iOS 8

Today we’re taking a look at Apple’s iPhone 6. Anxious fans queued up at Apple Stores across the world to get their hands on the latest and greatest from Cupertino. Apple has bumped up the display size to 4.7-inches on the iPhone 6 and also added a 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus model for phablet fans. For a closer look, be sure to check out our first impressions video…

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Research firm Deepfield reports that Apple has for the first time relied on its own content delivery network for the distribution of iOS 8 to users (via WSJ):
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So it’s finally here. Apple has released iOS 8 to the masses and as you would expect, a decent amount of features come along with that. We’ve previously detailed our favorite hidden features in iOS 8, but today we’re letting it all out. We’ve put together a list of our top 20 favorite iOS 8 features that you can look forward to after updating…

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Over 60% of 9to5Mac readers are on iOS 8 following yesterday’s public release, but that’s not surprisingly representative of all users. In fact, adoption of iOS 8 this year seems to be lagging further behind previous releases, especially last year’s record setting adoption rate for iOS 7. A quick look at the various advertisers and research firms tracking adoption through apps and device usage on their platforms shows iOS 8 is sitting at around half of what iOS 7 had during the same time period.
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The Apple Watch may be able to share your heartbeat with someone across the world, but I think we all know that the future of communication actually lies in those little smiling faces called emoji that are usually tucked away in a secondary keyboard on our phones. To ensure that the future of interpersonal conversation is not hindered by the relative difficulty of tracking down just the right icon to express your feelings, one iOS development team has released a keyboard that translates everything you say into emoji.

The keyboard is called Keymoji, and it uses a crowdsourced database of emoji combinations that can then be substituted for words in your text messages, emails, tweets, and other communications (via Re/code). As you type, Keymoji will figure out what you want to say and translate it into a collection of icons that properly convey your message.

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In March we reported on a new jailbreak tweak called ProWidgets that introduced a whole suite of widgets to the iOS 7 Notification Center. With today’s release of iOS 8, Avanio Labs, the company created by Alan Yip, has released several native widgets for the new operating system. These new add-ons will help you keep track of your calendar and to-do list, monitor the weather, and perform a ton of useful actions on the text stored in your clipboard.

The first of these is Agenda+, which you can see in the screenshots above. Agenda+ combines a list view of your calendar events with a summary of your iOS Reminders. iOS typically breaks these two up into separate widgets, with the Calendar widget showing a full timeline of your day (which can take up a lot of space depending on how many events you have and how late in the day they are).

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As part of iOS 8’s new Extensibility features, developers can now create app extensions throughout the system for sharing information and performing actions without actually launching their apps.

What this means for users is that the familiar action or share button (the upward arrow in a box) will now contain way more options than ever before. Remember when Apple added Facebook and Twitter sharing, for example directly to Safari and Photos on iOS? Starting with iOS 8, Apple is allowing all app makers to create similar buttons for sharing and actions. An example of an action (like copy or add to Reading List) shared by Apple at WWDC was native language translation directly in Safari using Bing Translate. Extension support also includes photo filters allowing photo editing apps that provide filter extensions to work inside of the native Photos app.

A year after introducing Touch ID, the secure fingerprint scanner first introduced with the iPhone 5s, Apple is also now allowing apps to take advantage of Touch ID for the first time. Touch ID users can now authenticate log-ins and more in supported apps using the secure fingerprint scanner. Below we’ll tell you about the latest apps already taking advantage of extensions and Touch ID support for iOS 8.

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In iOS 8, Apple is adding support for third-party keyboards. This means that iOS users can finally replace the default stock Apple keyboard with a myriad of choices already available on the App Store.

Keyboards are tied with an app. There is not a separate ‘keyboard store’. To find a keyboard, you search in the iOS App Store like any other app. Once you have downloaded an app that contains a custom keyboard, you must then enable it in Settings. Go to Settings -> General -> Keyboards -> Add New Keyboard and select the new app. This is kind of annoying, since it forces every app to instruct you how to install their keyboard in case you are new to the concept.

