iOS 8: Open Ecosystem, Continuity, and Smarter Communication

Ios 8 was announced at WWDC on June 2, 2014 and released to the public on September 17, 2014. iOS 8 introduced more changes, but still built on the flat retro future of iOS 7. It was an evolution and for many a refinement rather than a rethinking. There were extensions at the system framework level that lets apps contribute notification center widgets or interactive notifications, as well as do things like create custom keyboards (swipe, swipe, swipe), play audio in new ways via audio units system wide integration authorizing access to different parts of iCloud Photo Library), provide other actions that could appear directly in app store cards (yeah haha make me click less); exploit new constraints using continuity modes like Handoff etc.

Although it was not just as drastically visually overhauled the iOS 7, iOS 8 stood out for being one of the boldest steps Apple had made to date short of IOS 2.0 — introducing iCloud Drive, Family Sharing and third-party keyboards; an explosion level set of developer APIs that have now changed forever how apps run on iOS了

However it started out as extremely buggy and with quite a bit of features that weren’t present at launch, came later through incremental updates during the early days. It is also eliminated the compatibility with the iPhone 4, so now only supports models from the 4s onwards.

Continuity: Seamless Integration Across Devices

One of the most exciting elements of iOS 8, and indeed baked in all over for your users who are familiar with both iOS and macOS (or OS X Yosemite, rather) is Countinuity!

Handoff allowed apps to be opened on one Apple device (e.g. an email composer or website reader) and pick it up from another computer in just the same state after a few moments.

Calls and SMS could be sent or received on a Mac or iPad as long as the device was also connected to Wi-fi.

No setup instant hotspot for seamless tethering with an iPhone

They also both relied on hardware assisted with Bluetooth LE and functioned best in the Apple ecosystem.

That was the beginning of Apple’s attempts to deliver a universal solution for cross-platform workflows.

Messages: More Expressive and Functional

Some pretty significant improvements were added to the Messages app with IOS 8.

Voice and video messaging for fast audio or fast videos that can be shared instantly and deleted at the same way.

Lastly, thread naming and preventing repeat convo starters from trying to take-over the mic thanks to mute ( yesss) —;) Morning conversationsSecond morning briefingDay followed, chatting reduced / ranking screen restoredMore objective elements planted in truthScroll_to_id 16; YOU DONT TEXT HEY!

Among these were the ability to briefly or indefinitely share their location with other users during conversations

They also fought against the third-party apps like WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook Messenger with a new version of Messages.

QuickType and Third-Party Keyboards

QuickType in Apple’s new IOS 8 predictive keyboard on the iPhone.

Sentence Boundary and Next-Word OR Punctuation Prediction Registers — dependent on user context, conversational style, or writing voice.

Private: Taught itself from the user over time, (no keystrokes sent to cloud)

And for the first time, with the App Store in place you could also install system-wide third-party keyboards too — like Swype or SwiftKey (or Gboard).

This step gave users a bit more freedom to mold their own typing environment.

Apple iCloud Drive

Figure 3 New in Yosemite is iCloud Drive as ‘OneDrive to Rule ThemAll’, and it supersedes the dull document-centric sync model that its iOS brethren meted out before.

It will let users stow access and organize this content across iOS, macOS, and the Windows platforms.

That is also when apps for the first time were capable of accessing files they had saved in other apps “inter-app file sharing” on iOS.

Adds file system to allow access to Files with new ios version

Though iCloud Drive still lacked a file manager in its early versions, it was the very first iteration of what would evolve into Apple’s single file-cloud storage solution.

Apple joins health game with Health app and HealthKit

HealthKit / Health app — IOS 8 Apple really got serious about health and fitness with the launch of the iPhone 6 when it released its integrated Health app and HealthKit framework.

Apple’s Health app on iOS and watchOS was a hub for fitness tracker, smartwatch, and even medical data. HealthKit could safely exchange data between apps and hardware with permission from the user That laid the groundwork for the inaugural Apple Watch a year later For Apple, this was ground zero where technology met personal health.

Family Sharing:- Ask to buy- Unlimited Purchases from shared content

Family Sharing was released alongside IOS 8 2 years ago and enabled up to five or six members of a family to: Just share iTunes, App Store and iBooks purchases without sharing accounts Keep Photo Albums, Calendars And Reminders With Friends

Enable Ask to Buy and let parents approve kids’ purchases from a distance.

Make Find My iPhone accessible to everyone.

Featurewise, Apple was already impressive so it had no intention of fixing what wasn’t broken: something that kept an individual’s privacy and gave parental control.

Interactive Notifications and Widgets

New Interactive Notifications IOS 8 allowing users to both reply messages, take a look on invites and like posts from banners or the lock screen itself.

Introduced Widgets in the Notification Center for quick glanceable information and actions (news, sports scores, reminders) (Today View)

It was a personalisation feature that made iOS so much more capable.

Other Notable Features

For example, it allowed third party apps access the Touch ID APIs allowing secure fingerprint authentication well beyond Apple’s own applications.

Explosion in more powerful extension support, per tab private browsing, camera credit card scanning and other Safari improvements

Battery usage by app in Settings, what was really using all that Mac juice.

There are new swipe-to-archive gestures, among other features, along with smarter suggestions.

Spotlight Search was more profound, surfacing Wikipedia results as well as news, nearby places and other sections.

API development & Swift

At WWDC 2014, IOS 8 got announced with HomeKit (home automation device APIs), CloudKit (cloud storage for apps) and Metal (low level graphics API).

Apple also unveiled Swift, its new programming language for iOS and OS X development ( promisingsecurity, speed and a modern syntax).

This led to new sets of gaming, automation and IoT features that quickly hit the market through a burst of app development.

iOS 8. X Updates; Bug patches and feature rollouts

Introduces Apple Pay for the U.S.; adds returning Camera Roll functionality to iOS 8.1

iOS 8 — new WatchKit compatibility layer plus the Health book app.

Apple, iOS 8.3: Now with wireless CarPlay support and more emojis

Apple Music launched, combining Beats Music and iTunes Radio in a new one-stop streaming shop. iOS 8.4

In Summary

IOS 8 beval een belangrijke verandering release, met gebruikers voor de eerste keer in staat om de benodigde gereedschappen te krijgen en ontwikkelaars begonnen pas echt goede extensies te maken in plaats van… fascinerende. Continuity, third-party keyboards, iCloud Drive and the all-new HealthKit offerings powered by Health. Despite its early performance issues, its legacy was to impact how and in what ways iOS could be customized (i.e. well beyond the home screen) and any third party app given access to a use of near real-time notification delivery.