping easier. Of
course, Apple went out of its way to say that even though you trust
many app developers with your bank account data, they won't have access
to your biometric information. It's locked away in the A7 and new A8
processor.
iOS 8 camera time-lapse mode
Believe
it or not, the iPhone is consistently the most used camera in the world.
It's in so many hands and so easy to use. In iOS 8, the camera app is
going to get even better. Apple added a time-lapse camera mode
to iOS 8 beta 1 in order to help users capture extended moments and
automatically speed up the video with a higher frame rate. It's a
stripped-down rival to Hyperlapse. Condensing everything road trips to candles
burning down to their wick to just a few seconds in demoed in the
YouTube video above. iOS 8's time-lapse mode is
basically the opposite of the slow motion video recording option at 120
frames per second that Apple added to iOS 7 last year and Slow Mo 240fps
in iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
SMS and phone calls on Mac
iMessages
has been a wonderful cross-compatible tool for chatting on iOS devices
and Macs - at least until you try to leave your iPhone behind for an Android.
iOS 8 SMS messages will finally appear on your iPad and Mac computerApple deserters, however, may be lured back to iOS 8 with SMS and voice calls being folded into iPads and Macs, just like blue iMessages currently pop up on Apple tablets and computers.It's a pain to have to fetch your phone for a single SMS from an Android user, especially when you're sitting in front of a 13-inch MacBook Air screen and full keyboard capable of handling simple texts and phone calls.
Incoming phone calls can be answered on the tablet or computer tooOf course, enabling text messages and phone calls to a Mac requires upgrading OS X Yosemite, but that's a piece of cake since it'll be free today and iOS 8.1 come out on Monday.
Handoff and WiFi hotspot
iOS
8 and OS X Yosemite are going to be joined at the hip with the Handoff
feature that lets you pick up where you left off between devices. Starting
a project or email on an iPad or iPhone will let you finish the task on
a Mac with no annoying overlap. There's no need to reopen windows or
rewrite text on the computer. And it goes the other way, too, from a Mac
to a an iOS 8 device.
Finish that email on the computer or on the road seamlesslyWhat
if you don't have access to the internet on your computer or iPad to
get the job done? That's where the Instant HotSpot feature will come
into play, easing the messy personal hotspot setup of iOS 7.The
one problem with this joint iOS 8-Yosemite feature is that it may
require you to own a fairly new Mac. Handoff has been tipped to be not be compatible with Apple computers that pre-date Bluetooth 4.0.
Group messages with voice and video
Group
messages is also enhanced for iOS 8 thanks to new features. You're able
to add and drop people from conversations and silence non-stop incoming
message annoyances via a group-specific Do Not Disturb toggle. Sharing
your current location on a map one time or persistent location for a
set period of time is also a part of iMessages, tying in the concept
from Apple's underused Friend My Friends app.
Sharing
your location with friends is great for big, crowded outings. Never
again say 'I'm my this big tent thing. Do you see me? No? It's big. And a
tent.'Location
sharing, when it was part of the standalone app, was ideal for meeting
up in a crowded location like a baseball stadium or concert, and now
it'll get more use within iMessages.Multimedia within
iOS 8's iMessages app should be more useful too. Inline voice and video
messages with Snapchat-like clips that self-destruct are coming to this
mobile OS update.
Interactive notifications
For
the times when you do actually respond to texts and calendar reminders
on your phone instead of a Mac computer, iOS 8 adds convenient
interactive notifications.
Respond with an 'On my way' lie, reply with an excuse to get out of dinner, snooze on picking up James - all from the lockscreenLike OS X Mavericks,
these notifications can be dealt with in a few simple taps thanks to
inline responses. There's no need to mess with the lock screen in order
to take action right away.iOS notifications have come a
long way from taking up the entire middle of our phone screens, and iOS 8
makes them feel like even less of a nuisance.
