WWDC 2011 Keynote: IOS 5 & More
At the WWDC Keynote, Steve Jobs unveiled the many great features of the newly released OS X Lion. The Keynote continued to highlight the sale of more than than 200 million IOS devices. ”That makes iOS the number one mobile operating system, with more than 44% of the market.” To talk more about the IOS 5, Scott Forstall enters the stage. In reference to the iPad 2, Scott Forstall says, ”It is an amazing product, and our customers just couldn’t wait to get their hands on it… actually they did have to wait.” “More than 15 billion songs have been sold through the iTunes Music Store, making it the #1 retailer of music in the world.” Forstall also explains that Apple has paid out more than $2.5 billion to developers — big check signed by Steve Jobs on the screen. Now, getting to the IOS 5, ”iOS 5 is a major release. This is incredible for our developers and our customers.” The first new feature discussed is Notifications. We’re looking at the current notifications, the annoying pop-ups that have been “massively popular.” More than 100 billion have been pushed so far! The notification center aggregates all the notifications. It is accessed by swiping down from the top. Notifications will no longer be interrupted with the activity on the ios. The next new feature on the IOS 5 is the Newsstand. Scott Forstall says, ”Recently we added subscriptions, which makes it easier to get all the new issues without missing anything.” When you have purchased your news publications, they are automatically downloaded and placed on the Newsstand. It is integrated on the home screen making it look like a news stand. Furthermore, the new issues are automatically downloaded in the background, and also available to users offline. The third new feature discussed in the Keynote is TWITTER! ”We want to make it even easier for all our customers to use Twitter on all their iOS products.” There is a single sign-on and you’re configured for Twitter. Those credentials are then saved and there will be no need to sign in again and again. Twitter photos and the @ usernames can also be pulled automatically into contacts. Twitter can also be integrated with many apps, including Camera and Photos. Just tap the action button, hit “Tweet” and it’s attached. “It’s that simple.” Another great featured added in IOS 5 is TABBED BROWSING! “It is lightning fast to switch between windows now.” You just have to tap one of the tabs and -boom, your there. Reading List is another feature, you can save publications (just like bookmarking them) in a reading list for later reading. Another feature, Reminders allows users to store lists of things and assign them to any dates, plus you can also assign a location. It’ll sync across devices, and with Cal. The iPhone 4 camera is one of the best cameras on mobile, now there is a Camera button on the lock screen. Once you tap on the camera icon and you’re right in the Camera app, ready to take a photo. When you click on the photo icon, it will immediately take you to the photo and you can click as many photos without having to slide the lock key or enter a pass code if you’ve sent one up. Additionally, you can also use the volume button to take a picture now! You can also pinch to zoom right in the app. Pictures can also be edited on the ios 5 now. You can crop, rotate, reduce red-eye, and you can do a one click enhance. Many changes are brought to Mail in IOS 5 now as well. Rich-text formatting, indentation control, draggable addresses (from To: to Cc: or Bcc:), flagging so you can mark them as unread, and now you can search the entire contents of messages. S/MIME is being added as well, for the security mavens. Furthermore, there is also an addition of a built-in dictionary that’s a service across the OS. “All apps from the App Store can use it.” Next up is the Game Center. ”iOS is the most popular gaming platform on the planet. There are more than 100,000 game and entertainment titles in the App Store.” Games can be purchased and dowloaded directly from the game center. You can also see what scores your friends earned in what game and compete with them. “In just 9 months we have 50 million Game Center users. To put that into perspective Xbox Live has been around for about eight years and they have around 30 million users.” Next feature: iMessage “I believe we have the best messaging client on the iPhone. It works tremendously well to send text messages and photos and our customers love it — our iPhone users. But what about our iPad users, and our iPod touch users?” With iMesssage, users are able to send text messages, photos, videos, contacts, and even do group messaging. For example, one can start a convo on your iPhone and pick it up on your iPad, or the reverse if you’re into that.