With that out of the way, what are the best keyboards available for iOS 8 to download today? Read on for 9to5Mac’s comprehensive roundup.

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Apple introduced a new concept for developers with iOS 8 called Extensibility. This allows users to use services from apps throughout the system without actually being in the app itself, and widgets in Notification Center’s Today view are a major example of this feature in action.

Widgets from supported apps can be enabled by swiping down to the Today view in Notification Center, scrolling down to the “edit” button at the bottom, and tapping the “+” icon next to any supported apps. When you install a new app that supports a Today view widget, a badge will appear on the edit button to subtly notify you of the widget. You can also rearrange widgets as well as remove Apple’s own Notification Center widgets.

Many of these widgets present up-to-date information like the number of steps you’ve taken today, upcoming tasks or events on your third-party task management app or calendar, and much, much more. Below we’ll show you several of the latest apps offering widgets right now in Notification Center’s Today view.
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After more than three months in beta, iOS 8 brings actionable notifications, improved group chat support, new picture and voice messaging features in Messages, Continuity and Handoff, third-party Today widgets in Notification Center, sharing extensions and much more. Apple has released iOS 8 for almost all of its devices that run iOS 7. The full list of supported devices is as follows:

• iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus
• iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad with Retina Display, iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina Display
• iPod touch, fifth-generation

iOS 8 is now available as an over-the-air update or through iTunes. Go to Settings -> Software Update on your iOS device to update right now. Naturally, iOS 8 will come preinstalled on Apple’s latest iPhones, the 6 and the 6 Plus, when they are delivered later this week.

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With iOS 8 launching later today, it’s worth taking a look at how you should prepare your device for the new operating system. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 7 device and transitioning it over to iOS 8:

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Update: Apple has resolved the problem overnight. Downloading apps now also loads the embedded extensions successfully, just in time for iOS 8’s public debut …

With iOS 8 set to launch tomorrow, Apple is well underway approving apps and app updates that incorporate the new features of iOS 8. Apps that require iOS 8 are currently ‘Pending An Apple Release’, but apps that support earlier versions are beginning to show up in the store. However, developers have discovered that integrated extensions, like Today widgets, are not working and failing to appear in Notification Center. Both PCalc and OmniFocus have acknowledged these issues, but it applies universally.

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As Apple’s SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller introduced WiFi Calling support coming with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and other iPhones with iOS 8 on supported networks earlier this week, it was noted that only T-Mobile and EE will provide support for the new feature at launch. WiFi Calling will allow users to take advantage of home or office WiFi connections, for instance, to improve call quality in otherwise potentially low network zones. Telecommunications site LightReading reports, however, that AT&T plans to add WiFi Calling support for its subscribers beginning next year.

Speaking Friday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, he said the carrier would use WiFi calling in 2015, but only as a complement to voice-over-LTE and 3G voice. […]

“We’re very focused on making sure it’s a great experience for customers, but we see it as a complement, not a replacement,” he said. “We feel good about a great nationwide network with unlimited talk and text.”

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It’s iPhone buying season again and this year we’re faced with a very tough decision. Apple recently unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus at its press event on Sept. 9, 2014 and as many rumors indicated, we now have a 4.7-inch model and a 5.5-inch model. Normally our choice would be narrowed down between color and capacity, but this year it’s much more than that…

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For most people, the decision of which wallpaper to choose for your iPhone is just a matter of going through your photo library to find the right picture. For Espen Haagensen, however, the process just became a whole lot easier. Starting September 17th, a photo of the Milky Way he captured while in Norway will become the default wallpaper in iOS 8, software that will be downloaded hundreds of millions of times by users all around the world.

Two days later, on September 19th, countless iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units will begin shipping out to customers, all preloaded with the same shot. I talked to Espen about the photo’s origins and how it feels to be so prominently featured by Apple.

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