Apple, back in the game...

So WWDC has been and gone, with some interesting insights into what is coming in the near future from Apple; at least from a software perspective!

I was actually expecting to see some hardware announcements there, whether an iWatch or a refreshed iMac or Macbook, or whatever. Just expected to see something.

I was disappointed.

But then after looking at what's coming in OS X 10.10 "Yosemite", and iOS8 I quietly forgot about my absent-hardware-invoked sadness.


First up, OS X "Yosemite". A new simplified, more iOS-esque flat design. Gone are the drop shadows and reflections and rounded window corners. In are a flat aesthetic, gradient-less colours, revised cartoony icons as well as a nice feature which allows the user to go for a dark background to the finder bar.
Also present is a new Spotlight search which appears centre stage when activated. A rejigged notification centre which allows more customisation and reorganisation by the user to see the most relevant content at a glance.  I'm currently awaiting the link to the beta of this... Hope it comes soon!

iOS 8, has a stack full of new features and refinements which take it to the next level, and in some minds a step way ahead of Android. Notifications can be handled from the notification itself e.g.  users can respond to messages right there in the notification. Notification centre itself has be improved much like Yosemite to allow 3rd party functions as well as user customisation. iMessage now acts much like WhatsApp with media and location data incorporated. Users can make use of 'Continuity' which allows them to work on the iOS device, then 'handoff' the workflow to a Mac to resume the work; This also works with users being able to field calls and messages from their Macs as well. There's also iCloud Drive, like Dropbox, there's improvements to Siri with music recognition powered by Shazam, Health apps, as well as an improvement to Spotlight... Many features and enhancements.

As well as all this, Apple also announced 'Swift', a new programming language for Mac and iOS.  The image below shows the main highlights, but this probably needs a post of it's own at some point!

So I'm not disappointed, I'm excited by these new pieces of software and can't wait to get my hands on them.  Given the improvements to iOS, I might even be convinced to go for a new iPhone too (when they finally announce/release it... ;) )

Being Chatted Up

Apparently WhatsApp, of cross platform messaging fame, has set a new PB for messages sent and received in a day.  27 billion messages handled, that's a big jump from the stats given for April.  Boom.  Well done WhatsApp.

I use WhatsApp, and I also use Line and WeChat and Facebook Messenger and Tango and Google Hangouts and Skype.  Seems the only ones I haven't bothered with Viber and KakaoTalk, although I've been told they're not bad.

I use all these different apps depending on who I'm speaking to.  For example, I use WhatsApp with a few friends but also some people that I know professionally, I use Line exclusively with my wife as she likes their 'stickers', I use WeChat to keep in touch with some Chinese friends, Facebook Messenger mainly for friends, Tango for video calling with my wife when she's away travelling and Hangouts for talking to my Mum back home as she's just got an Android phone and realised she can talk to me at any time with it.

You might think,'you know you can do everything you need with just one'.  You'd be right, I could just pick one.  But my friends, colleagues and family are spread out across all these services.  This means that I've got to have a little folder of apps on my Galaxy Nexus just for all these chat apps.  And I'm ok with that, it works for me, I don't need a one-size-fits-all.

I have a feeling though that once WhatsApp starts asking me to pay for the service, I might be reluctant.  The reason being that I don't have to depend on the app because others do a good job too.  Once my free time with them runs out I can just ask regulars on that one to switch to Line or Tango or Hangouts or whatever.  Simple.

I do however, occasionally use SMS still.  So it's not totally dead for me.  I get some free with my mobile contract as well so I feel obliged to use them. But I still wonder what's next for these apps?  Video calling and messaging never really took off, everyone has already jumped on the 'stickers' bandwagon, so what could come next?  Perhaps more seamless sharing of media and news stories and other content?  Bringing some more of the apps to the desktop like Hangouts?  We'll see.

Glass shmass

Google Glass has been all over the news recently showing off it's cool potential uses, and lots of smiley faced Americans with awesome lives and the most colourful clothes purchasable.  At first I was drawn in, I though 'yeah i want some of those, awesome!'.  But now I've had chance to reflect and actually think about how I'd use Google Glass, I'm not so sure. In fact, I know that I don't want Google Glass.

Privacy issues are one of my main worries.  Yeah, all Prism revelation related things aside, Google are trying to attach cameras to people's lives without people even realising where their photos, videos, LIVES data are going and who can tap into it at any point (Barack, I'm looking at you).  I'm not gonna judge if there are evil intentions directly from Google, but things can only fall into the wrong hands when there are things available to fall into wrong hands; if you get my meaning.

People wearing Google Glass are going to alienate themselves because a) they look weird and b) people are gonna be more self aware when being around someone wearing the device...

Does anyone really need to record everything they're doing?  Or can people not reach into their pocket for their mobile device?  Who really needs this?  If you do, then I'd love to hear from you.as to why?

iOS 7 - Evolutionary not revolutionary

So the rumours all said that we'd be seeing a cleaner, stripped back UI from Jonny Ive.  Some said it'd be black or white, some said there'd be a move toward Microsoft's simpler plain-jane theme.

Now it's finally here, well, it is cleaner, stripped back, and has several nods not only to Windows Phone, but also to Android in some areas.
The new iconography is easy on the eye, they really do look like beautiful icons.  Great.  But, I wanted more than this, a bigger change.  Because when all is said and done, Apple has made several enhancements to iOS, and yes it IS the biggest change to iOS since the first iPhone as Tim Cook put it, BUT, to me it just feels like the same old thing. It is still just a whole set of icons that you can between.
Where are the widgets?
Where is the data at a glance?
They introduced the "Control Center" by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, so it's a little like Jelly Bean's quick settings access from the notifications area.  This was expected, rather than an innovative new feature.
They've organised the "Notifications Center" a little better and tacked like a 'today' view or something to it.  Did they fix the ability to dismiss individual notification?  Have those user concerns been addressed?  Well?
The lively wallpaper thing in the background sounds cool and looks cool on screen, but I have a feeling it's going to be make people dizzy.

It's flatter looking, no skeuomorphism.  Good.  It's about time.  Skeuomorphism should be outlawed, punishable by having to watch Will Smith's After Earth on repeat for 24 hours.

I could go on all day about all the little tweaks and changes that have been made but, this is version SEVEN of the iOS, and it's taken this long to get to this.  But after all is said and done, it's still the same operating system, I don't think anything revolutionary has occurred here, just some small overdue evolutionary things.

Even so, I can't wait to get it in the Autumn.