Apple just finished up with its huge WWDC keynote, and we’re still sorting through the madness. The company introduced a number of new developer tools and two new platforms (HealthKit and HomeKit), as well as new versions of OS X and iOS.
We’ve covered a lot of the new iOS 8 features individually, but given the sheer amount of things announced today, we thought it’d be helpful to create a roundup of everything you need to know about the update, which will publicly launch this fall…
Keyboard
- QuickType keyboard – which enables predictive suggestions inside iOS Messages and other apps
- Third party keyboards – iOS 8 supports third party keyboard replacements such as Swype, SwiftKey, and others
Interactive Notifications
- quick reply to messages from anywhere
- accept/decline calendar invitations
- mark an email as read or trash it
- mark reminders as complete
- reply to notifications from third party apps
- swipe to mark an email as read or flag it, or long-swipe to delete
- now recognizes a reservation, flight confirmation, or phone number
Safari for iPad
- new Tab view
- new new slide-out sidebar for bookmarks, shared links and Reading List
Messages
- rename group threads
- enable Do Not Disturb for a group thread to silence alerts
- easily remove yourself from an annoying group thread
- record and send audio notes
- record and send videos
- share your location
- send multiple photos and videos
- view all attachments from a thread at once
App Store
- new ‘Explore’ tab
- new ‘Trending’ searches
- new Editor’s Choice label
- app previews with short videos
Family Sharing
- up to six people in your family can share purchases from iTunes stores
- parents can track/limit kids’ spending
- easily share photos, videos, calendars and location
Photos
- iCloud Photo Library keeps every photo and video in iCloud, accessible from any device
- search for photos by the date, time, location, or album name
- smart composition tools auto-straighten and crop photos
- smart adjustments intelligently adjusts exposure, brightness, contrast, and more
- new photo filters
- create time-lapse videos
Siri
- Hey, Siri
- Shazam song ID
- dictation supports 22 new languages
Health app
- easy to read dashboard for your health and fitness data
- HealthKit platform makes it easier for third party apps to integrate with Health app
- emergency card stores important health information
Other
- widgets in Notification Center, third party app support
- contact shortcuts in Multitasking screen
- Touch ID gains third party support
These are the major new iOS 8 features Apple talked about today, and there are several more it didn’t cover. If you’re a registered developer, you can download the iOS 8 beta now, otherwise you’ll have to wait until it officially launches to the public this fall.