Apple has unveiled a suite of cloud-based applications, a completely revamped operating system for the iPhone and a huge number of updates to Mac OS X at the opening day of the World Wide Developers Conference in California, ending years of speculation about the company’s new cloud-based services.
Revamped notifications, Twitter integration and a new lock-screen design are just some of the updates included in the upcoming iOS 5 software, but the biggest announcements were around iCloud, Apple’s new cloud-based service model.
Chief executive Steve Jobs once again took to the stage to reveal the new features, despite his medical leave, although most of the announcements were made by the senior vice presidents.
The iCloud suite – which is completely free – replaces MobileMe entirely and allows users to upload documents, photos and other pieces of data such as iPhone back-ups into the cloud.
Apple also made one major announcement regarding the iTunes in the Cloud service, saying it will allow users to pay $US25 to upload music of their own.
It was one of the biggest announcement-packed days in recent Apple history, completely revamping several pieces of key software.
However, although some iCloud features will be released today, both Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5 will be available in a few months.
“Today we’re going to talk about software,” Jobs said at the conference. This was a huge departure from previous years when iPhone hardware has been released at WWDC – the focus on iOS and Mac OS X emphasises Apple’s belief much of their future is in software, not physical gadgets.
iOS 5
The changes made to iOS 5 this morning represent some of the biggest in the past few years of the operating system. Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software, took to the stage to “talk about the future of iOS”.
“iOS 5 is a major upgrade… this is incredible for developers and our customers. There are over 1,500 APIs and great enhancements… and there are over 200 new features,” he said.
There are 10 major new features – the first of these is notifications.
The current notification system sees a blue badge appear on the iOS screen whenever something happens, such as receiving a new email or text message. But because users receive so many notifications, and the iOS only allows you to see one at a time, a new system is needed to view them.
The new system, called Notifications Centre, is a “single place which combines together all of your notifications”. It lists all the notifications from all your different apps, such as social networking apps, text messages, phone calls, etc. Users just have to swipe down from the top of the screen.
Notifications are no longer interrupting either, so when you’re in an app and receive a text message, it won’t interrupt your progress. These notifications also appear on the lock-screen, as they do in some jailbroken apps.
The next major update is wireless syncing. This removes the need for an iOS gadget to be connected to a computer when syncing and updating – a feature many users have been calling for after some time.
Another wireless update is the ability to download iOS updates over the air. This means users don’t even have to own a PC or Mac to own an iPhone any more, as Apple brags it’s ready to use “right out of the box”.
These two features received the largest cheers from the crowd watching the keynote.
The Newsstand is another new feature. This combines all the magazines and newspapers available for download and subscription purchases on the iOS – this was actually rumoured to appear last year but appears to have been delayed.
This upgrades automatically as well, so new editions of newspapers and magazines will update and then be made available offline.
One of the major new updates was integration with Twitter, although this was rumoured late last week. Forstall pointed out users are sending over one billion tweets a week, “so we want to make it easier for our users to use Twitter in iOS 5”.
Users put in their login information in the iPhone, and then from then on all available apps will use those credentials. The camera app also has integrated “post to Twitter” functionality, while other apps like Maps and Contacts use Twitter credentials as well.
In a blow to BlackBerry, Apple has also revealed a new messaging system for iOS. iPhone and iPad users will be able to send messages back and forth without texting – using either wireless internet or 3G connectivity.
Safari has been given some updates as well. Safari “Reader” mode will allow users to strip all the pictures and other ads out of a page and then just simply read the text. Users can also email that stripped-out content to contacts.
The new feature “Reading List” is a direct blow against apps such as Instapaper – it will allow users to save stories in a cache to read later. Full tabbed browsing will also be made available.
Reminders is a new service that essentially acts as a to-do list. But a great new location-based feature means some of these will only appear when a user walks into a certain location.
One example of this is when users visit a grocery store, they can set their iPhone to remind them to pick up certain items when they actually walk in that location. This has been available on jailbroken and Android-based apps for some time, but is now officially integrated into iOS.
There were other updates as well – photos now has editing features and a new camera app allows you to set the volume button to use the shutter. There are dozens of minor updates as well, many of them in small updates to settings, although Game Centre and the keyboard has been given some updates as well.
Forstall also revealed some new iOS statistics: Apple has sold over 200 million iOS devices, and 25 million of those are iPads – the company claims it is now the largest mobile operating system in the world with 44% market share.
More than 15 billion songs have been sold in the iTunes Store, while over 14 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. It also has over 215 million iTunes accounts available for “one click purchasing”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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