Apple Announces iOS 9

Siri in iOS 9

At today's WWDC keynote, Apple revealed iOS 9, which is designed to improve upon iOS 8. With iOS 9, there will be improved Siri features and new deeper Spotlight search, and the iPad experience will improve with the addition of multitasking, letting users run two apps at once on the same screen. Built in apps like Notes and Maps have gained new features, there's a newly announcedNews app for reading news stories, and Passbook has been renamed to Wallet. Most importantly, performance improvements will help out the battery life, adding up to an hour in normal usage mode and up to 3 hours with a new power saving mode. As for Siri, she can offer you more information than ever before. For example, if a user runs every morning Siri can offer music to listen to when the user plugs in their headphones. The music is context sensitive and is dependent on time and place, so if a user is in the car Siri may offer an audiobook or podcast instead of music if that's what the user usually does. If someone calls a user with a number not in their address book, Siri can now look through email to see if it can identify the number. If possible, Siri will display it. 

The New York City Subway system on Maps

When it comes to apps, both Maps and Notes are getting major updates. Notes includes new formatting options, checklists, and sketching tools, along with the ability to share notes from Share Sheets. Maps is gaining Transit directions and a new transit view that shows off the transit lines in a city, from buses to trains to subways. The transit options are integrated into directions, allowing users to get step by step directions in between transit stops. Siri is also integrated into Transit, so users can ask Siri how to get to a location via a transit option. Transit is coming to a limited number of cities, including NewYork, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City and Washington, DC in the US. Berling in Germany, London in the United Kingdom; and Toronto in Canada. Also Apple Maps with transit directions will be available in more than a hundred cities in China, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Shanghai and many more. 

What the news app will look like

Apple also announced a brand new app called News. The app takes content from sources like ESPN, The New York Times and local news and presents them with many articles and beautiful imagery. Users can also keep track of specific topics they like to read about. The new app will roll out first to the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. 

Slide Over in action

The iPad is getting some exclusive updates in iOS 9, including multitasking and a brand new QuickType keyboard. Users can now bring in apps on the side of the screen in a new feature called "SlideOver," which brings in windowed versions of apps like Notes, Mail and Messages with a quick gesture Slide Over will only be avaialbe for iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2 and iPad mini 3. Multitasking also allows users to put two apps next to each other with SplitView. Additionally, there's also a picture-in-picture feature that allows you to keep watching video from another app while you do something else, like check email. While most features are available for all iPads, SplitView is only available for iPad Air 2. Also Apple has reduced the free space needed to download iOS 9, from 4.6 GB to 1.3 GB. iOS 9 will be available in the Fall for the iPhone 4s through iPhone 6 Plus, iPad 2 through the iPad Air 2, iPad mini through the iPad mini 3 and the 5th generation iPod Touch. A Beta is available for developers today.