Quicktype keyboard
Apple
claims its iOS 8 keyboard is its "smartest keyboard ever," and there's
no reason to doubt that since its Quicktype feature adds
highly-requested predictive texting that's akin to SwiftKey and Swype. The
candidate row appears above the keyboard with three word-finishing
suggestions and then next-word best guesses. It even varies depending on
the app that's open to match your tone for each, from casual iMessages
to formal emails.
Apple's Quicktype (left) finally offers suggestions, while Swype (right) does all that and moreIf
someone asks you a question, Quicktype also automatically offers
choices like "Yes" and "No" and, optionally, learns your contacts to
spell everyone's name correctly.Better yet, the more-open-than-ever Apple doesn't limit users to its pre-installed keyboard via developer "extensions."
iOS 8 extensions
Extensions open up iOS 8 to Android's best input methods: Swype is here and SwiftKey breaks free of its SwiftKey Note standalone app confines. Fleksy and Minuum also give you control over keyboard sizes. Other
third-party extensions let users tinker with the default sharing
options, photo editing tools, custom actions and notification center
widgets.
The 1Password extension makes it simple with Touch IDThe 1Password extension goes as far as opening up the company's powerful password manager to you without the need to exit the app to open its standalone app. It simply uses Touch ID to get the job done.Before,
you had to close the app that required a password you forgot, open up
1Password's standalone app, copy the password, go back into the original
app and paste in the password. There's always a lot of
potential when a platform as large as Apple's opens up its ecosystem to
outside developers. Look at what it did to the App Store. Extensions by forward-thinking developers may be long overdue, but it'll finally be here thanks to iOS 8.
iCloud may actually be useful
Prior
to today, there was very little reason to use the ridiculously small
5GB of free space Apple included with iCloud. It was always easier to
use a more capable and less expensive Dropbox account. That
all changes when iOS 8 launches alongside iCloud Drive, Apple's new
rival to Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive and the dozens
of other file-sharing services.
Files in your iPad. Just don't expect music. You go to iTunes for that! Bring money!It
still costs money over the 5GB limit, but at least more file types can
be stored and synced. This includes documents, presentations,
spreadsheets, PDFs and images. Plus it's the best method of backing up
your iPhone and iPad. What's really cool about the
forthcoming iCloud-enabled iOS Photos app is that every picture and
every edit is saved across all of your Apple devices automatically.
Better yet, there are new tools and filters in iOS 8 and it'll work on the web.
iOS 8 Family Sharing
Maybe
you'll be more willing to buy into iCloud Drive knowing that you're
going to save money thanks to Apple's new Family Sharing feature that's
part of iOS 8. All iTunes, iBooks and App Store purchases
on the same credit card can be shared among a total of six people in
your family. That beats having to sneakily exchange passwords.
You share genes, so why not iTunes content?New
parental controls force kids to ask your permission before aimlessly
downloading expensive apps. This "Ask to Buy" feature beams a message to
your device, so you don't need to be the fun-depriving "bad guy" in
person.Other Family Sharing perks include collaborative
photo albums, calendars and optional locating sharing. You can find
your mom or dad and that iPhone they always misplace with this extension
of Find My Friends and Find My iPhone.
'Send Last Location' for Find My iPhone
iOS
8 expands the geolocation capabilities of Find My iPhone with Family
Sharing and Find My Friends by integrating it into iMessages, but in
true Apple fashion, "that's not all." A "Send Last Location" feature is being added so that your GPS coordinates are backed up to iCloud whenever your battery life is critical.
A new iOS 8 setting for when your iPhone or iPad battery is criticalRight
before your iPhone or iPad battery shuts off, the last thing the device
does is pinpoint where you left it, whether it's between the couch
cushions or still in the car.This handy iOS 8 setting
joins the real-time tracking, sonar-like ringing, message sending,
device locking and, as a last resort, iPhone-wiping features of Find My
iPhone.
Health app
Apple didn't announce an
iWatch-tied Healthbook app at WWDC, but it did unveil a more plainly
named Health app and the developer-focused HealthKit API. It's
intended to bring together all of the fragmented health and fitness
gadgets into one secure location, whether the fitness device deals with
your heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar and cholesterol.
