Tag: Features »

At events like the WWDC keynote from earlier this month, Apple is fond of throwing up a slide touting how many new features a product has. At WWDC, we saw that iOS 6 has 200 new features. But the event itself is limited and not all of those features can be listed and even fewer can be talked about in the keynote itself. We took the list presented at the keynote and listed the ones not talked about and present a hefty does of informed speculation about what the new features mean.

Game Center Features

Game Groups - This one is really unknown right now. But I read one thing into it, gaming clans. At least that's what I hope it is. The ability to create Game Center based clans, that can persist between games, would be fantastic.
Game Center Friends from Facebook - You can find Game Center friends from your Facebook friends. When a Game Center user signs up their Facebook account in iOS 6, it links their Game Center account allowing you to find each other.
Game Center Challenges - When you hit a high score, it will now be easier to challenge your friends to beat that score.
Game Center in-app experience - More of Game Center will be exposed directly in the game, no need to go to the Game Center app to perform some functions.

New Maps App

Transit Apps - How this will function is unknown. Apple chose to leave out transit info in their new Maps app and instead look to third party app developers to provide that feature. To what extent that data will be present in the Maps app is a big unknown. At the keynote it was mentioned that Apple would "integrate, promote, and feature" transit apps within the Maps app.
Map Kit - this is the API that developer use to integrate the new Maps into their applications.

Camera Changes

Lots of interesting changes to the Camera APIs should allow for even greater manual control of the camera from third-party apps.

Control Camera Focus and Exposure - The ability to control the focus and exposure without just point to spots on the screen will go a long way to giving developers the ability to provide full manual controls in their camera apps.
Video Stabilization - Video stabilization was only available in the built-in Camera app. It will now be available to third party apps.
Face Detection API - The face detection feature used in the Camera app will now be available in third party apps as well. Might make for some interesting app usage even outside camera apps.
Read and write image metadata - The metadata of an image contain things like when and where the image was taken and loads of info on what settings were used to capture the image. It also contains info on the photographer and copyright. This new API for developers will allow them to read that metadata and write it back out much more quickly.
HDR Improvements - The HDR mode is an interesting and misunderstood mode in the camera. Any improvements are greatly anticipated.

Designer and writer, Brett Terpstra, is looking to make things easier for writers who use their iPads for heavy daily use by compiling a spreadsheet and database that keeps track of iOS text editors and their features.

Terpstra is using a web community and a Google Doc spreadsheet to keep track of the features, price, and device compatibility for as many iOS text editors as possible. He’s also verifying everything on the spreadsheet as often as he can. The site is also compiling the App Store reviews and information about each app.

The spreadsheet keeps track of whether a feature exists and if that feature is available as an in-app purchase. Feature categories tracked include syncing, exporting, and other features. Some of the features include TextExpander, Markdown preview/export, search and replace, character and word count, and web browser.

I even discovered through the site that my favorite Mac text editor, WriteRoom, has had a universal app for quite a while. The site seems to be continuously updated, check it out here.

So Apple had a big day yesterday announcing new computers, the new iPhone 3G S, and of course the long awaited software upgrade to 3.0 with Copy & Paste, MMS, and the new Video Recorder (3G S only). As great as these features are though, I think they’ve completely over shadowed some other great additions, many of which, on a daily basis are going to be far more useful than being able to receive that picture message of my parents dog in a pig costume, scary...I know. I’ve gone through all of the information I could find directly from Apple’s website (these aren’t rumors) and pooled together some of the new features that have slipped through the cracks.

iDisk
MobileMe got some major revision with the “Locate My Phone” feature and the “Remote whipe” but there is also a free application coming out called iDisk. Yup, you will now be able to remotely view you iDisk content straight from your phone, sorry MobileDisk and Air Sharing Pro. An added bonus is that through this app you can send a direct link to any file on your iDisk via e-mail so that anyone you like can view it, this is especially useful for content that is just too large to be sent through an e-mail itself.

Contact Syncing
More good news for MobileMe and Exchange users are the new advances in over the air contact and calendar syncing. Right now turning on syncing from a cloud to a phone will erase all information currently on the phone and replace it with the new info. With 3.0 though users will get the choice between erasing, merging all data, or creating separate profiles.

Apple also states that on top of MoibleMe and Exchange the phone will be able to sync contacts and calendars from Yahoo!, Google, iCal, and Microsoft Outlook. At this point it’s unclear if these are going to be new over the air features or more likely ones that need to be synced through iTunes. We do know though that you’ll be able to add subscription based calendars directly from the phone over the air, this is great for some one like me who needs an alert every time the Cubs are going to play a game or Special Holidays are coming up.