The unveiling of iOS 14 was like the calm before the storm. It was muted and Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi almost glided through it insinuating that it wasn't the star of the show. But nothing could be further from the truth — the jovial Federighi launched the WWDC 2020 keynote with the announcement of features that make iOS more like Android. Make no mistake, iOS 14 is a big deal for iPhone users and perhaps even the Android faithful because it gives more than one reason to make the jump. So let’s dive into some of the salient features of this operating system.

- App Library and home-screen widgets were the first features that were announced by Federighi. These two features make iOS 14 more like Android than anything else. Home-screen widgets allow users the ability to customise the home screen with interactive and glanceable widgets. These changes make the user interface fresh and livelier. They also have smart stacked widgets that show information based on the time and day and your use case. It is something that’s been a hallmark of operating systems like Android for a decade. Also, App Library is an intelligent stack of app folders organised using on-device artificial intelligence (AI) in a simple list form based on the type of app and your likelihood of their need. They almost look like Windows Phone tiles. It also allows users to disable pages of disorganised apps on the home screen and replace it with this view. This in a way also acts like an app drawer which is there on Android smartphones.

- Apple has completely transformed the call screen experience and the messages experience on the iPhone with this update. Apple barely spoke about this at the keynote but even on the developer preview of the operating system, this is a big deal. Now, on the iPhone and the iPad — the call screen can’t fully take over the screen stopping you in your tracks with your work. At the same time, the Messages app now gets message filtering and segregation similar to SMS managers on Android like the Microsoft SMS manager. So your messages from financial institutions are separate, spam is separate, personal messages are separate - etc. This will clean up the Messages interface massively. Apple has also improved messaging on iMessage - now users can tag users using @ and star conversations and have threaded conversations. Apple has borrowed a lot of ideas from WhatsApp and Slack. There are also new Memoji styles and sticker who are into that with 20 new style options and new faces for younger age groups.

- Siri has predictably become smarter. Apart from getting a new compact user interface, it now can pull information from more sources making it smarter. Siri can also be used now to send voice notes and its technology is can also be summoned to send dictated messages. Apple also upgrades Siri with new translation capabilities. For this, there is a new Translate app which supports a couple of languages (not Hindi) allowing for conversations with people who don’t understand English or any other language. Generally, Siri has become nicer to use. On the iPad, Siri Shortcuts can also be accessed from the new universal search which is another nice touch.

- Apple’s CarPlay infotainment system has become quite popular even in new vehicles sold in India — including the likes of Maruti Suzuki. There is are new wallpapers now for the CarPlay interface, apart from the addition of more apps for CarPlay making it more accessible for users. In the US, iOS 14 enables a feature called CarKey that will allow the iPhone to act as a digital key for your BMW M5 using the U1 spatial chip on the iPhone 11 series. Users can also share CarKeys with other users over messages and restrict their usage and track the user. They can even secure these keys over iCloud in the case you lose your phone.

- One of the least expected and most interesting features on iOS 14 targets Apple’s AirPods. Now all AirPods will be able to seamlessly jump from one Apple device to another based on the one you are using. More interestingly for AirPod Pro users, Apple is unlocking spatial audio with mimics real-life audio based on the direction of the sound and your position. Apple is supporting all content mastered in Dolby 5.1, 7.1 and Atmos — which is all modern content on streaming services. This will be transformational if it works as advertised.

- Apple has doubled down on privacy on the iPhone and iPad. Now users can update their older accounts with Sign-In with Apple, hence almost eliminating any tracking from the iPhone. Even on the new Safari browser, users now get a view of how websites are tracking them giving users even greater control over web-based tracking.

- While doing so, another important feature of iOS 14 another ability it has borrowed from Android. The ability to set whatever app as the system default. This means if you like Gmail over Apple’s mail app as the default you can do it. If you like Chrome over Safari’s hyper private stance, you can do it — on a system level.

- Apple is adding a picture in picture feature from the iPad on the iPhone. This means whenever you swipe out of a video player or streaming app like Netflix, there will be a small blob which is showing the video which can be moved around. This supercharges multitasking.

- Apple has also improved accessibility by double-tapping or triple tapping the back of the iPhone. Voice over recognition has become intelligent allowing the user to know what’s there in the user interface or on a web page or an app. It is highly descriptive which will help blind people.

- Other than this, there are a ton of hidden nougats on iOS 14. On the iPhone 11 series, the cameras are becoming better with this new update. In markets like the US, there is a reimagined Apple Maps experience which integrates stations for Electric Vehicle charge stations and polluted zones. There is even a new voice notes app that uses noise cancellation techniques to improve the voice notes that you record.

Perhaps, the least known thing about iOS 14 is that it is supporting iPhones as old as the iPhone 6S which was launched back in 2015. For obvious reasons, this will not be meaty iOS update that it is on newer iPhone but still admirable that a phone as old as the iPhone 6S gets some of these new features.

-Author Dr. Sahil Mohan Gupta is founder & chief editor at [email protected]

First Published:Jun 23, 2020 7:02 PM IST