iOS 8.1 Release Imminent

iOS8.1On October 16th at the end of the press conference, iOS 8.1’s release was firmed up as being Monday the 20th, iOS 8.1 is thought to bring with it a myriad of bug fixes – including the case of the notification bar that blankly refuses to disappear and a hand full of new features which should please iOS fans who also own OS X based hardware.

There are three features in particular which are causing the most buzz on the news networks – those features are as follows:

Instant Hotspot being able to create a hotspot using your iOS device was first introduced back in the iOS 4.3 days formally known as 2011, and has since been a killer feature for all road warrior iOS and OS X fans.  However, with 8.1 Apple are taking the hotspot technology that little bit further – giving OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) users the ability to be able to switch on(and off) the iOS feature right from their OS X desktops. Thus ensuring battery drain is kept to a minimum, and the need to reach for your device is something to soon be forgotten.

The lack of need to reach for the device, is something which is echoed in the next feature..

SMS Relay – Messages has long since been a firm favourite of iOS users. Now the flood gates are being beaten down, as the desktop client (finally?) gets the ability to communicate with non iMessage users! Which could well be the final nail in the coffin for the blackberry messenger brigade?  10.10 will utilise your bluetooth connected iOS 8.1 device in order to relay SMS messages to non iOS users.. This is a feature which is going to save me a lot of time!

iCloud Photo Library – It’s fair to say, iCloud’s storage facilities have not been the best when put along side its competition such as one drive and dropbox. The ability to upload your photos to a ‘black hole’ was reassuring in the fact you knew they where safe, yet also disappointing knowing they are not easily stored and access on your myriad of devices (unlike the competition). iOS 8.1 goes a long way to ease that pain, with the introduction of the iCloud Photo Library, giving you the ability to easily access photos stored in your iCloud account from any device running 8.1 (or OS X 10.10).

Some of the other features are: Apple Pay (which will be more beneficial to local US iOS users) and the return of the iPhone Camera Roll, which was a feature that many iOS fans missed once Apple whipped it away for some unknown reason.

I for one are happy with the contents of the upgrade, and will be avidly fighting for bandwidth at time of release.

Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson is a Lead Cyber Security Analyst living and working in Kingston Upon Hull. With extensive experience in Microsoft and Apple technologies, ranging from desktop OS’s to Server OS’s and hardware. By day working as part of an infrastructure team, and by night ridding the world of IT issues through blog posts..

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