Every fall the public gets antsy for the unveiling of the new Apple products about to be released and boy should they be excited for this fall. Apple will be releasing Mac OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 and they have big hopes for them. An Apple press release after the unveiling of iOS 8 said that it was “the biggest release since the launch of the App Store, giving users incredible new features and developers the tools to create amazing new apps.”
On June 2 Apple publicized the future release of their newest version of OS X, Yosemite. Yosemite has been reshaped and cleaned up from the previous versions of OS X to support a fresh modern look which allows for clearer, smarter and easier to understand controls along with toolbars that put additional emphasis on content without jeopardizing functionality.
“Yosemite is the future of OS X with its incredible new design and amazing apps, all engineered to work beautifully with iOS,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. Yosemite incorporates a new Today view in Notification Center that provides you with an overview of everything you would need to know for a given day including: Calendar, Weather, Reminders, Stocks plus additional widgets that users can download separately.
In addition to the other various redesigned features of Yosemite, Apple has decided to update their internet browser, Safari, as well. Safari hosts a numerous amount of updates that puts the most significant controls at the tips of your fingers. A new Favorites view gives you faster access to your most visited websites. Safari also is adopting a policy of giving users more authority over privacy with discrete Private Browsing windows and support for DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track its users searches.
The updated Safari is over six times quicker than Firefox and more than fives times as fast as Google Chrome when dealing with JavaScript. Yosemite also provides platform technologies that make it more straightforward for developers to create unbelievable apps.
With a claim such as “the biggest release since the launch of the App Store” there is a lot for Apple to live up too. An Apple press release states that iOS 8, “gives users incredible new features and developers the tools to create amazing new apps. iOS 8 delivers a simpler, faster and more intuitive user experience.” Part of this exhilarating new user experience includes iCloud Photo Library, updates to Messages and Apple’s keyboard. iCloud Photo Library allows users to appreciate their photos and videos more easily across devices.
The updated Message features allow for the easier sharing of voice, video or photos with just a swipe. The new keyboard provides users with predictive typing with QuickType. QuickType takes into account the user’s communication style and can even suggest favorite phrases. iOS 8 also is including a completely new Health app that gives users a clear overview of their health and fitness data in one place for convenience. It will allow users to choose from the various health apps on their phone and provide the information from those apps all in one convenient location, even allowing different apps to communicate with each other with the user’s permission.
Connected like never before is how Apple is marketing their new “Continuity.” Continuity features in Yosemite make users’ Mac and iOS devices optimal complements. Handoff is a feature that allows users to begin an activity on one device and continue that activity on another device if they are within proximity. This allows for phone calls to be answered on the Mac and even SMS and MMS messages to be transferred between devices.
With all the new opportunities and features that Apple is providing with their new operating systems it sure will be exciting to see how they will be used. Apple says, “it all adds up to an even better experience — one that is pleasantly surprising at first and becomes utterly indispensable before you know it.”