iOS 8 - page 6

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus are wildly popular, with more than 4 million confirmed preorders. Though many people have picked their preferred version of the next-generation Apple phone, many undoubtedly remain on the fence.

With a 4.7-inch phone on one side and a massive 5.5-inch display on the other, this can be quite the decision to make prior to the Sept. 19 launch date. In today’s video we take a look at some factors that can help you decide which iPhone to purchase. Take a look at in-depth specs, features and more to help figure out which iPhone 6 model makes sense for you.

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iOS 8’s HealthKit is already starting to change the way health researchers track patients’ wellness even though it hasn’t been released, as two of the country’s top research hospitals have launched HealthKit trials to track diabetics and patients with cancer and chronic disease.

Doctors at Stanford University Hospital say they’ve been working with Apple to track blood sugar levels for children with diabetes, while Reuters reports that Duke University developed a pilot program that uses HealthKit to track fitness measurements for patients with cancer or heart disease.

With Apple now accepting iOS 8 apps in the App Store, more third-party developers are starting to show off their use of Extensibility and Touch ID integration.

Day One, an app that won a coveted Apple Design Award at WWDC in June, is readying its iOS 8 update with a Notification Center widget, Share extension, and Touch ID support.

We don’t usually post infographics on Cult of Mac — far too many of them are just poorly designed info dumps, without any real focus or design chops — but we’re making an exception for this one showing the evolution of iOS over the last seven years.

Created by the folks at 7 Day Shop, this infographic doesn’t just examine the evolution of the iOS home screen (something we here at Cult of Mac have been known to chart from time to time), but the evolution of individual icons, and the addition of features to Apple’s mobile operating system.

It’s very thorough, and a great primer on how far we’ve come since 2007. Check it out in full after the jump.

Not even Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support super-sharp 4K video recording out of the box, but they do have the necessary hardware to support it. Vizzywig 4K, a new iOS app that was just approved by Apple, brings this functionality to the iPhone 5s — but it costs a whopping $999.99.

GIFs are one of the finest gifts God has given the internet. I can’t get enough of them. And once iOS 8 drops it’s going to be easier than ever to have non-stop reaction GIF conversations with friends.

PopKey is a third party keyboard that will replace those useless letters on your keyboard with your favorite GIFs.

You can search for GIFs by keyword and paste them into messages without ever having to leave your conversation. The app will come with access to thousands of GIFs, but you can also upload your own if you want. And now that iOS 8 automatically deletes old messages, you don’t have to worry about them hogging your storage.

Here’s a closer look at the keyboard in action:

With its latest iOS 8 beta, Apple added a bunch of gorgeous new wallpapers. Some of them appeared on stage during the company’s special event on Tuesday, and others can be seen on the its website decorating the home screens of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.

But you don’t need to wait until iOS 8 goes public next week to get your hands on them, because they’re all available to download right here.

Apple has some new software to go along with its new iPhone 6 and Apple Watch announcements from this morning.  iTunes version 11.4 is now available for Mavericks as free update.

iTunes 11.4 adds support for iOS 8 ahead of the public release on September 17th. The release notes state that update adds the ability for users to sync favorite music, movies and other content on iOS 8 devices.  The update is available now in the Mac App Store, or via direct download on the viTunes website.

iOS 8’s release is eminent with Apple announcing today that its new software will be released to the public on September 17th.

To get the App Store ready, Apple is officially accepting iOS 8 versions of apps from third-party developers.

With Apple set to unveil the eagerly-anticipated iPhone 6 later today, that can only mean one thing: that the public launch of iOS 8 isn’t far away. And chances are that OS X Yosemite’s not too far behind it, either.

As both of Apple’s operating systems are set for a refresh, Chitika Insights has run the numbers to examine iOS and OS X version distributions at this exciting juncture for Apple: sampling tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian online ad impressions running through the Chitika Ad Network.

The numbers, catalogued between August 25 and 31, show that a massive 90 percent of North American iOS Web traffic comes from devices running iOS 7, largely thanks to Apple’s update strategy of directly prompting eligible users to upgrade.

Pictures of what is allegedly a working iPhone 6 have surfaced on the Chinese social network Weibo. While tons of parts have leaked up to this point, this is the first time we’ve seen what appears to be the device powered on and running iOS 8.

The 4.7-inch device looks legit, although it’s authenticity cannot obviously be confirmed. On the screen, there’s a new Passbook icon. This hints towards the mobile payments platform Apple is expected to unveil at next week’s event.

Throughout the summer I’ve been fortunate enough to follow iOS 8 through its beta versions. Every update is better than the last, but still iOS 8 could be better. With Apple’s big reveal just days away, the world is hoping for new products — but we can’t forget the software they’ll be running.

In today’s video, I’ll run down the top five things I’d like to see Apple add to iOS 8 to put it over the top. A better Control Center is just one of the items on my wishlist.

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Developers logging on to iTunes Connect to update their apps this morning got an eyeful of its new iOS 8-influenced design — and many didn’t like what they saw.

