Today (monday) apple introduced its most exciting product iOS 6 during its WWDC presentation. Looking specifically at iOS 6, Apple's next-generation mobile platform adds more than 200 new features including Siri enhancements and Facebook integration. Apple's new iOS will be released for developers and will finally be released with the new iPhone5 that will be announced during september. Here's some features revealed by apple.
Facebook: Apple has finally included Facebook integration in iOS 6. It delivered Twitter integration in iOS 5, and that left many users crying foul over the lack of Facebook support. That changes with iOS 6. Once it arrives, iOS device users will be able to fire off status updates, share photos, and share links directly from within other iOS applications. The new sharing tools bring Facebook to the iPhone in a long-overdue way.
Siri: While Apple stopped short of calling the new Siri a 1.0 full release, but the personal assistant gains appreciable powers. First, it can open other applications. That means if you're sitting at your desk, you can grab your iPhone and ask Siri to open the music player, and she will. Same goes for tons of other apps and actions. The added number of apps with which Siri can interact is a serious improvement. The fact that it works better for researching sports scores/stats, movies times and ticket purchases, and dinner reservations is all a bonus.
Eyes Free: An interesting feature
added to iOS is Eyes Free. Together with a dozen auto manufacturers, Apple is
looking to add a dedicated "Siri" button in cars. This will let iOS
device owners access Siri and their iPhone when driving without taking their
eyes off the road. Worried about Microsoft's Sync much, Apple?
Passbook: The
feature no one asked for. Passbook collects items such as movie tickets, train
tickets, airline tickets, sporting event tickets and makes them all available
digitally in one application--complete with QRCodes and 2-D barcodes. With
Passbook, you can purchase apps through Fandango, have them sent to your
iPhone, and then gain access to the movies theater by flashing your iPhone to
the ticket counter. Neat.
Apple Maps: Apple
officially dumped Google Maps in iOS 6. According to what Apple
revealed, the new mapping tool for iOS devices offers turn-by-turn navigation,
points-of-interest searching, integration with Siri for commands, and the
ability to submit anonymous traffic/incident reports. It includes a flyover/3-D
mode that offers incredible detail of U.S. cities, too. It looked impressive in
the demos, but it remains to be seen if it can be a real Google Maps killer.
FaceTime Over Cellular: Finally.
After two years of FaceTime, Apple has finally made it available over 3G
cellular connections. Since launch it has only worked over Wi-Fi, which was a
serious limitation. Now that it will be available over 3G, you can expect
FaceTime's usage to increase exponentially. FaceTime will also combine a user's
phone number and Apple ID, allowing them to answer either their phone or their
FaceTime app on their phone or Mac.
Safari: Apple
has copied some of its competitors with some much-needed upgrades features for
Safari. First and foremost is the ability to sync open tabs from Safari on a
desktop to Safari on an iOS device via iCloud. This also requires OS X Mountain
Lion, but still, it took Apple long enough. Opera, Firefox, and others have
offered this for ages.
Email: Apple
didn't spend too much time on the new email for iOS application, but showed off
two much-needed improvements. First, iOS device users will be able to designate
VIP email senders. In other words, if you want to prioritize emails from your
boss on your iPhone, you'll be able to. Much more important, however, is the
ability to add pictures and videos to emails directly from the email
application. In previous versions of iOS, if you wanted to add a photo, video,
or other file, you had to do so directly from the photo application. This is a
major headache that should have been cleared up a long time ago.
iOS 6 will be supported on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS.
iOS 6 will be supported on the iPad 2, and the new iPad.
iOS 6 will be supported on the fourth-generation iPod touch.
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