WWDC 2014
With the world wide developers conference 2014 (WWDC) just around the corner, below are the details of some of the things we can expect to see during perhaps the busiest week in Apple’s corporate calendar:
OS X 10.10
This is almost a dead cert for unveiling during the keynote. It will initially be available as a beta for developers, with the gold image landing sometime around August. Some of the features of 10.10 are rumoured to be:
- Flat design – following suit of iOS 7.0 a much ‘flatter’ in appearance UI is
- expected to be unveiled.. Rumour has it that 10.10 will be a complete redesign of the OS X UI, including toggle designs as seen in iOS, sharper and more defined corners and more defined icons..
- Personal health features – Apple are rapidly making moves into the wearables tech market, primarily focusing around personal health. OS X 10.10 is expected to feature the Apple Healthbook app.
- Free to upgrade – It would be extremely surprising if Apple wen’t back to charging for OS X upgrades.. It’s highly lightly that 10.10 will be free to all Mavericks users.
If you are wondering if your Mac will support the latest OS X, you’ll have to hand on a little bit longer until the required specification is released. However, OS X Mavericks is said to work on any iMac or MacBook Pro from mid to late 2007 onwards. I’d personally be very surprised if Apple released OS X to devices from 2007, although it would be a shame to say goodbye to your old kit..
iOS 8.0
It’s also being rumoured that iOS 8 will be announced at the WWDC, with an expected release date somewhere around September the 17th.
Some of the rumoured features of iOS 8 are thought to be:
- Healthbook app – following suit from the OS X release, Apple will more then likely bundle their latest stock app with the latest iOS release.
- Preview app – Apple are apparently working on porting the OS X preview app to iOS devices.
- iTunes Radio app – Work is apparently underway to create a separate app, specifically for the “new” iTunes Radio service
- Integration with Shazam – Shazam has been on the bleeding edge of music identification for many years. Apple are apparently working with the Shazam team to tightly integrate Shazam with the latest iOS release
- Inter-app communication – Although not much is known about this yet, they are working on introducing new ways for applications to communicate with each other.
- Miscellaneous improvements – As with all iOS updates, updates and bug fixes will no doubt be brought to the stock apps such as messages and mail etc. It’s also rumoured that the notification centre is set to be stripped of its “Missed” tab.. Making way for an improved way of delivering missed notifcations.
Click here to see the WWDC 2014 schedule of events.
It’s fare to say the week commencing 2nd of June will be an interesting and exciting one for any Apple fans! I’ll be following the keynotes closely and will update as and when new rumours surface..