Two weeks after releasing the first beta of iOS 8, Apple today seeded it developers with the second beta of both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.
The Yosemite Developer Preview 2 (Build 14A261i) for Macs and a pre-release version of iOS 8 Beta 2 (build 12A4297e) for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices are available for download through Apple's Dev Center.
The betas are available standalone or as over-the-air downloads via the Software Update mechanism...
Fans of the awesome Paper drawing app for the iPad by FiftyThree and owners of the startup's companion Pencil stylus will no doubt be looking forward to upgrading to iOS 8 in order to take advantage of a new Surface Pressure feature coming to Pencil and Paper this Fall.
Billed as an industry-first feature, Surface Pressure taps iOS 8's variable touch sizing and leverages Pencil’s uniquely-designed tip to vary the pressure, thickness and width of lines you create, mimicking the behavior of real-life artistic drawing tools such as dry pastel chalks and charcoals...
CloudKit, one of the few platform-enhancing features Apple rolled out at WWDC, had to be created entirely from scratch because the Cupertino firm has failed at buying Parse, a startup that provides much of CloudKit-like functionality.
CloudKit frees up programmers from needing to devote their resources toward building server-side application logic themselves. It does so by providing a common set of APIs for server-based authentication, private and public database, structured and asset storage services and much more.
According to a scoop by The Information, a technology website by former WSJ writer Jessica Lessin, the iPhone maker considered purchasing Parse before Facebook...
Ahead of iOS 8's public launch this Fall, WebMD today introduced Healthy Target, its own health improvement program for the iPhone that aggregates data from various biometric sensors and makes it understandable and actionable.
It sounds much like HealthKit, Apple's new platform in iOS 8 which gives makers of health/fitness apps and accessories official APIs to store users' performance metrics and health data into a system-wide database accessible by the stock Health app and third-party software...
Handoff, arguably the coolest feature of the upcoming OS X 10.10 Yosemite, may not be available to all Mac users. In case you're not familiar with Handoff, it's part of Continuity, a new feature designed for seamless transitioning between iOS devices and Macs.
"Now your Mac knows the last thing you were doing on your iOS device and vice versa," Apple's Yosemite webpage explains. "So you can start something on one device and instantly pick it up on another."
As noted by a German blog, Handoff relying on short-range Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity is a strong indication that you'll need a relatively new Mac model in order to take advantage of the feature...
In addition to using your device’s iSight camera to scan in credit card information, Safari in iOS 8 makes it easy for third-party apps to tap into the browser's AutoFill & Passwords feature for hassle-free logins.
Provided a user has previously saved their username and password for a specific website using Safari's AutoFill & Passwords feature, a native iOS app is now permitted to retrieve this information and re-use it to authorize a user quickly and securely, bypassing the login screen altogether...
Apple really seems laser-focused on further removing communication hurdles and friction in iOS 8 by advancing Mail and Messages stock apps in ways more than one.
For the most part, the changes in these two apps are for the better: Apple hasn't cluttered their interfaces nor has it changed the familiar design.
Apple's thinking and consideration for the end user is especially evident in how iOS 8 handles group chats in Messages and email threads in Mail.
While you can now finally leave a group chat in Messages, Mail in iOS 8 sports a really useful feature where you tell it to issue a push notification each time someone has replied to a designated email thread...
Back in May it was reported that Apple was working on a new split-screen multitasking feature for iOS 8. Designed specifically for the iPad, the feature was said to allow two applications to run side-by-side simultaneously while the tablet was in landscape mode.
But as expected, Apple's WWDC keynote came and went without mention of the split-screen feature, so we have yet to see it in action. That changes tonight, however, as a new video has been posted that shows the feature running in the iOS 8 iPad Simulator...
You already know Apple at last week's WWDC gave its developer army the tools to build custom keyboards for iOS 8. It's all part of making the mobile operating system extensible, customizable and more open to developers than ever before.
We also know that Swype, Fleksy and SwiftKey, as well as KeyPoint and Whirlscape, are all building their iOS 8 keyboards and now TouchPal has demoed its upcoming TouchPal X keyboard running on iOS 8.
Billed as "the first iOS 8 keyboard with gesture/sliding input," next word prediction and other features, TouchPal X allows you to slide over letters for a word, up for a number and down for a symbol.
Check it out in action in a video included right after the break...
As a prominent iOS developer noted on Twitter, looks like Apple is actually toying with a standalone iTunes Radio app, as previously suspected.
In addition, Apple looks to be prepping new stock iOS 8 apps - TextEdit and Preview - as well as potentially enabling third-party Siri access.
Code hooks and hidden assets discovered in the iOS 8 Beta code seem to support these findings, largely corroborating much of the earlier findings by prominent Apple blogger Mark Gurman.
Note that this is no guarantee that Apple will roll out these features - that is, it will only introduce them when they're ready for prime time. For example, The New York Times previously reported that split-screen functionality didn't make the cut in iOS 8. With that in mind, it's fairly safe to speculate that Preview, TextEdit, third-party Siri access and a standalone iTunes Radio could be slated for the iOS 8.1 update...
There's no doubt that Apple for the first time in iOS history is opening up its mobile operating system by giving developers the tools to create previously unheard-of features like custom iOS 8 keyboards, new filters for the Photos app, custom Share sheet actions and several other types of App Extensions.
It would also appear that Apple is testing a feature that would allow end users to choose alternate looks for the iOS 8 user interface with different font types, custom color schemes and more.
This could be a huge boon to tinkerers and a great selling point because never before has Apple allowed people to customize the iOS look and feel without jailbreaking their devices...
Last fall it was reported that Apple was working on a new feature for its Maps application that could assist users in finding their car. Using the iPhone's M7 chip, it was said the app could register the location of a parked vehicle, and then help its owner return to that spot at a later time.
The expectation was that this car-finding feature would turn up in iOS 8, but WWDC came and went with no mention of the functionality. It still could make its way into the public release of the software though, as new evidence shows Apple has indeed been working on such a feature...