ioS 8!

Welcome to the new iOS 8! As well as a bright new user interface update, iOS 8 will bring to our phones a new level of sharing – between family members, between app developers and between iDevices and Macs.

We’re pretty excited about the new software functionality this operating system is promising, and below you will find a comprehensive outline of everything ( that we know of so far) that iOS 8 will bring to your lives with it’s release in the Fall.

New Spotlight

The search function in iOS is called Spotlight, and with iOS 8 it brings a much broader ability to search, both on your iDevice and on the internet. For example -type in a term and you can see a part of a Wikipedia article, including a picture and a short summary. Tap it, and Spotlight takes you to the full article.

Spotlight will also show you search results like trending topics, popular websites, nearby restaurants with phone number and hours of business that can connect you to maps,  search results within the iTunes Store or the App store, and search results for movie times.

It seems like there is a slight crossover with Siri’s functionality in the new Spotlight, but making things easier all round can only be good!

Messaging

Messaging gets a lovely new overhaul with iOS 8!  Starting off impressively is the new ability to add video and audio messages. Simply touch and hold the new microphone button to record your message, and swipe to send. on the other end, to hear a message, you can now hold your iPhone to your ear and listen or just tap the play button next to the message.

All messages, text, video and audio, will now have the option to be deleted automatically, or within a time period ranging from a year to forever.

With iOS 8 you will be able to create larger and better controlled group conversation threads where people can be added and can leave at their leisure. Group conversations can be named for an event or experience, the attachments can be seen all in one place rather than opening them one at a time, and you can put the conversation on ‘Do Not Disturb’ so you can read the thread when you want without being, well, disturbed.

A new option with messaging which I’m sure teenagers are just going to love is the new location services within the messaging app. It is of course just that – an option – to show others that your are messaging where you are ( and if you really are studying in the library with Rachel, why do you have your location option switched off? HUH? uh oh).

Other than that, we can see this addition promising to be very useful. You can show your location with individuals or everyone for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.

Finally, a small but lovely touch is the new ability to send multiple photos and videos at once through messaging. YAY Let’s bombard EVERYONE WITH SO MANY CAT PHOTOS AND PHOTOS OF THOSE SWEET MOUNTAINS WE SAW ON OUR VACATION!

Health

The new Health app gives you an easy-to-read dashboard of all of your health and fitness data (Think heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol etc) . This data can be collected ( if you choose) from 3rd party sources and apps such as Nike, Fitbit, FitnessPal, medical devices etc and shown here consolidated for you and others ( again, if you choose) to access. This can mean that your Doctor or fitness specialist can be notified when something is wrong, or if you’ve hit a certain metric or met a goal.

Apple has been working  with the Mayo Clinic working towards what they say will  ‘bridge the gap between patients, doctors, and health-tracking devices…with ‘the potential to revolutionize how the health industry works.’

With health in iOS 8 you can create an emergency card  with all of your vital medical information ( think blood type, allergies, medications) that’s accessible from your Lock screen.

Despite all of the focus on Apple’s health related initiative before WWDC, the company spent very little time going over the Health app. It is likely we’ll see an additional focus on Health in the coming months as it is likely to also integrate with Apple’s much-rumored wearable device, the iWatch.

SIRI

Siri gets several updates with the ability to be invoked hands-free with the phrase “Hey, Siri” along with Shazam song recognition, 22 new dictation languages, as well as streaming voice recognition to show you guys search results as you speak. In order to preserve battery life, Apple requires that the device be plugged into power for “Hey Siri” to work.

Notification Interaction

When a notification comes up on your phone, from Facebook, Skype, Messages,  Calendar – whatever- you will now be able to respond those notifications without leaving the app you’re already in. Hoo- RAH! Such a small thing, that will make it so incredibly less frustrating than before!

Email 

Now from your inbox, you can swipe to mark an email as read or flag it for follow-up. Jump between a draft email and an email in your inbox super easily, and when you get a reservation, flight confirmation or phone number in an email, a notification appears. Just tap to add an event to your calendar or a phone number to your contacts.

Safari in iPad

Just like above, you can now see all your tabs on your iPad, just like on your iPhone. You can see all your open web pages with tabs from the same site grouped together. There’s also a new Sidebar that slides out to reveal your bookmarks, Reading List, and Shared Links.

Home Button

From any screen, press the Home button twice to see the multitasking interface which now comes complete with a few friendly faces. These are the people you’ve recently talked to and if you swipe to the right — your favorite contacts as well. Just tap one to call, text, or start a FaceTime call.