Track calories burned, sleep, nutrition and more with the Health appEven without a separate fitness device, Apple's M8 and M7 co-processor
calculates steps and distance traveled. There's also nutritional
tracking and, for extra protection, there's an emergency Medical ID card
accessible from the lock screen.Jawbone Up, Withings
and other fitness firms are on board with iOS Health in order to deposit
their stats into the centralized app, though Fitbit has so far refused
Apple's advances. The more that existing products like the Fitbit Force and Jawbone Up24
join this initiative, the more iOS 8 users will find this to be the
health equivalent to Apple's coupon and ticket stub-collecting Passbook.
HomeKit
Apple
also plans to tie together smart home electronics with its HomeKit
framework for connected devices so that you control everything without
getting up off the couch.
Everything but Nest was mentioned, of courseLocking
doors, turning off lights, adjusting the thermostat and shutting the
garage won't even require tapping your iPhone touchscreen, it turns out.Instead,
these actions can be triggered with Siri voice commands as simple as
saying "Siri, I'm going to bed" in order for the computerized assistant
to put you into something of a human "safe mode." We're still waiting
for Apple to see this feature through post-iOS 8 launch.
Siri and Spotlight updates
Siri
does more than look after the house and save you on your electricity
bill. Apple's voice assistant is going to start responding to "Hey Siri"
if your iOS 8 device is plugged in. This safer, hands-free way of activating Siri is joined by the service's ability to identify songs using Shazam's recognition software, purchase iTunes content and recognize up to 22 languages.
Search, whether it's by voice or spotlight, is faster than everSiri
is also going to become a better listener with iOS 8 thanks to
streaming voice recognition. Now the wavy lines and words that appear on
screen will match what you're saying in near-real-time. When
voice search isn't feasible in a loud environment, you can turn to the
more reliable iOS 8 Spotlight. Like its OS X Yosemite counterpart, it
searches Wikipedia, the news, nearby places, the App Store and more. Finding
things, whether it's via Siri or Spotlight, shouldn't be a problem in
iOS 8, as Apple is finally taking on Google's handy voice search.
Location-based lock screen apps
If
you're anything like us you have hundreds of apps, but finding the
right one at the right time can sometimes mean sifting through folders
and that's if you even remember it exists. But with iOS 8 certain apps will appear in the bottom left corner of the lock screen based on where you are at a particular time.
Early
examples people have found include apps for the Apple Store, Starbucks
and train stations, when near each of those things. You can then get
quick access to those apps by simply swiping them upwards.It
seems that it can also make you aware of new apps as sometimes the icon
will be for an app that you don't have and will instead take you to its
page on the App Store. It's a minor feature perhaps, but one which
could save time and help users make purchases and access
location-specific information.
iOS 8 split-screen mode in the code
Apple
didn't announce the rumored split-screen functionality when introducing
iOS 8 in June, but it may be saving the unveiling as a "One more thing"
for iOS 8.1 future firmware updates. iOS 8 beta 3 code points to true multitasking on an iPad, according to leaks from developers. Apps can run side-by-side in 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 sizes.
Oh snap mode! I'll be able to read TechRadar and GamesRadar at the same time!There's
no telling whether or not a split-screen mode will end up in iOS 8
eventually, but Apple certainly appears to be toying with the big idea
given the new iPhone 6 sizes.After all, its competitors have had the feature up-and-running for some time. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S has multi-window mode and Microsoft Surface 3 has snap mode. Like copy-and-paste a few years ago, iOS users are left envying others.
Features being saved for iOS 9?
