Gadgetory

after months of anticipation Apple has finally unveiled iOS 8 what's new what's different I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is our hands-on preview of iOS 8 beta 1 last year Apple introduced a new look for iOS the 3d elements were flattened the entire UI was given a transparent and easily digestible hierarchy and a handful of new features were added to boot Control Center a more useful Notification Center airdrop and more despite the dramatic visual changes iOS still felt a bit stale leaving many users wanting more from Apple on Monday Apple kicked off its annual developer conference WWDC 2014 and announced an even newer version of its mobile platform iOS 8 what new features will we get once the official software hits is this the iOS update we've been dying for let's take a look at the surface not much has changed there are things you may notice that weren't there before like a tiny little icon in the lower left corner of the lockscreen but for all intents and purposes iOS 8 is virtually identical to iOS 7 one of the most prominent changes in iOS 8 is the introduction of recent context in the task switching menu all of your most recent contacts appear above the app previews for quick access tap on a face to reveal all the communication methods with that person right now there seems to be no way to manually set contacts to appear or remove unwanted contacts from the list Notification Center also looks a little different the third tab which was introduced last year has been removed now there are just two columns today and notifications today view is practically the same as before though you may begin to see widgets appear as more developers update that our apps to be compatible with Apple's new extensibility api's the notification view on the other hand has been graciously updated with an inline response function and easier dismissal of individual notifications instead of having to clear all or none you can swipe individual notifications to the left and tap dismiss to clear one by one spotlight has been updated with new inline suggestions from various sources like Wikipedia articles and IMDB entries this sort of fills the gap for text queries with intelligent answers but when you don't want to speak to Siri speaking of Siri she's got some new tricks too she can now identify songs using Shazam and so long as your iOS device is plugged in and charging you can activate Sirius hands-free simply say hey Siri and your iPhone or iPad will wake up it's unfortunate that only works when devices are plugged in but we're certain this is in favor of longer battery life maybe new hardware in the fall will enable a functionality more comparable to the Moto X's touchless control which works all the time when typing you may notice there is now upward suggestion bar above the keyboard this is part of the new predictive text in iOS 8 which is context aware it certainly isn't the first keyboard of its type or happy to see it on iOS regardless like Swift key or swipe on Android it learns the way you type but it takes it one step further by learning how you talk to different people and suggesting different words based on who you're talking to even more Apple flip the switch on one of the most requested features for iOS third-party keyboards Android has had this function for some time allowing users to choose which keyboard works best for them while there are no third-party keyboards available just yet some of the firm's behind the most noteworthy third-party Android keyboards are well on the way to bringing them to iOS above all other features Apple introduced it harped on one in particular continuity sadly not many of these features are live yet but soon you'll be able to start messages on one device and finish them from another or start browsing a Safari page from your iPad and pick up from your iPhone seamlessly 1 continuity feature that does work however is SMS integration in iMessages before from the iPad or Mac you can only send an iMessage now SMS messages are synced and you can send them from your Mac provided you have the Yosemite update or an iPad as well as your iPhone the last of the big new features we can actually show you right now is family share family share allows multiple users to share app store in iTunes purchases across the entire family buy an app once and everyone can use it provided all their iTunes accounts are using the same credit card users on the family share accounts can also request purchases from the family organizer who can then accept or decline the purchase this will be extremely helpful to families and keep them from having to buy multiples of the same app another smaller feature can be found in the settings application under the old usage submenu battery usage before you could see the uptime and the time used but you could be exactly see which apps were killing your battery much like the battery usage menu on Android you can now see exactly which apps are causing the drain on your iPhone or iPad unfortunately this is only a small helping of the features Apple introduced for iOS 8 despite having the first beta installed not all the other functions are working like iCloud Drive or the new cross-platform airdrop the health app is installed but without compatible hardware it doesn't really do anything the new smart edit function is missing from the Photos app Wi-Fi calling isn't present app store keeps crashing and the new bundles video app previews and beta functions aren't working yet and a lot of other things are missing this is all to be expected though it's only beta one random reboots are common bugs abound and not everything works many of our favorite apps crash or won't load at all but all that is worth dealing with to see how positive this update will become fall as minor as some of these features may seem the behind the scenes features like extensibility and continuity are exciting and telling of a little more open and lacks Apple third-party integration is on its way and that alone is something to be excited about for iOS thanks for watching everyone if you enjoyed this video be sure to click the thumbs up button below and of course subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this one in the future be sure to follow us in all the usual places Twitter Facebook and Google+ and Park it now I'm Tana Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i will see you next time