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Coming in iOS 8: WiFi calling, Tips app, FaceTime call waiting, iBooks preinstalled, much more

iOS-8-features

There’s a lot of new features coming in iOS 8 that you might have missed during Apple’s presentation today. Apple briefly flashed the slide pictured above and in it listed a bunch of new features that it didn’t talk about in length or at all during its keynote. Some of them include a “Tips app”, panorama on iPad, WiFi calling, FaceTime call waiting, rich text editing in Notes, iBooks preinstalled, and accessibility improvements like multi-device support for MFi hearing aids and the ability to exit Guided Access mode using TouchID.

Perhaps the most interesting of these features that Apple decided to not talk about is WiFi calling and the Tips app. WiFi calling is a feature that many of the big carriers including T-Mobile and Sprint have already started rolling out to a number of Android devices but have not yet supported iPhones with the feature. Here’s Sprint’s description:

Wi-Fi Calling is a FREE service that lets subscribers use their voice and messaging services over existing home, office and public Wi-Fi networks. With Wi-Fi Calling, Sprint customers will experience improved voice, data and messaging services in locations that previously had limited or no mobile network coverage.

The Tips app, on the other hand, was previously rumored in a concept we confirmed as accurate in the month’s leading up to today’s event. It’s unclear what exactly the app will be used for or if it will come preinstalled, but from the title, it sounds like it could be a user guide of sorts.

A full list of the features Apple announced but didn’t talk about today is below:

Accessibility:

  • Improved zoom for accessibility
  • TouchID to exit Guided Access
  • Braille Keyboard for direct 6 dot braille input
  • Alex voice for accessibility
  • Time limits and countdown timer for guided access
  • Multi-device support for MFi hearing aids

Apps:

  • iBooks built into iOS
  • See books as series in iBooks
  • Auto night mode in iBooks
  • Travel time notifications
  • Panorama on iPad
  • Camera Timer
  • Lunar calendar support
  • Rich Text Editing In Notes
  • Battery usage by app
  • DuckDuckGo support in Safari
  • Place cards in other apps
  • In Case of Emergency Card
  • RSS feeds in Shared Links
  • Instant burst mode

Maps:

  • Flyover city tours
  • Vector maps in China
  • Navigation for china

Voice/Siri:

  • WiFi calling
  • Speak Screen
  • Purchase iTunes content with Siri
  • Shazam with Siri
  • FaceTime Call Waiting

Language:

  • 24 new dictation languages
  • Indian, Tagalog, Irish Gaelic, and Slovenian keyboards
  • New definition dictionaries for Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Thai, and Turkish Hindi localization

Full coverage of the iOS 8 features Apple DID talk about is here.

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Comments

  1. Nick Poverman - 10 years ago

    Well where is all that hardware you said was coming?

    • rahhbriley - 10 years ago

      I’m happy we didn’t have that good of an idea of what they were going to show off, and I think they blew us away. But I also think it’s funny how badly 9to5 missed the mark on their round up. They seemed very confident they knew what as going down. No hardware, Health Kit is quite a bit different than the Healthbook Mark was exclusively “breaking news about, and the coolest things we saw were no where on the radar. It was great.

  2. Michael Superczynski - 10 years ago

    What’s the difference between the 2 “Speak Screen”s under the Voice/Siri heading? :)

  3. Jiří P. (@rewolwer) - 10 years ago

    What about “Hey, Siri” – does it mean that we can use this service without touching a phone?

    • ron837192 - 10 years ago

      They weren’t clear on that, but they mentioned it as being used in the car. My guess is that this is a “Car Play” only feature. Its a pretty useful feature to have in the car, although it would be nice to use it other times as well.

    • Brad Hodson (@totencough) - 10 years ago

      I guarantee this will be an always-on thing, not just in the car. They announced it as a hands-free solution, so I can’t imagine they would restrict it to the car alone, when there’s no reason to do so.

      • ron837192 - 10 years ago

        I hope you are right …

      • Ian Wood - 10 years ago

        If I recall they said “when your phone is on charge” and they mentioned “like in the car”. I took it that unlike Google, Siri will be always on only if you have external power. No battery drain.

      • Ian Wood - 10 years ago

        Further: 80:55 is where he says “If you take you phone and plug it in, for instance in the car…” so that’s where I got my idea from that it’s an external power thing.

      • ron837192 - 10 years ago

        I’ve heard that “Hey Siri” works when the iPhone is plugged in, so if you want it all the time you will need to have a battery pack. Maybe the new iPhone will have a low power “listening chip” like the Moto phone did.

    • I installed the beta last night. ‘Hey Siri’ only works when the phone is plugged in to power – I guess it’d drain the battery really quickly otherwise.

      It’s handy if you’re laying in bed and can’t be bothered to raise your head to see what time it is… Here’s an account of my experience last night:
      “Hey Siri, what’s the time?”
      “OK, calling ‘Mam’ ”
      “CANCEL!”
      Hey Siri, what’s the time?”
      Sorry, I can’t find an app called ‘watch the time”
      “HEY SIRI! WHAT IS THE TIME?”
      “It’s 5 34 am – time you were in bed I’d say”
      *Groan*

      • Ian Wood - 10 years ago

        :) I like that. I like your restraint in just groaning in response. I don’t have much success with Siri accuracy at the best of times

  4. ron837192 - 10 years ago

    Awesome … hopefully now I will be able to switch to T-Mobile! My suburban home has lousy reception but great cable internet, and even with Verizon and AT&T, I needed a network extender to get acceptable phone reception in my home (and I haven’t been super happy with my Verizon network extender). T-Mobile doesn’t really support any kind of network extender, but with WiFi calling I won’t need it!

  5. chrisl84 - 10 years ago

    Apples website shows the camera app now supporting a built in time-lapse mode. I don’t think that was mentioned during the note

  6. Ilko Sarafski - 10 years ago

    In the other news you (they) are mentioning 22 new languages. Pfew, we’ll see! :) But that’s huge!

  7. dridots - 10 years ago

    Huge disappointment

  8. drtyrell969 - 10 years ago

    Let’s hope this is the shot that Apple needs.

  9. prata (@pratafw) - 10 years ago

    Has anyone noticed that full screen contact picture came back to calling screen? (at least it seems according to screenshots from Apple website)

    • Ian Wood - 10 years ago

      Yeah, I noticed that. Hope it’s not just a mock up glitch. iOS did seem very unfinished compared to Yosemite so I hope it’s not bad artwork

    • I’ve got the beta and it doesn’t show pictures when I make a call – must have just been a mock-up or something

  10. Ian Wood - 10 years ago

    What I hope to see in iOS8 ? If a call drops, being able to dismiss the notification without calling back. Hate it that even now if I’m about to end a call and it happens to die I can’t do anything else on the phone without calling the person back. I’m not holding my breath mind you.

  11. I’m with 3 mobile in the UK and because the network coverage in my house isn’t very good they’ve supplied me with a little box that I plug in to my broadband router and it gives me full 3G signal all the time – would WiFi calling be like that but it works on any WiFi network?

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.