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iOS 9 becomes available to iPhone and iPad users from today, but many users are still asking whether they actually need to update.
Yes, the reduced memory size of this update means that clearly space on your device ahead of the download will be far less of an issue this time around, but what other reasons are there for upgrading?
Boosting productivity is one of the core ways Apple says iOS 9 will improve your life, and nowhere is that perhaps better emphasised than with the new multitasking features.
Best shown off on iPad, split-screening comes to Apple’s tablet for the first time; meaning you can operate two apps at the same time, for the first time. It actually comes in three different modes; Slide Over – which enables you to open a second app without leaving the one you’re in before sliding it away and continuing full-screen. There’s then Split View, which is the full two-app split down the screen for multi-tasking. Finally there’s also Picture-in-Picture, where users can take a FaceTime call or watch a video in a smaller screen layered on-top of the existing one.
The executives in the Flipboard office might shuffle uncomfortably in their chairs at this one; News is the new native app for your home screen, and it’s a good-looking personalised magazine app of news stories. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
News is the product of a host of partnerships between Apple and content providers to bring their pieces to the app, and users are able to pick the publications they want to see content from, and the subjects they want to see too.
One of those unsung apps that most of us use more often than we probably realise, Notes has been given some TLC by Apple for iOS 9.
In short, the app has been broadened so that it no longer works as just a quicker note-taker, with the ability to now app photos, maps, web links or even a sketch to your notes.
Maps, the only app Apple has ever had to offer an official apology for, is also getting a spruce-up. Transport data for a host of cities is being dropped in, so now rather than just getting walking or driving directions Maps can give you bus, train, metro and ferry-based routes too.
It’s not revolutionary, but for the current app it’s a much needed step forward.
This is the replacement for Passbook, and does much of the same thing; housing your loyalty cards as well as any accounts you have linked to Apple Pay.
A new shortcut has also been created – presumably with Apple Pay and contactless transactions in mind – where if you double -click the home button when your iPhone is locked you will now be able to access your Wallet.
Apple’s way of tidying up iCloud – iCloud Drive is another new native app, and this will hold every file you save to the cloud, regardless of type.
You can search by date created, name, and even by tags that you might have added on your Mac. Think of it as an Apple-centric version of Dropbox.
As the iOS 9 section of Apple.com says; “hello to better organisation.”
In the wake of Microsoft’s Cortana expanding outwards towards iOS and Android, Apple has taken steps to make their own digital assistant – Siri – more intelligent. A lot of the updates are based around contextual understanding, as well as location-based prompts.
For example you can now ask Siri “show me photos from Brighton last April” and it will do just that. You can also ask it to remind you when you get to a certain location.
In a similar vein, the Search screen has been beefed up too, with regular contacts, apps and news now appearing beneath the search bar – an area that used to be bare.
