If we can ask you to ignore this year's WWDC for just a moment, and kindly request that you cast your minds back to last year's event, you may remember that one of the least celebrated additions that iOS 7 was touted to bring was iBeacon. Technology that would allow iOS devices to essentially sense their surroundings, iBeacon has since been adopted by retail outlets and Major League Baseball alike.
JoinedJanuary 21, 2011
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Oliver Haslam has written about technology for over a decade. His work has been published in print at Macworld and online pretty much everywhere else. If it plugs in or has a battery, it's fair game.
Of the big announcements to come out of the WWDC opening keynote, Apple's decision to bring third-party keyboards to iOS was probably the most unexpected and yet, one of the most wished-for additions to a platform that has stubbornly stuck to the one keyboard for its entire life. Being able to install completely new keyboards can quite literally change the way we work.
Apple's HomeKit framework may be barely a couple of days old, but there are still plenty of developers around the world who are sat pondering what they could do with such a framework. Being able to tie all sorts of home automation into one app is an awesome idea, but HomeKit wasn't the only cool new addition to iOS at WWDC.
Apple may have the limelight thanks to WWDC, and Google's I/O conference is just around the corner, but that hasn't stopped Amazon from trying to muscle in with the big boys. Having seen rumors of a smartphone coming out of Amazon for what feels like forever, we were less than surprised when the retailer started hinting at a new product announcement for June 18th. That product? A smartphone.
You may remember that I'm the guy that spent the entire iOS 7 beta program running the thing on my main iPhone. Starting with beta 1 and running all the way until the final shipping version went live on Apple's servers. I came here to share my findings, essentially creating a diary of sorts that, every couple of weeks, was updated with what was new, what had changed and how I felt about iOS 7 as a whole. With iOS 8 now here in its first beta form, I'm here to start the process anew.
There may not have been any hardware announcements, but Apple surely made up for any disappointment with the volume and quality of the software it showed off. It's been a big day in the world of iOS and OS X, so we thought it is best to have a quick rundown of what's been announced and give you a chance to relive the whole keynote by linking to the official live stream of the WWDC 2014 event. We'll be covering some of this in more depth, but if you want a quick glance at what all the fuss is about, this is where to get it.
While there were smartphones before the iPhone, none had quite managed to garner the same success as the iconic Apple handset. Gone are the days where phones are just there to make and receive calls, and the iPhone is the prime example of the handheld device that encroaches on other areas of our lives. If you've ever looked at the accessories that take iPhones and turn them into other things that would normally be a whole separate device, then you'll know what we mean.
Now that WWDC is just around the corner, all eyes are very much on what Apple will be announcing when Tim Cook and his band of merry men take to the stage. While we're all supremely confident that iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10 will be revealed at the event thanks to new banners being erected over the last day or two, other details are largely unknown. Rumors leading up to this point had suggested we might see a new product category appear, but that's now looking unlikely.
Moving files around on smartphones is the kind of thing we've been arguing over for years. There are two schools of thought; one group of people think that seeing as our smartphones are basically little computers, we should treat them as such. That means file systems, directory structures and a file manager just like our computers. The other group of people thinks that we should take the opportunity to dump all that nonsense, hiding the whole thing.
It's now so close we can taste it, and as the hours tick down to this year's WWDC event, we're starting to get more of an idea about what Apple will be announcing at the event.