There's
a lot going on with iOS 8, but chief among the changes Apple failed to
implement officially is true split-screen multitasking, which Samsung
and LG have offered on their Android tablets and larger phones. Public transit directions
via Apple Maps is missing in action as well, and Google Maps is
benefiting the most from this. Hopefully its implementation was delayed to iOS 8.1 instead of next year's iOS 9. Apps
for photo previews and a TextEdit application, also previously rumored
for WWDC 2014, didn't make an appearance either, and the status of Game
Center is still unknown. Apple hasn't killed it off just yet. That's
every single new feature of this year's iOS update, though some
features are waiting for you to download iOS 8.1 on Monday and Mac OS X
Yosemite later today. Coupled with iPhone 6, iPhone 6
Plus and Apple Watch, iOS 8 is enough to keep Apple users from defecting
to Android, even with those fancy, new Android Wear watches like Moto 360 already launched. iOS 8: 10 things we want to see
So we're starting to get an idea of some of the major
changes in store for iOS 8, still, there are many other things we'd like
to see Apple change by the time iOS 8 rolls around later in 2014 -
although in some cases we've got a sneaking suspicion Apple would
disagree.
1. Change and hide default iOS apps
We'd
love to be able to choose non-Apple alternatives for handling email,
browsing and maps, but doubt it'll happen. However, Apple not providing
the means to hide preinstalled apps you don't use is an irritant that
goes back to the very first iPhone. Even if there was a similar 'parental controls' trick for hiding apps to the one on the Apple TV, that'd be good enough.
2. A guest/child account
Apple's
mantra is everyone should own their own device. That's lovely, but not
everyone's pockets are as deep as those of Apple board members. OS
X-style user accounts are unlikely, but it can't be beyond Apple to
provide a single-tap child account or a guest account that doesn't
affect your settings and data, and doesn't retain settings or data of
its own.
3. Better iOS app management
As of iOS 7,
Apple automates app updates, but it should go further. Devs wrestle
with iCloud app data, but this should be child's play to save and also
(optionally) restore whenever you reinstall an app. And
the App Store itself should offer trials and paid version updates
(rather than devs being forced to use IAP or 'replacement' apps as a
workaround).
4. Stronger inter-app communications
One
of the weakest elements of iOS is inter-app communication. If a service
bumps you to another app, you're not always returned when you've
finished performing an action. Worse, when making
document edits across several apps workflow can be a nightmare with
document copies in various states strewn throughout individual app
sandboxes. Hopefully this is set to improve if the new API for
data-sharing makes it into iOS 8.
5. Better document management
Following
on from the previous point, iOS should introduce at least some kind of
centralised access to documents. Right now, Dropbox is a surrogate file
system because iCloud is a bunch of silos. It's absurd
that you can't easily attach documents within Mail in an OS that boasts a
version number of 7. The lack of collaboration opportunities within
iCloud document workflow is also disappointing.
6. Group FaceTime calls
This
isn't specifically tied to iOS, but Apple's mobile platform is where
FaceTime began life, and although the one-to-one model is great, it's
about time you could call several people at once, rather than a group
having to crowd around an iPhone.
7. iOS notifications like in OS X Mavericks
In
OS X Mavericks, notifications are interactive - get a message and you
can deal with it there and then, rather than leaving the app you're in.
This is even more important on iOS, and so we hope Apple adds similar
functionality on mobile. Google does it with aplomb, so we want to see
the same here.
8. More Do Not Disturb options
Do
Not Disturb gained extra power in iOS 7, enabling you to silence
notifications only when a device is locked. Bizarrely, it still retains
only a single schedule though. Is it beyond Apple to enable you to at
least set one for weekdays and a separate one for weekends?
9. Better text manipulation
Apple's
text-selection, cut, copy and paste seemed elegant when it was
introduced, but only compared to disastrous equivalents on competing
mobile systems. Today, it comes across as awkward, and
it's a barrier to usability for far too many people. We'd like to see a
rethink from Apple and more usable and intuitive ways of dealing with
text.
10. Two-up apps
We love the focus iOS
provides, but there are times when we'd like to work with two apps at
once. Much like messing with default apps, we doubt Apple will ever go
down this path, but OS X Mavericks now has a more powerful full-screen
mode for multiple monitors. So there's perhaps the
slightest hope a multi-screen mode might one day arrive for the iPad or a
larger iPhone, and would be one in the eye for all those Samsung owners
out there.