New keyboards

QuickType is the new predictive text and something we’re sure will change the way we communicate. We can also see it being comedian’s late night fodder for sure, but until then – it’s a clever and useful feature of iOS 8.  As you use the new keyboard over time, it will learn the way you communicate, get to know your favorite phrases, and suggest options for the logical next word that adapts to the current context with the caveat that those words change, depending on who you are talking to. The iOS 8 predictive text engine is optimized for 14 countries.

Apple is also going to allow users to install third-party keyboards for the first time, which means keyboards like Swype can be used natively on the operating system.

Family Sharing

Family sharing is pretty cool. Up to six people in your family can share all kinds of things across their devices. This includes: calendar information and purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store, (with the ability to pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device.) You will be able to automatically set up a family photo stream where you can share photos, videos, and comments. And everything stays up to date on everyone’s devices.

Family Sharing can automatically share your location with your family members and show you where they are. You can hide your location too… because that’s not suspicious or anything.

iCloud Drive 

You can safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud, access them and work on them live from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.

Using iCloud Drive means you’ll always have access to the latest version of all your documents from any device.

What’s really cool is that now your apps will be able to share files, which means you can access and work on the same file across multiple apps. The example Apple gave is this: you can create a drawing in a sketching app, then open it in a paint app to color it in. Or create a chart in one app and place it in a slideshow using a presentation app. No more making copies or importing documents from one app to another. It’s a whole new level of collaboration between apps.

Cross platform interaction

Um, what? You can do what now? Yass. Now you can make and receive phone calls on all of your devices and your Mac as long as your iPhone running iOS 8 is on the same Wi-Fi network. Incoming calls show the caller’s name, number, and profile picture. Just click or swipe the notification to answer, ignore, or respond with a quick message. It all works with your existing iPhone number, so there’s nothing to set up.

AND

PERSONAL HOTSPOT WHAT. If you’re out of Wi-Fi range but your iPhone is close by, your iPad or Mac will now be able to connect to your phone’s new personal hotspot to surf the interwebs and all that cool internet type stuff.

 Swift

This is a new programming language that Apple has introduced, which for developers, is pretty dope. For the general population, it’s also pretty dope, but on a different level. What it comes down to for you guys – apps for iOS 8 will be better. Which we like.

Extras We’ve learnt about since the WWDC keynote !

iPads will gain the ability to take Panoramic photos like the iPhone, while the Camera will gain an instant burst mode, a timer mode, and separate controls for focus and exposure. iBooks will support an auto night mode and the ability to organize books by series, while notifications will include travel time.

A mysterious Tips app, which was first depicted in an early screenshot of iOS 8, is also mentioned, though it is unclear what this app will do. It is possible Tips will provide iOS users with information on lesser known iOS features, serving as a tutorial app for those who want to learn the ins and outs of their devices.

So there you go, guys, iOS 8. Overall we’re really quite impressed, and very much looking forward to it’s release in the Fall. Apple developers have access to iOS 8 and will be working on creating awesome apps for the update so we can use the operating system precisely how Apple planned. It will, of course, be free.

The only downfall of iOS 8 – Those of you who have an iPhone 4, it doesn’t appear as if iOS 8 will be compatible. . Soooo… you guys…. have you heard about the new iPhone 6 that’s coming?

Stay tuned for our comprehensive outline of OS X Yosemite – and let us know if you have any questions about iOS 8 and we’ll try and answer them as best we can!!

WWDC 2014

The WWDC keynote began at 10:00am Pacific time at the Moscone Center in San Francisco with an introduction by Tim Cook, however it soon became The Craig Federighi show, with the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering introducing both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.

The big theme of the keynote was sharing, from new Family sharing, to the new iCloud Drive, to cross platform interaction, or, ‘continuity’, the ability to use Apple functionality  across iOS Devices and Mac, from phone calls, to messaging, all the way to your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs and images.

Both system updates have a pretty new makeover, with new buttons, icons, transparency and fonts. The acquisition of Beats by Dre wasn’t only briefly alluded to, when Craig Federighi showed how to make a phonecall from his Mac, and called The good Doctor himself. The introduction to the new health app was nice, albeit brief, leading many to believe that a more in-depth look at the app will be coming, as it will have more integration with the rumored iWatch than with the iPhone or iPad.

As many had guessed, no new products were announced, but the amount of subtle and apparent improvements to both system updates were enough – for now.