Instead of the past’s squat, flat look dominated by dark gray, the main view at the developer website now opens up with acres of white space and a cheery, sky-blue font we’ve all become accustomed to since iOS 7. Apple warned devs of the coming overhaul at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, but it wasn’t clear exactly when the new design would roll out.

The pretty new look was hard to appreciate, though, when trying to push out a new release or version of your app — as we discovered trying to publish the latest edition of Cult of Mac magazine.

The QuickType/Predictive typing feature found in iOS 8 has made its way to OS X Yosemite.

Although a similar feature has been used in OS X since at least Snow Leopard, accessible by hitting the ESC key, this ups the functionality by not just offering an autocomplete/autocorrect feature, but actually suggesting entire untyped words which can go on to write complete sentences.

OS X will get a new Photos app next year that will keep all your pictures in sync across all your devices. It will work with the iOS 8 Photos apps on iPhone and iPad to match up your full-res photographs, your albums and even the edits you make to your pictures.

The changes are a ways off, but fret not -– if you use Adobe’s Lightroom Mobile, you can enjoy this fabulous cross-platform photo synchronization right now.

Like a favorite ’90s song, Cultured Code’s Things is a to-do app that many remember fondly, even though they can’t deny its outdatedness.

Once an app worthy of an Apple Design Award, Things has languished in its pre-iOS 7 state for far too long. The good news is that development of Things isn’t dead, as Cultured Code has shown with a preview of its awesome iOS 8 extension.

Last weekend, we reported that the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 seemed likely to boast a 1334 x 750 Retina Display, while the 5.5-inch iPhone 6L could have a 461 PPI Super- Retina Display. Now it looks like that working iPhone 6 cobbled together may have confirmed the iPhone 6’s resolution.

Of all the apps that will benefit from custom keyboards in iOS 8, TextExpander by Smile Software is one of the more obvious. In case you’re unfamiliar, TextExpander allows you to create snippets of text and media that can be inserted anywhere with a quick keyboard shortcut.

“We’ve been hard at work since Apple announced the new and exciting extensions and custom keyboards available in iOS 8,” said Smilie in a preview of their new keyboard layout. “TextExpander touch 3, coming on the heels of iOS 8 this fall, includes a TextExpander keyboard which can expand snippets in any app on the iPhone or iPad, including built-in apps such as Mail and Safari.”

Hyperlapse, the new time-lapse video app from Instagram, is taking the Web by storm. In today’s video, Cult of Mac goes hands-on with the free app to show you exactly how to use it to make incredible videos.

We also explain why Hyperlapse beats out iOS 8’s built-in time-lapse feature, and we’ll show you some of the best videos made with Instagram’s new app so far.

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Verizon Wireless announced today that it is preparing to roll out Voice over LTE (VoLTE) support to its millions of subscribers over the next few weeks, just ahead of Apple’s planned release of iOS 8 which is rumored to bring VoLTE support to the iPhone for the first time.

The addition of VoLTE will allow Verizon customers to send and receive voice calls over the faster LTE network, rather than using old technologies like 3G, resulting in high-definition voice calls as well as video.

Later today Instagram will release a new stand alone app for iOS called Hyperlapse, reports Wired, that will allow users to create time lapse videos that are unfathomably smooth thanks to a its accompanying stabilization algorithm.

Rather than bringing it’s stand alone messaging app Bolt into the spotlight, Instagram is releasing its first ever tool for capturing time lapse video, and comes right as Apple is adding time lapse video to iOS 8, only Hyperlapse comes with a few advantages that Apple’s baked-in version doesn’t have.

Apple’s software testing partners have reportedly received a new iOS 8 beta build that fixes a whole bunch of bugs present in beta 5. It seems the Cupertino company won’t be making this release available to registered developers, but sources say a GM seed is right around the corner.

iOS 8 will bring Extensions to your iPhone and iPad. Extensions are essentially miniature versions of apps that can be run inside other apps. For instance, if you have Evernote installed on your iPhone, you could pop up the Evernote Extension when you’re running the Mail app, and save a snippet of that email to your Evernote account.

Clearly this is huge. It’s something that Android and Windows Phone users have enjoyed for a while, but Apple has – typically – taken its time to get it right. In fact, you have probably used Apple’s own “test” Extensions already: Whenever you see the Mail sheet roll down inside another app, or you access the built-in Twitter sharing box, you’re using an Extension.

But what kind of things can Extensions do for us? I’ve been thinking about that, and here’s a wish list of Extensions I’d love to see.

The upcoming release of iOS 8 brings many new features that will dramatically improve everyday use of iPhones and iPads. While currently contacting your friends can be an annoyingly long process because you must open apps and search through contact after contact, a new feature in iOS 8 eliminates this common hassle.

In today’s video we show how iOS 8’s new quick contacts feature will make contacting your most recent friends much easier. After you update to iOS 8, simply double-click the home button to enjoy this new functionality.

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