Mac OS X El Capitan, iOS 9
In June we discussed the announcements that Apple made the day before at their World Wide Developers Conference. They announced the new features of the next version of iOS (iOS 9) and OS X (10.11), and their newest operating system watchOS 2, which will be an update for their recently-released Apple Watch.
The new version of OS X will be called El Capitan, after a rock formation in Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is the name of the current version of OS X running on Mac computers. Perhaps reflecting the close relationship in name, El Capitan appears to be just a refinement of Yosemite, and not a major update. There will be a Split View allowing two full-screen applications to appear side by side on the desktop, which could come in handy, for example, if you’re trying to refer to some information in the Safari web browser while you’re composing an e-mail in the Mail program. With the improved Mission Control you can more easily find a particular application among your open windows, and dynamically create a new desktop space. Spotlight will now be able to understand natural language queries you might type, like “all Word documents I created last month,” but Siri will not come to the Mac (as some predicted, to process your spoken questions). Apple is also promising performance improvements in El Capitan.
Mac applications will also be improved in El Capitan. Apple Mail will allow you to access other parts of Mail when you have opened a dialog to compose a new e-mail. The rather simple Notes application will be beefed up to compete with the likes of Evernote and Microsoft OneNote. You’ll be able to add media to your notes, and instead of just bullets, there will be a checklist feature that allows you to check off items when completed. These will sync across all your Macs and iOS devices. The new Photos application (which recently replaced iPhoto) will support extensions that allow for more powerful editing of photos. Maps will now include public transit directions.
iOS 9 will run on the same iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models that iOS 8 runs on, and will have a much-reduced footprint for installing it, make it easier to upgrade on models with limited storage capacity. A new News app, promising better formatting of magazines, newspapers, and now blogs, will replace the Newsstand app. The Notes app will receive the same new features being added on the Mac in El Capitan. Similarly the Maps app will gain transit directions, catching up with Google Maps, and will have a Nearby feature, showing establishments nearby. Wallet will replace the Passbook app to reflect its addition of store credit cards and loyalty/rewards cards. Apple Pay will add Discover card to the list of major credit cards already supported (American Express, MasterCard, and Visa), and you’ll now be able to pay with some store credit cards.
The iPad will get a lot of attention with the iOS 9 update in the form of multitasking on the screen. Slide Over will permit a side column from another app, such as Mail or Contacts, to slide over the top of the current app in view. Split View, limited to the iPad Air 2, will for the first time allow two full screen apps to appear side by side with an adjustable divider, just like in Windows 8.1 on devices like the Microsoft Surface. Picture in Picture will allow a small window, such as a video, to be moved anywhere on the screen over the top of the current app.
On all iOS devices Siri will continue to gain improvements. It will allow a deeper search that can find things buried within the apps installed on your device. A new proactive assistant will learn your habits on your Apple device, anticipating what you might want to do next, but, respecting privacy, it will not share this information in the cloud as happens with Google and its Google Now feature on Android devices. Speaking of which, Apple will have a Move to iOS app on both Android and iOS, to help people migrate from an Android device to an iOS device.
Finally, watchOS 2 will allow for native third-party apps. No longer will they have to suffer the performance penalty of running on your iPhone and only being able to display information on the watch that is supplied from the iPhone. Native apps will also gain access to more of the Apple Watch hardware features such as the Taptic Engine, Digital Crown, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, speaker, and microphone. So the Apple Watch is destined to become a more interesting device this fall when watchOS 2 becomes available. El Capitan and iOS 9 will also be available sometime this fall, all free upgrades from Apple.
The last announcement was a new Apple Music streaming service that will replace the iTunes Radio feature. So we finally have the expected fruit of Apple’s acquisition last year of Beats Music. An Apple Radio station will have music curated by three DJs scattered across the globe. Much of Apple’s iTunes music catalog will now be available for streaming (subject to negotiations with the music labels) for a fixed monthly fee of $9.99. The service will kick off on June 30th with a three-month free trial.