So the keynote is all over for another year. I was really impressed with what Apple showcased to us this year. The fact that almost none of this stuff leaked is beyond me. I mean a whole new programming language?! Here are my thoughts:
OSX Yosemite
This has got some really impressive features, particularly the iOS integration with SMS and calls. Thats something I'm really looking forward to
iMessage was nice when it was introduced in Mountain Lion, but the ability to message anybody in my contacts without having to pick up my phone really is something. I also like the iOS7-like facelift. It makes the OS look a lot more modern. Notifications look to be much more robust (and kind of make the dashboard even more pointless?). Spotlight search also looks to have gotten a welcome update. Its something that I see myself using much more often after the update. Safari looks a hell of a lot nicer as well.
iOS 8
As expected its not a massive update, but there is some really nice new features here. The highlight for me is being able to reply to notifications without going to the corresponding app. That is something that I really liked in Mavericks messages. Health looks to be everything it was expected to be, and should be interesting. Widgets in notification center look really nice and I hope to see some clever use of this by developers. Also, opening Touch ID to developers should be a great addition as I'm assuming the majority of iOS devices will come with this technology built from here on.
Other highlights
Almost too many to count, but there is a ton of new tools for developers. Swift looks to be really interesting. I haven't got much experience with Objective-C but I hear an awful lot of complaints about it. Swift should alleviate a lot of that and open the door to more developers. Xcode looks to have got some nice updates also. iCloud Drive is an interesting one. I'm still not 100% sure how much of a cloud service it offers so I don't see myself moving from Dropbox just yet.
So what are your opinions on the announcements?
OSX Yosemite
This has got some really impressive features, particularly the iOS integration with SMS and calls. Thats something I'm really looking forward to
iMessage was nice when it was introduced in Mountain Lion, but the ability to message anybody in my contacts without having to pick up my phone really is something. I also like the iOS7-like facelift. It makes the OS look a lot more modern. Notifications look to be much more robust (and kind of make the dashboard even more pointless?). Spotlight search also looks to have gotten a welcome update. Its something that I see myself using much more often after the update. Safari looks a hell of a lot nicer as well.iOS 8
As expected its not a massive update, but there is some really nice new features here. The highlight for me is being able to reply to notifications without going to the corresponding app. That is something that I really liked in Mavericks messages. Health looks to be everything it was expected to be, and should be interesting. Widgets in notification center look really nice and I hope to see some clever use of this by developers. Also, opening Touch ID to developers should be a great addition as I'm assuming the majority of iOS devices will come with this technology built from here on.
Other highlights
Almost too many to count, but there is a ton of new tools for developers. Swift looks to be really interesting. I haven't got much experience with Objective-C but I hear an awful lot of complaints about it. Swift should alleviate a lot of that and open the door to more developers. Xcode looks to have got some nice updates also. iCloud Drive is an interesting one. I'm still not 100% sure how much of a cloud service it offers so I don't see myself moving from Dropbox just yet.
So what are your opinions on the announcements?
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