Stay tuned for a comprehensive run down of all the awesome new functionailty and UI of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite!

WWDC Lands Tomorrow!

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference starts tomorrow at San Francisco’s Moscone center! The proceedings will kick off tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M. PST with a keynote speech most likely given by Tim Cook.

In that speech, we’re preparing to hear about iOS 8, OSX 10.10 ( or El Cap as it is believed to be called), as well as a range of other updates and possibly new software products such as the much rumored ‘Healthbook’.

We as consumers won’t see any of the new updates or products for a while, as the conference is used as a chance to have developers, well, do their developing job in time for the update or product’s release to the public months afterward.

There is always a chance that Apple will pull magical rabbits out of their beautifully packaged hats tomorrow, the same as there is always a chance that people will be disappointed if there is only incremental updates to the operating systems.

We’re hoping for the first of those options, and we actually think we might get it this year. We also may or may not still believe in Santa Claus, so there’s that.

But! We’re excited for tomorrow! You can watch the whole keynote on your Apple TV or catch the live stream via Apple. It requires Safari 4 or later on OS X v10.6 or later; Safari on iOS 4.2 or later.

OR you can keep an eye out for our comprehensive coverage of the keynote, with everything you need to know about what was revealed straight from sunny San Francisco!

OS X 10.10 Banner features what at WWDC?

Beginning last year, Apple started a new and ongoing naming theme for their computer operating systems, naming them after Californian landmarks. Last year’s OS X was named ‘Mavericks’ after a famous surfing location on the Californian coast.

This year, we can begin to guess at what the new OS X 10.10 will be named by looking at the banner that has just been hung at the Moscone centre in preparation for Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

The banner appears to feature ‘El Capitan’ which is a famous rock formation in Yosemite National park in Northern California. Apple has trademarked the name ‘El Cap’ but we won’t know for sure if that will be the name bestowed on the updated OS X until Monday morning!

Trademark filings by Apple that have just come to light reveal a list of other potential OS X names for the future –  including Sequoia, Mojave, Sonoma, Ventura. Other possibilities discovered in previous trademark applications also include Yosemite, Redwood, Mammoth, California, Big Sur, and Pacific, Diablo, Miramar, Rincon, El Cap, Redtail, Condor, Grizzly, Monterey, Tiburon, Farallon, Skyline, Shasta, and Sierra.

iOS 8 Banner at the Moscone center for WWDC!

Apple is getting San Francisco’s Moscone Center ready for their annual Worldwide Developers Conference! New banners recently added feature OS X 10.10 and, as you can see below, iOS 8 ( photo supplied by Business Insider’s Jaw Yarow).

iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 will both be featured in the keynote speech that kicks off the whole event, starting 10am PST on Monday morning.

Hooray for new operating systems!

Countdown to WWDC! What can you expect?

WWDC begins in 4 days!

Taking place in San Francisco’s Moscone building, Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference will kick off with a 2 hour keynote speech headed by Tim Cook at 10AM PST, Monday the 2nd of June!

Are you psyched?

So here’s the deal as far as we know it.

Apple hasn’t announced the content of a lot of their WWDC sessions and they have been given names such as: “To be announced” “No comment”,”Shhh, can’t tell you” “This one is sealed”, and “You’ll never guess”.

Click on these sessions and Apple says: “The title and description of this session will be revealed after Keynote on Monday June 2. Check back to view the updates schedule.”

Sneaky and exciting.

We have been told that we can expect updates to iOS and OSX. We can most likely expect at least a mention of Beats By Dre and the deal they have made with Apple, and probably a cameo by the good Dr Dre himself. We can expect Jony Ive in his loveliness explaining awesome things (via video), and Tim Cook excitedly talking about inspiration and the future of technology and Apple’s role in making your world a better place.

We suspect that it is likely that we may see new ways to make mobile payments, as well as an introduction to the much rumored ‘Healthbook’, built into the updated iOS with health measuring and reporting capabilities.

The announcement of the iPhone 6 ( more than one? Bigger screen? No more bezels? Made of unicorn’s tears?) and the iWatch ( will it ever come!?) are also possibilities that a lot of people are eagerly anticipating- both of which, particularly the iWatch, would need a fair amount of time for the developers to create apps for them before their release. A lot of people are, however, skeptical that either, especially the iWatch will be mentioned at WWDC.

