iOS 6 is announced: 200 new features
Apple has finally
announced iOS 6, the newest version of its mobile operating system at
WWDC 2012 and it has some 200 new features, with the biggest advances
made in Siri.
1. Siri
First and foremost, Siri is now on the iPad! And here are all the new things it can do.
In the new iOS 6, Siri can now tell the scores of sports
games. You simply have to ask it something like “What was the score of
the last Giants game,” or inquire about standings or players and you get
an answer. Neat!
Next up on Siri’s list of acquired knowledge come restaurants and movies.
Fine-diners can now ask the humble virtual assistant for a great place
for dinner, and get a list of restaurants ordered by rating. Apple is
partnering with OpenTable, so now a simple tap on one of those locations
allows you to make reservations.
When it
comes to movies, now you can ask about all the movies that are playing
at a movie theater. Add to that, Rotten Tomatoes integration, and you
can also learn about more about the movies and how they are rated. Have a
favorite actor or director? Just ask to see his or her filmography.
Additionally, Siri can now launch apps. It’s become better with Twitter
too - just speak and it will tweet your musings. This is a great way to
remain connected with minimum distraction even at the wheel and not
surprisingly BMW, Mercedes and others have collaborated with Apple on
this.
Best of all for international users, Siri finally supports more languages!
Apple’s virtual assistant appends Italian, Korean, Mandarin and
Cantonese Chinese - it’s clear that Cupertino values its Asian
customers.
In
iOS 6, Apple is finally bringing deeper Facebook integration. You can
now login to you FB account in settings and share straight from
applications like the photo gallery, Safari, Maps, and it’s all
integrated with the Notification Center. You can even like apps in the
App Store and see what your friends like and are using. Tight!
All
Facebook events will now appear in your Calendar, which is a great
addition! Also, there’s an API for that social integration so you can
easily introduce it into your app as well.
Wave goodbye to Google Maps - Apple is bringing its own solution with 3D Maps and turn-by-turn navigation.
Maps
gets huge support from Yelp with over 100 million business listings.
Also, it comes with a traffic service that’s crowd sourced and includes
real-time incident reports.
No worries about
driving as turn by turn navigation is also supported. It’s all done in
real-time, integrated with the traffic reports so you can get a pop-up
saying that re-routing will save you time while you’re on the road. And
this all can be seen straight /from the lockscreen.
While
so far there’s not much new, Apple is bringing this up a notch with
Siri integration so you can ask the voice assistant how much you have
left and other things, and now that’s impressive.
Finally,
Maps are further enhanced with a feature called Flyover that basically
gives you a bird eye’s view of major cities across the globe. And 3D
maps are also here.
4. Phone app
The
phone app also gets a boost of useful little features. Say, someone
calls you while you are in a meeting. Now, you can choose reply with a
message or have a reminder later about the missed call.
Apple has added a “Do not disturb” feature
that allows you to mute calls from all but your favorite contacts in a
certain time of the day, so no random people disturb you at night.
5. Passbook
Passbook
is a brand new application that serves as a drawer for all your
boarding passes, store cards and film ticket applications. An app that
will keep your stuff well optimized, Apple is definitely bringing
something unexpected but nonetheless neat here.
6. Others
FaceTime
is also getting new features and finally you can call while on a
cellular network, not only on Wi-Fi. Interestingly, FaceTime and your
Apple ID is getting unified with your phone number. This means that
basically when someone calls you on your phone for Facetime you can
choose to answer on your iPad.
Did
you know that two thirds of all mobile traffic comes from Safari? Well,
now you do, and you should also know that Safari is getting an
overhaul. iCloud tabs and offline reading, along with the possibilities
to upload pictures straight from where you see them all impress. While
on the web, when you stumble upon a website with an app on iTunes, you
can instantly jump to the App Store, and thus Apple is bridging the
small gap between web and apps.
Email
is also getting a refresh - you can now attach images directly from
within a message, which is a huge time saver. Additionally, you get a
VIP inbox and flagged mails so you can easily notice messages from the
contacts that really matter. Photo Stream is also getting new features
as it becomes almost a social network on its own. You can have shared
albums with your friends and comment directly to photos.
Conclusion
And this pretty much wraps it for iOS. Do you like what you see?
source: Apple
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