A summary of WWDC 2014

WWDC Logo
WWDC Logo

On Monday June 2, 2014, Apple Inc started its WWDC 2014 week. WWDC stands for the World Wide Developer Convention, and it happens about this time each year. Apple usually uses this time to talk about new software that will be released in the fall with betas for developers released that day. This year, Apple announced many things at WWDC, and I’d like to share the highlights below.

Mac OS X

The logo of Mac OS 10.10
The logo of Mac OS 10.10

Apple announced the release of Mac OS X Yosemite, which is version 10.10 of Mac OS. This version adds transparency to windows, and new widgets to notification center. You can now have better integration with iOS devices, and there is now a great iCloud Drive to access all of your iCloud documents. The thing I like about this feature is that you can keep your documents in one place, and you will not create duplicates in multiple apps. For a full list of features, go to apple.com

 

iOS 8

iOS 8 was also announced at WWDC 2014.  

iOS 8 logo
iOS 8 logo

iOS 8 is the latest version of iOS that will be released in the fall. iOS 8 looks very similar to iOS 7 but with a few additions. The most notable auditions are the ability to add widgets in notification center, and the people chooser in the task switcher. The people chooser will let users pick a person they talk to the most, and call text or FaceTime that person. One new feature that will be amazing at launch will be extensions. Extensions will let developers work with other apps. This even extends to installable keyboards, which is very similar to Android. It is good that iOS is now catching up with other operating systems on this. I think an app like Fleksy will really benefit from these extensions. We will no longer have to add APIs to apps, and we can just extend the functionality of other spps to make the user experience better.

Combination

One of the biggest things Apple announced Monday is that you will be able to start something on one device and continue it on another. This means that if you start writing an email on your iPhone, you can put down your phone and continue the same email on your Mac or iPad. I believe Bluetooth must be enabled for this to work however. Another feature I really like is the ability to send text messages from your Mac or iPad. This makes it more rewarding to have multiple Apple devices.

Conclusion

Apple has released many new updates to their software on Monday. There will be a public beta signup for OS 10.10 this summer, and we will post a link to that signup on our site when it becomes available. You will also find the Keynote at the end of this post so you can see everything Apple has added to their software.

Keynote

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