iOS 10: First Official Presentation
Apple has officially announced the new iOS 10, showing some of the new features and improvements since iOS 9, in WWDC 2016 keynote.
Let's see the essential features that we saw during the presentation of iOS 10
Ability to remove pre-installed Apple's applications, such as:
- Weather
- Stocks
- Maps
- Notes
- Voice Memos
- Watch
- Music
- FaceTime
- iTunes Store
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Videos
- Calculator
- Compass
- Tips
Until now, iOS users resorted to the creation of a folder in which they moved all those Apple apps that they didn't use, but in iOS 10 they will finally be able to remove them from the Homescreen!
Removed built-in apps are not completely uninstalled from the system; only their functions and their homescreen icons are removed, while users can activate/install them again from the App store, if they wish. If this frustrates you, because you thought that their removal would allow you to have more storage space, then rest assured that ALL preinstalled Apple applications occupy less than 150MB, therefore their complete removal would not help you gain more than that (in the best case scenario).
New lockscreen
- Widgets that appear using edge swipe from the left.
- Improved/richer notifications.
- The screen can now welcome you by simply lifting the iPhone.
- New Control Center with separate panels for managing the music player.
- Direct interaction with applications using 3D Touch.
- A new way of opening the camera, using edge swipe from the right.
Phone
- New API that allows calls from 3rd-party apps like Skype or WhatsApp to appear on the home screen, just as when you receive a phone call (and not the small window that we knew up until now).
- Phone contacts can now contain all VOIP services that will be using the new Apple API, so that the user can easily call using the desired service (e.g. Skype, WhatsApp etc.).
Messages
- Rich links that display media previews directly. Compatible with YouTube, and even supports direct playback from within the Messages app!
- Older emojis (x3).
- Improved UI for using the camera and sending photos.
- Bubble effects for a more personalized communication, including 5 animated effects.
- Also new "Digital Touch" message options: Iandwritten, Tapback, sketches, heartbeat etc.
- Ability to play Apple Music songs directly from the app.
- New API for developers which opens the gates for hundreds of stickers, gifs and anything else you have seen until now in the top Messaging applications.
- Mac and Apple Watches can receive and reproduce this new kind of "rich" messages.
Siri
- New APIs for developers that gives the ability to use Siri in 3rd-party apps! It's a huge step, the importance of which we will see in the following months.
Photos
- Face recognition for easier separation of photo albums per person. The recognition process is performed locally on the user's device (11 million computations per photo)!
- Object/Scene recognition for easier separation of photo albums per object/location.
- Dnamic map that shows the locations of captured photos.
- Photo search based on a person, object or location.
- New Memories tab gives you the ability to recall important moments, as well as create short-videos from photos.
- Ability to use filters in Live Photos.
Maps
- New GUI.
- Dynamic traffic updating with color representations during navigation.
- Dynamic POIs proposals during navigation.
- Searching during navigation. Easy detection of the nearest gas stations, restaurants and cafes by computing the extra time in case you choose to make a stop.
- Dynamic view with automatic Zoom-in and Zoom-out features, which adapt depending on the vehicle's speed.
- Maps opens itself to developers, by offering multiple extensions that can add to their applications (e.g. online table restaurant reservations, Uber taxi call etc.).
Music
- New GUI.
- Menu remains unchanged (Library, For You, Browse, Radio, Search).
- Add Lyrics.
Apple News
- New GUI.
- Subscriptions to popular news media directly from the application.
- Notifications of Breaking News.
HomeKIT
- New Home application that hosts and controls all the accessories of your office/home (garage doors, thermostats, lighting etc.) that support HomeKIT.
- Creation of "recipes" for a series of actions (e.g. "open the lights of the living room" and "close the air-condition").
Apple Pay
- Apple Pay is now supported as a digital payment platform in eshops.
Furthermore, in collaboration with the upcoming OS update for Mac, the macOS Sierra, iOS 10 will provide users with the following features:
- Files in Desktop and Documents folder in Mac computers are now available via iCloud to all Mac users, as well as on his iOS devices
- Auto Unlock feature for direct access to a Mac computer, if the user is wearing Apple Watch.
- Universal Clipboard feature for easy copy/paste between Mac and iOS devices.
In the keynote's closing part, Apple highlighted once again the importance of the users' personal data privacy. It is worth mentioning once again that all data analysis and related AI algorithms run directly in the device, and all external communication is encapsuled with end-to-end encryption!
iOS 10 is now available for developers (iOS 10 beta 1), and in July will be the first public beta for users who have subscribed to the program. The final release of iOS 10 is expected to take place in autumn.
The following devices will support iOS 10:
- iPhone 5
- iPhone 5c
- iPhone 5s
- iPhone SE
- iPhone 6 / PlusiPhone 6s / Plus
- iPad 4th gen
- iPad Air
- iPad Air 2
- iPad Pro
- iPad mini 2
- iPad mini 3
- iPad mini 4
- iPod touch 6th gen
However, in Apple's website we see that the list of supported devices there exist older devices, such as the iPad 2, iPad 3rd gen and the iPod Touch 5th gen.
