Apple’s iOS7, which was unveiled in June 2013, saw the first major revamp to their iOS operating system, in particular to the design and look, since it was originally developed. iOS 8 is unlikely to see such big changes this time around, however there’s speculation that certain areas of Apple’s operating system will see some significant upgrades as well as some exciting new features.
The latest reports suggest that Apple will release information on their new iOS 8 in the next few weeks at their Worldwide Developers Conference which will be held in June. iOS 8 is expected to be available to coincide with the launch of the new iPhone 6 which is thought to be making its debut sometime in either August or September. So what new features and upgrades are we likely to see?
One of the biggest new features is anticipated to be Apple’s health and fitness app, said to be called Healthbook. There’s speculation that Apple could be taking their health and fitness monitoring one step further with a whole host of tracking and monitoring software. As well as the usual pedometer, distance and calories tracking, it’s thought that Healthbook could measure your blood pressure, hydration levels, blood sugars, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation levels. Apple have been recruiting many health and fitness specialists to apparently work on this project so watch this space for more details on Healthbook once it’s announced.
Another new feature for iOS8 is expected to be some sort of split screen which will make multitasking much easier. Users will be able to run more than one app at a time on the same Apple device which will enable you to flick back and forth between them. It could also mean that content could be transferred in a matter of seconds between the different apps.
Another area which could see improvement with iOS 8 is Siri, Apple’s virtual personal assistant. It’s rumoured that we could see Siri’s capabilities increase and that it will be more useful in day to day life as the Siri app is opened up to more third party developers. Apple are also expected to offer a better quality of audio due to their link up with Beats Electronic. This could mean that Apple devices running iOS 8 will be able to play 24-bit audio files which is a step up from the 16-bit files it can currently play. The popular music recognition app Shazam is rumoured to be fully integrated into iOS 8 making it easier to identify and purchase tracks straight from the iTunes store.
Of course, we’ll know more in the next few weeks and we’ll bring you that news as soon as we have it.
