By Liyo Kikon
The internet is currently littered with tons of rumors regarding what the next iPhone will be like, if it will have a 3.5mm headphone jack, if it is going to be waterproof and obviously the biggest question of all - what it will look like. But as the world waits for Apple’s next big reveal, we can try out the next iOS now which will be officially released along with the iPhone.
The iOS 10 is in development but Apple has released a public beta version around one month back but I’m writing this today because the beta version 2 was just released a few days back and it seems quite stable compared to the first one . Anyone can download and install into their current iPhone/iPad/iPod touch by simply going to https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ and registering for the beta program. But before you jump ahead and install it into your device, be warned that this is a “beta” version which means there will be bugs/glitches and high battery drainage, so it is definitely not recommended for use in your primary device. But if you have a secondary device lying around, you can check out all the cool new features that come with iOS 10.
First off, let me just say that the new messaging app is awesome! I guess Apple’s main target is to take out the giant known as Whatsapp and even though that seems impossible, they seem to be trying hard. The most notable one would be the fact that emoji are now 3 times bigger! It feels more expressive when you type it now. And along with it, you will get a feature to send hand written messages and drawings but sadly my drawing skills only go as far as stick figures. Another cool feature with the messaging app is the ability to send pictures with scribbles on top of it which can come in handy if you want to create annotations or add funky effects to your pictures and send them quickly. And last but not least, there is a new features called “bubbles” effect which gives the texts you send a kind of pop up effect which can really come in handy when you want to send a big expressive message to someone.
The other great feature is the notification system. It has been completely re-designed and looks much better as well. You can now easily dismiss notifications and interact with them directly from the lock screen which is a really great time saver and makes things so much easier to handle. And there is finally a single button to get rid of all your notifications. 3D touch on a notification can expand it so that you can interact with that particular app for example if you do that on a message, you can now directly reply to that message without ever leaving the lock screen.
There are also a whole lot of features which work with 3D touch, such as additional menu for example if you tap and hold a folder on the main screen, you can easily see which notifications are pending on each of the apps.
Siri is also getting a major upgrade, and apps will finally work with it as long as the developers include this ability in their future updates. What this means is that now you can tell Siri to search for something directly on an app, for example you can search for a specific video on the Youtube app using Siri. This will definitely make a huge difference once all the apps include this feature, Siri will now seem a lot more smarter.
Map is getting an upgrade as well and I’m glad to see that they took a lot of ideas from Google Map but one unique feature which I found was that frequently visited places will be marked with a heart icon. So obviously your school/office, home, favorite restaurant and any of your favorite hangout place will have a heart icon on the map automatically. The only problem is that we can’t seem to remove these hearts and this may be troublesome if you have something to hide and I don’t mean a cheating spouse, but more like a secret place where you can get the best noodles.
Photos is also getting an upgrade with image stabilization and a new feature where any photo or video which have been stored on the cloud will be turned into edited footage or slideshows much like what Google Photos have been doing for a long time now.
But unlike Google Photos where you can store unlimited number of photos and videos, Apple’s cloud storage will be limited by your iCloud storage space, lets hope that in the near future we will be able to store unlimited photos and videos as well.
Most of all, the biggest changes are with the look and feel of the entire system. Everything looks a lot cleaner and well organized now with better animations and icons. I can honestly say that the new iOS looks beautiful and is much more functional with a lot of clever shortcuts which make you do a lot more things with very little effort.
So, the big question is - should you install iOS 10 in your device now? or wait for the official release which will take place a few months from now? And the answer is a “wait!” unless you have a secondary device lying around. The new features, especially with the messaging app is really great and I would recommend you to try it out on your secondary device today.
