Apple has previewed features users will be able to expect in the next iteration of iOS. Confirmed as iOS 9, the mobile operating system will have improvements in four core areas: Intelligence, Apps, iPad, and Foundation, with new additions including improvements to Siri, search, multitasking, more apps, Apple Pay, and other areas.
The existing iOS version has so far reached an adoption rate of 83 percent of devices since its launch in September last year. By comparison, Android 5.0 has only managed to reach 13 percent since November. Siri receives 1 billion requests per week, and has become 40 percent more accurate and 40 percent faster in the last year.
In iOS 9, Siri will have an updated appearance and will be more powerful. For example, asking to see photos from a specific location at a time of year will bring up the correct photographs.
Siri will become more proactive in the next version, providing more automation on behalf of the user and suggesting apps based on the usage habits of the device owner. If you listen to audiobooks in a car, Siri may offer up the latest book the user listened to, playing from where they left off. Incoming calls from numbers not included in the contacts feed could be identified with Siri automatically searching through messages, while new invitations to an event in an email could generate an appointment in the user's calendar, as well as giving them a reminder.
Search in iOS 9 has been expanded to include more sources, including sports schedules, Netflix, and other content from within apps. Developers will also gain access to a search API to include their apps or services within search. Spotlight also displays the suggested apps and actions, depending on what it believes the user is likely to need at that moment.
Apple Pay is revealed to be expanding into new areas and services, with the main feature being an expansion into the United Kingdom. Set to start this July, Apple is aiming to have over 250,000 locations across the country accepting Apple Pay, with nearly 70 percent of credit and debit cards to work with the service. Apple Pay will also allow users to traverse the London transport system, including the London Underground, most likely linking Apple Pay to the existing Oyster Card contactless ticketing system.
Users of Apple Pay in the United States still have some things to look forward to. Passbook is being renamed Wallet, with the rewards and loyalty card system being integrated into Apple Pay. Discover will be joining the supported credit card roster, allowing Apple Pay to work with all major credit networks.
At the moment, merchants are said to be seeing a doubling of the rate in increase of checkout rate for customers using Apple Pay. By the end of next month, Apple anticipates that Apple Pay will be accepted at over one million US locations, with the number to be bolstered in the future by a new reader from Square, allowing smaller businesses access to Apple Pay transactions.
News is a new app included in iOS 9, which aims to provide "beautiful content from the world's greatest sources, personalized for you." Articles from various sources show up in a Flipboard-inspired interface, including national and local news, special interest publications, and blogs, with built-in videos and zoomable photographs, and with it also offering more related articles based on what news stories the user has previously read.
The software keyboard is introducing a Shortcut Bar to make it easier to get to most-used functions, such as copy and paste, which can also be customized by third-party apps. Placing two fingers on the keyboard area turns it into a trackpad for simpler scrolling through text while editing.
The major change this time around is multitasking, allowing users to easily switch between and use multiple apps at the same time. Double tapping the Home button brings up a task switcher, so users can quickly select another app to use. Two apps can also be brought up on screen at the same time, allowing both to be used together. When in one app, a Slide Over tray to the right can be used to bring up a secondary app, like Twitter or a messaging service, so the first app does not need to be exited at all. For video apps, a picture-in-picture mode can allow a video to stay in the corner while another app is being used. An external keyboard can also be used to trigger multitasking switches.
APIs for Picture in Picture, Slide Over, and Split View, will be available to developers soon.
Apps included within iOS 9 will take advantage of Metal, introducing improvements to animation, scrolling, and overall performance. Battery life of iOS devices running iOS 9 will improve, with the iPhone 6 gaining an extra hour of usage, and a "low-power mode" boosting it by three hours. The required free space to install iOS 9 is also lower than previous updates, dropping from 4.6GB to 1.8GB, minimizing the amount of space needed to be freed up on the device to upgrade the software.
The list of APIs available to developers will also increase, with the "kits" available including SpriteKit, SceneKit, GameplayKit, Model IO, and ReplayKit, which are intended to help with the development of mobile games. HealthKit gains hydration, UV exposure, and reproductive health data.
HomeKit now includes support for new accessories, including lights, window shades, security systems, thermostats, locks, and other sensors, with iCloud Remote Access allowing users to control in-home HomeKit devices regardless of their location. CarPlay will include support for manufacturer-created apps, without losing the main CarPlay experience. CarPlay also gains the ability to run over a wireless connection, removing the need for a physical data connection in future versions included in cars.
Swift, the programming language launched last year, will gain a new version. Swift 2 will add in protocol extensions, synthesized "headers" in Xcode, availability checking, a migration tool from Swift 1.2, and other extra functions. More importantly, Apple is making Swift open source, with a compiler and standard libraries for iOS, OS X and Linux to become available later this year.
All current iOS 8 devices will be able to upgrade to iOS 9 when it is released in the fall. A developer preview will be available today, with a public beta due in July.
The App Store has so far paid out $30 billion to developers since its creation, and has recently passed the 100 billion app download milestone. On average, each user has downloaded 119 apps, with 850 apps being downloaded every second.
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