The Financial Times has recently reported that Apple could be introducing a way for you to certain functions in your home with Apple Devices, perhaps  in combination with Apple TV. Functions that could be controlled from your iPhone or iPad could include lighting, security, temperature control  and connected appliances like television and sound. These would all be controlled centrally, incorporated into the iOS, instead of through 3rd party apps.

And then we have this, beautifully phrased from the Apple Sauce direct:

Ooooooh. Well we’re excited. Stay tuned folks, we’ll be bringing you all the news and mysteries unraveled direct from the great city of San Francisco as it happens!

Images courtesy of Apple. & Quickmeme

You will be able to watch WWDC streamed live!

The WWDC 2014 banners are going up! WWDC IS COMING! And the good news? Apple is offering a live video stream of next Monday’s keynote address!  The keynote begins at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.

Those wanting to watch the live stream will need Safari on Mac/iOS, QuickTime 7 on Windowsor have access to Apple Tv, where it will also be available.

Not to worry if you can’t watch it live ( cos of like, work and other normal Monday morning things) – we’ll be watching and will keep you updated on all the news coming straight from San Francisco’s Moscone Center!

Image courtesy of Apple & The hollywoodnews.

New MacBook Airs released!

Apple just launched updated MacBook Airs! The good news? The main gist is that they’re faster and cheaper. Sweet deal, right?

All new standard MacBook Airs will feature faster 1.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processors and will come at a price $100 less than previously. The battery is also said to last up to 1 hour longer on the 11 -inch and 2 hours on the 13-inch.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice president of WorldWide marketing has said this about the updated Airs:

“With MacBook Air starting at $899, there’s no reason to settle for anything less than a Mac. Macs have never been more popular, and today we’ve boosted the performance and lowered the price of MacBook Air so even more people can experience the perfect everyday notebook.”

Here are the new specs:

You can get your hot little hands on an updated MacBook Air RIGHT NOW through Apple’s retail or online stores.

A hot tip courtesy of the good guys over at Macrumors.com – Refurbished MacBook Air computers have dropped to incredibly low prices, with an 11-inch 2012 model available starting at $599 and 2013 models available starting at $719.

And from the guys at Slickdeals –  People are picking up some great deals. Like this one: “Just picked up the mid-2013 macbook for $705 Open box. It’s $750 New w/ student discount ( if you have a .edu email address). ”

Super awesome deals to be had!

Images courtesy of Apple & 9to5mac

Skype group video calling now free! (For some).

The long beloved video calling company Skype has now made itself even more lovable by making it’s group video calling feature FREE for users on Windows desktop, Mac and the Xbox one- with the promise of support for additional devices coming soon.

Straight from the sauce:

“Skype is proud that, since our beginning, we’ve created opportunities for people to communicate freely and easily, no matter where they are; from keeping in touch with remote family members or calling home when traveling to chatting daily with your close circles of friends. While Skype is known for one to one video calling, we know it’s also essential to connect with the groups of people who matter most, whether friends, family or colleagues. For the last few years, we’ve offered group video calling to Premium users on Windows desktop and Mac and more recently Xbox One. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re making group video calling free – for all users on these platforms. And, in the future, we’ll be enabling group video calling for all our users across more platforms – at no cost.”

How sweet is that!

We love free things! Especially free things that makes it so we can see all of our lovely friends/colleagues in one place even though they may be in, like, 5 places! The world’s a changin!

If you don’t haveSkype yet, all you needs to do is hop on over to their website and download it! It’s free! ( You’ll also need a webcam, a microphone & OS X Snow Leopard or above for Macs. )

Images courtesy of Skype & memegenerator

Broken wake/sleep button or home button? Here’s what to do!

Do you have an iPhone that has a broken wake/sleep or home button and it’s not covered under warranty?

We got you!

You have 2 options.

1. If you’re not ready to sell your beloved iPhone, or get it repaired for a silly amount of money, there’s a software solution for your broken buttons!

Go to Settings>Accessibility>Assisted Touch>Switch to On.

Now you’ll see a floating button on your iPhone screen that can act as both the wake/sleep button, volume buttons, and the home button. It can peform functions such as waking the device up, making it go to sleep, taking photos, screenshots, etc. It looks like this:

The other option?

2. Go to www.iphoneantidote.com to sell your stupid broken iPhone with it’s stupid broken buttons to us for CASHMONEY in the easiest and fastest way ( in the known galaxy at least) and use that CASHMONEY to get a shiny new phone!

We like that option.

mages courtesy of Hampshirecatteries.com & Quickmeme.com