What’s New in iOS 14
Take a look at what was announced at WWDC 2020
iOS 14 is now out. It’s a significant update that brings several new features. Without much literature, let’s dig into the important updates.
1. App Library
The current iPhone home screen is great, but as we get more and more apps, the number of pages on the home screen increase and it starts to look like the image below. There are lots of pages, and we usually forget which app is on which page.
To solve this problem, Apple came up with a new feature in iOS 14 called App Library.
It’s a new space at the end of your home screen pages that automatically organizes all of your apps in one simple and easy-to-navigate view.
Here in the app library, getting to the app is easy. At the top, you have a search field where you can get all of your apps organized from A to Z. On the top left-hand side, you have suggested apps, and on the right-hand side, you have recently added apps.
You can tap on any category to view all the apps within that category.
Now, the question is how to hide so many pages from the home screen. It’s quite simple: Just follow these steps.
Step 1: Long-press on any app till you see the apps are jiggling.
Step 2: Click on the page control at the bottom.
Step 3: You will see the zoomed-out view of all pages. Deselect the pages you want to hide.
Step 4: Click on DONE.
2. Widgets
iOS 14 introduced a completely new look on the widget screen. Now you can drag and drop multiple widgets on the home screen. When you tap on the widget, you can page through all of the different sizes available. Apple has also added a new widget called Smart Stack, which is shown in the following gif.
3. Picture in Picture
Now you can access your apps while watching the video or talking on a FaceTime video call.
4. Redesigned Siri Experience
Currently, when you use Siri, your phone switches to fullscreen UI by obscuring your context. In iOS 14, we will find a completely new compact design that will provide a seamless Siri experience. For example, if we say “Open Safari,” Siri pops up at the bottom of the screen and instantly launches the app. Not only that, but Siri can also help you send audio messages to your contacts.
5. New Translate App
You can use this app to translate words or sentences from one language to another language with the audio. If you switch to the landscape mode, it will open up a conversation mode.
6. Messages
Key points:
- Now you can pin your favorite conversation and it will appear at the top.
- There are new Memoji hairstyles, looks, face covers, age options, and stickers.
- Inline replies can be followed separately rather than seeing the entire group chat.
- @Mention tagging of the individual participants to trigger a notification on their devices has been introduced.
- Now you can set a group photo.
7. Maps
You can use Apple Maps to discover great places with integrated guides. It also provides information regarding great places to eat, shop, etc. It also added cycling directions to the destination that includes elevations and congestion-level data. EV Routing is being added to help auto-locate charging stops along your route with charger data specific to your vehicle to help you to avoid the wrong types of chargers.
8. Car Play
In iOS 14, Apple has improved its in-car interface CarPlay with custom wallpaper options. Apple has also released a new feature called CarKey, which is a digital key for your car. You can use CarKey to lock, unlock, and start supported cars using iPhone’s NFC. 2021 BMW 5 series cars will have these features. You can also share this CarKey with valets or with your friends on a temporary basis. Carkey will also be available on iOS 13.
9. App Clips
App Clips is a small part of an app. It’s light and fast and easy to discover. App clips are like mini or demo versions of the app content without the need to download the full apps. You can use App clip to provide quick access to purchasing or rental apps. You can also use App clips for payment purposes, like with Apple Pay. You can launch App Clips from Safari, iMessage, Maps, NFC Tags, or Barcodes (App Clip Codes). The maximum size of the App Clips will be 10MB.
I hope you find the article to be useful. That sums up most of the important points of iOS 14. Stay tuned for more updates.
Thanks for reading.
