By Andy Fitch • on 3/6/14

WWDC 2014 Roundup

Quick recap of the event

New OS X called ‘OS X Yosemite’
- Expect flat, translucent interface from Jony Ive
- Notifications centre sidebar given a “Today” view
- Spotlight now extends into the middle of the screen
- Safari more intelligent, tabs scrollable & new Tab View
- iCloud Drive – browse your cloud files in Finder
- Use your mobile’s cellular network as a Wi-Fi hotspot
- SMS messages join iMessage conversations on OS X

iOS 8 revealed
- iMessage treads on Snapchat’s toes with self-destructing audio & video, adds voice snippets & location sharing like WhatsApp
- Shazam in Siri, as well as “Hey, Siri” to auto-open
- Interactive notifications from lock screen
- QuickType & 3rd party keyboards
- Inter-app communication
- HealthKit – track personal health & fitness data
- HomeKit – control smart devices in your home

iOS & OS X integration
- AirDrop is now also iOS <-> OS X
- Continuity – start emails/work on your Mac, continue on your phone

Swift – new programming language for iOS apps
- Faster than Objective-C
- Can work in conjunction with C & Obj-C
- More similar to Python & JavaScript

Every year Apple hosts their Worldwide Developers Conference in California. Apple uses the conference to showcase its new software and technologies for developers. It is a chance for the tech world to see what Apple has up their sleeve in the coming months. The most keen of developers can now get their hands on iOS 8, OS X Yosemite & Xcode 6 in beta.

Let’s have a look at what’s in store over the coming months…

OS X Yosemite

Apple ditched their cat naming theme last year and decided on ‘Mavericks’ for the latest instalment of their popular Operating System. This time we have OS X ‘Yosemite’ (pronounced, rather frustratingly for British users, yoh-sem-itty rather than yo-semyte), named after the famous 3,000km2 United States National Park in California.

As many predicted, the new OS X will look a lot more like iOS, since the famous Brit Jonathan Ive took charge of the design. It’s flatter, more translucent (the dock uses the blurry effect your swipe-up menu has on iOS) and is available today for developers. Everyone else will get it free of charge in Autumn. Apple is also trialing a public beta program for OS X. Anyone who is interested can sign up and test the new version over the next few months.

Notifications Center

The slide out notifications pane has been given a “Today” view, allowing you to see all of the emails, events etc. that are relevant to you today.

Spotlight

Spotlight now searches more apps & extends into the middle of the screen, with an intelligent search. You can now search your computer, emails, Wikipedia etc. directly from here.

iCloud Drive

If you’ve ever used Google Drive, you’ll know exactly what this is. If you haven’t, you can now store all of your files in the cloud and access them from within Finder.

Safari

Here at Parallax we rarely use anything but Google Chrome, but we’re always pleased to hear that Safari has received an upgrade. There are no changes huge enough to make us consider switching, but there are some noteworthy additions.

Tabs are now horizontally scrollable, and the new Tab View allows you to stack & group tabs from certain websites together and view them from a ‘bird’s eye’ view.

Safari now closely resembles iOS Safari with a minimal browser ‘chrome’, and also now includes an integrated Spotlight search allowing you to preview search results before you visit the page in a similar way to Google Chrome.

Personal Hotspot

Your ability to make use of your phone’s Internet connection now extends to your cellular network. We’re hoping that there’s a seamless transition between Wi-Fi / 4G and cellular.

SMS

You can now access your regular SMS messages through OS X Yosemite by ‘pairing’ your iPhone or iPad with your Mac. The developers of some of the more popular mobile messaging apps have missed a trick by ignoring desktop apps and now Apple have further cemented their claim to your messaging. Let’s hope it’s as quick and reliable as WhatsApp & friends. The battle continues.

iOS 8

iMessage

iMessage treads on Snapchat’s toes with self-destructing audio & video, adds voice snippets & location sharing like WhatsApp.

Siri

Similar to the new ‘OK, Google’ Voice Command in Google Chrome, you can now open Siri by saying “Hey, Siri”. You can also now remove yet another app from your home screen; this time Shazam has been integrated into the OS so just say “Hey Siri” and let Siri identify the music you’re listening to.

Interactive notifications

We’re all used to glancing at notifications and then swiping up to dismiss them. Now you can swipe down to interact with them. You can respond to calendar invites, reply to text messages, make new eBay bids and much more.

QuickType & 3rd Party Keyboards

One for the keen texters, and no doubt a ‘39 funny QuickType suggestions’ BuzzFeed article, is QuickType. As you type your sentence out, you will now be presented with suggested words to speed up your typing experience. It also learns based on your previous conversations and is pretty intuitive learning where formality is appropriate. Pretty cool. Apple have also introduced the ability to use 3rd Party Keyboards, which Android users have been enjoying for a while now.

Inter-app communication

After much resistance, Apple has finally given in and apps can now better communicate with each other, putting an end to the sandboxed feel to the apps on your iOS device. An example of this could be a camera app with 100 filters now being able to push the newly edited photo straight to Instagram or Twitter.

HealthKit

One of Apple’s best tactics with software has been to allow developers to create amazing apps, let them thrive, then buy them out or be ‘inspired’ by their ideas and integrate them directly into the OS. By integrating all those cool features you’re used to in runkeeping apps such as Nike+, sleep tracking apps such as Sleep Cycle and cycling apps such as Strava, HealthKit will become your go to app for all things health & fitness.

Apple have also agreed to work with health organisations to allow data to be sent securely to your doctor, or other healthcare providers in order to simplify and improve checkups. Strong protection has been added to prevent your sensitive data from being intercepted.

HomeKit

You can now control smart devices in your home from your phone. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering said “There are a lot of great home automation devices coming on the market these days, and they all have apps.”

If you’ve gone out for dinner & think you’ve forgotten to lock your door, you can now do it from your phone. When you’re going to bed, use your phone to turn your lights off. When your wife turns the thermostat up, secretly turn it back down. Welcome to the future.

iOS & OS X integration

Continuity

You can now pair your iOS devices with your Mac and switch between them seamlessly for phone calls, emails, hot spots etc.

AirDrop now also works between iOS and Yosemite, making file sharing a whole load easier.

And maybe the biggest news of all…

Swift, A New Programming Language For Writing iOS And OS X Apps

A massive barrier to entry for developers has been Apple’s Objective-C programming language. Apple have acknowledged this and have announced a new programming language called Swift. They’ve thrown away all the old cruft and created a modern, safe language for iOS and Mac applications.

Since it uses LLVM and compiles down to the same runtime, you can easily use Swift alongside existing code. In the future, this language could even compile down to JS, as LLVM can generate fast optimizable JS in modern browsers.

Playgrounds

One of the great new features in Swift is Playgrounds. These interpret and run code as you type it. This will be very useful for previewing programmed game animations and transitions.

There’s already an open source implementation of Flappy Birds called “FlappySwift” that’s well worth checking out. It uses Apple’s SpriteKit for the rendering and collision detection.

https://github.com/fullstackio/FlappySwift

Check out the free Swift Programming Language Book on iBooks – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/id881256329

These new features for both Mac and iOS are pretty exciting. What are you looking forward to using in Yosemite and iOS 8? Let us know on Twitter or leave a comment below.