After unveiling the radically redesigned iOS 7 and some of its marquee features, Apple announced availability info at WWDC. Developers will be able to get their hands on the first beta of iOS 7 later today, and the public release will happen later this year.
Apple typically issues several betas to developers in the months leading up to a new iPhone announcement. Expect that to happen again this year.
iOS 7 will run on the iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up, and the 5th gen iPod touch.
Some iOS 7 features Apple didn’t have time to talk about:
• FaceTime audio – you can now make high-quality audio-only calls over FaceTime.
• Activation lock – If a thief wipes a stolen device, guess what? They can’t reactivate that iPhone without the original Apple ID that was used to remotely wipe it.
• Phone, Message and FaceTime blocking – You can block people who just won’t let go. Fantastic!
• Notification Sync – Your notifications now sync across all devices! Yes!
The rumors were right. Apple has unveiled iTunes Radio (previously dubbed ‘iRadio” by the rumor mill) in the iOS 7 Music app. The service works a lot like Pandora. You can create stations based on artists you like and share what you’re listening to over social networks.
There are featured stations as well as the collection you create based on your own tastes. iTunes Radio is built into iOS 7, the Apple TV, and an upcoming version of iTunes.
The service is free with ads, and if you have an iTunes Match subscription, there are no ads.
Here’s a major, major new feature for the App Store in iOS 7: your apps will now automatically update themselves to the latest version, no manual updates required.
That’s a feature everyone’s going to love… until they hate it when apps invisibly stop working because something broke between versions, but users didn’t realize it had updated.
The App Store is also getting some new ways of browsing apps: by age, or by apps that are popular in your immediate area. Very cool.
Siri is also getting an upgrade in iOS 7.
For one thing, there’s a new look to the interface. It’s flatter and cleaner, and now you see a soundwave of your voice as you speak. And the results display much more cleanly.
There’s also a new Siri voice. It sounds more natural, and it comes in both male and female varieties. German and French speakers are also getting more natural voices.
Siri understands more system-level commands, too. Play my last voicemail, increase brightness, turn on my Bluetooth! Siri now understands all of these instructions.
Siri can also answer more questions. Siri now interacts with Twitter, Wikipedia, and it even integrates web search results from Bing! Did they ditch Google?
Siri’s also a big part in iOS’s next feature, called “iOS in the Car.” The idea here is that iOS 7 will interact with in-dash displays. It’s an extension of Siri Hands-Free.
iOS 7 just got announced, and boy is it a doozy. The look is new totally new, and Apple has introduced some really big new features.
Here are some of the main additions:
Craig Ferenghi just gave us a demo of iOS 7. Here’s what is new about the look and design ethos of iOS 7.
“If you do the math, iOS is the world’s most popular operating system, and number 2 is an Android operating system that was released back in 2010,” says Tim Cook.
Were you beginning to think iWork was dead? Fear not. Today Apple announced iWork for iCloud, its answer to cloud-based document creation in the browser. Also, new versions of the three existing iWork apps are coming later this year.
Apple just gave developers at WWDC a sneak peek of the next Mac Pro, a revolutionary and radical new design for the next ten years. “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!” quips Phil Schiller.
It’s a major departure, with a new stealth look. The new Mac Pro is built around a new unified thermal core, with a new generation 12-core Xeon processor. Twice as fast as the previous generation. The memory’s also super charged, 1866MHz DD3 with a 60GBps bandwidth. This is a powerhouse.