iOS 9 is undoubtedly the biggest announcement at this year’s
WWDC in San Francisco. The newest operating system for Apple’s mobile devices is
designed to give users more power and functionality in hopes that these would
keep or improve its advantage over its competitors.
The first major improvement in iOS 9 would have to be Siri. Apple
has made its digital assistant smarter by giving it preemptive search
capabilities. Moreover, Siri will now feature context-based intelligence, allowing
users to give commands to it based on the current content the user is looks at.
Apple has also given Siri the ability to observe a user’s
habits and recommend content based on these observations. If you’re worried about
Privacy, the Cupertino company promises that all the processing done to get
this data is done on the device and nothing will be relayed to Apple’s servers
(we hope this is true).
Other apps are also debuting in iOS 9. These include a Notes
app, an updated Maps app that now provides transit-directions like Google Maps
and a News app that delivers Flipboard-style news pulled from publications like
the New York Times and Conde Nast.
iPad owners are also getting some love from iOS 9. Apple’s
tablets will now feature split-screen multitasking (and if you’re using an iPad
Air 2, that means you can use split-screen multitasking with both windows
active). There’s also a picture-in-picture mode so you can run two apps at the
same time.
Just like Mac OS X El Capitan, iOS 9 will now be available
for developers, while a public beta will commence in July. As for the rest of
us, the operating system will be fully available sometime in Q3 2015.
