Gadgetory

it's been seven years since Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone and the first iteration of Apple's mobile platform iOS the next version is coming this fall but how did we get here let's go back to January 2007 the Mac world keynote this is Steve Jobs today we're gonna show you a software breakthrough software that's at least five years ahead of what's on any other phone when the original iPhone was introduced it was actually well behind the competition in a strict feature by feature comparison Windows Mobile Palm OS Symbian and even blackberry were all established systems in 2007 with a wide and deep array of features instead Apple focused on the core experience as Steve Jobs put it the iPhones three things a phone web browser and an iPod it had a capacitive touchscreen with pinch-to-zoom and inertial scrolling it had a Safari app that nearly matched the power of a desktop browser although Apple famously refused to support flash and it also had the best Google Maps you could find on the go but big changes came with the iPhone 3G and the iPhone OS 2.0 it's at that point in 2008 that Apple opened the doors for third-party developers to create iPhone apps critically the app store existed both on the device itself and within iTunes where users could easily browse and install apps let's talk about what's next and that is iPhone OS 3 o with version 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS Apple focused on cleaning up any little messes that it made in its previous versions it was released in June of 2009 and like the 3GS itself it didn't necessarily have any single headline feature instead Apple filled in all sorts of gaps with a massive list of functionality and app updates touching every corner of the operating system these included cut copy and paste spotlight search across multiple apps and push notifications for third-party apps even if they did get annoying and then of course version 3.2 brought iOS to Apple's newest device the iPad June 2010 marked a major turning point for the iPhone legacy if only because they changed the name of the operating system to iOS iOS 4 was mainly about one thing adding features for power users the headline improvement was multitasking or rather Apple's version of multitasking developers could now run portions of their app in the background like music GPS navigation and save States for fast switching iOS 4 also added FaceTime video chat and some work for the retina display all of which went to showcase the companies redesigned iPhone for iOS 5 came with a lot of personality and she was named Siri yes sometimes she was unable to connect to the web perform either voice recognition or transcription and other times she returned with strange results but still as a natural user interface she was one of the more promising things we'd seen on a phone in iOS 6 Siri and Notification Center got upgrades and Apple also introduced a potential dark horse with passbook but the big headline was at Apple took out Google Maps had long been considered the benchmark an online mapping but it's also made by one of Apple's biggest rivals with iOS 6 Apple dumped Google and introduced its own Maps app it had turned by turn navigation a 3d flyover mode and well a lot of embarrassing issues it also nixed public transit directions entirely something Apple still hasn't managed to bring back as part of the follow-up for the Maps debacle iOS VP Scott Forstall left Apple with lead industrial designer Johnny I've taking over for the quote human interface efforts and with iOS 7 we saw the fruits of his labor gone were the famous glossy icons the rich textures and for the most part the skeuomorphic apps replaced by flattened graphics colorful gradients and transparencies it was a stark visual change Apple also use this chance to clean up and add some new touches to its core apps like photos and cameras iOS 7 also added some features like a swipe up control center an iTunes radio its Pandora like music streaming service all of us brings us up to today with iOS 8 a refinement on the design iOS 7 established the most impressive new feature is what Apple is calling continuity basically it's a seamless pass of information between your mobile device and your Mac so you can start on one device and move over the other or even take calls from your desktop the most exciting parts of iOS 8 won't be made by app they'll be made by its developers pulp kit and home kit our major pushes into the healthcare and smart home industries touch ID can be used by third parties in lieu and password and for the first time apps are going to be allowed to talk to each other and thankfully there's now widgets and third-party keyboards and on top of all that Apple has also introduced a brand new programming language called Swift this new Apple is definitely catering to developers in a way it never has before and in a very real way they'll get to decide how the next version of iOS work and if the rumors of a bigger iPhone pan out those developers will have a much for your canvas to work with