Lockscreen camera and 'widgets'
It's easier than ever to flip on the camera with iOS 10 because sliding the lockscreen right (when Control Center isn't open) automatically transitions to the camera app.This is a camera app shortcut we've seen on several Android phones and it beats reaching for the bottom right corner, where the camera shortcut remains in iOS 9. You use the camera app everyday, why not make it easier to access?
What happens when you swipe to the left on the lockscreen? Glad you asked a second question. It reveals a new spot for Apple's Today menu "widgets." It's not as customizable as Android widgets, but it's new location a big improvement.
Graphical 3D Touch shortcuts
Within the home screen, 3D Touching app tiles like Activity gives you a more graphical account of your fitness goals. You'll know faster than ever that you have to close those daily activity rings.
ESPN had even richer shortcut information within its 3D Touch menu. It runs scores and there's a button to easily add a widget. It's even more graphical, throwing up a drawn out play-by-play interface and video of in-progress games you're following.
All of this peeking at apps can be done without leaving the home screen, and it means that 3D Touch is becoming a little more relevant in iOS 10.
Talk to Siri normally
Two billion requests a week go through Siri, and it's now going to do "so much more," according to Apple. With that, they announced that iOS 10 will open up Siri to third-party developers.
Now you'll be able to ask Siri things like, "Send a WeChat to Nancy saying I'll be five minutes late.'" It can be said variety of ways and still understood by the now-smarter Siri.
In (very literal) other words, Siri also works just fine if you say it like "Tell Nancy I'll be five minutes late with WeChat," and even "Siri, can you shoot a message on WeChat and say I'll be five minutes late?"
Siri for iOS 10, all of a sudden, is going to be a whole lot less "Sorry..." for miscues. This is thanks to what Apple calls an "intense API," which even functions in this new way in its multiple languages.
Siri third-party apps
Besides WeChat, Siri is ready for other chat apps, like WhatsApps and Slack, and ride hailing services like Uber, Lyft and Didi in China (which Apple invested in recently).
Searching photos through apps like Shutterfly and Pinterest can be done with your voice thanks to Siri, and you can start, pause and stop fitness workouts with MapMyRun, Runtastic and RunKeeper.
Siri can also help you send money to friends with Number26, Square and Alipay, or start a VoIP call to tell your friend why you're not paying them on time via Cisco Spark, Vonage and Skype.
This makes Siri much more useful now that Apple's personal assistant has broken free of pre-loaded apps, and makes driving a tiny bit safer thanks to messaging and VoIP integration for Apple CarPlay.
Siri-influenced QuickType keyboard
Apple's on-screen QuickType keyboard can intelligently tell the difference between what you're saying and what computers usually think you're saying (but not) thanks to more advanced Siri intelligence.
Using deep learning, it's able to understand the wider context of what you're typing, influencing the words in the suggestion bar above the keyboard. It has better context by taking into account the whole sentence, not just spitting out the next guess based on the previous word.
QuickType is also adding a handy button for your current location whenever someone asks "Where are you?" or requests someone else's contact information. That Contacts app will go further unused.
Locally, Siri uses deep learning to analyze a conversation and is able to pick up on you and a friend talking about food, a proposed time and resturant address, and then pre-fill in Calendar event when you go to add it to the Calendar app. "Look at that, it's already halfway filled in," you'll say.
Rounding out the QuickType iOS 10 features is the ability to paste a recent address you looked up without having to copy it to the clipboard, do the same for movies and restaurants you've searched and adjust to your multilingual typing.
It's Apple new "easy button" for iOS 10, and it's all about shortcuts to everydayactivities.
Photos with advanced computer vision
iOS 10 is going to make use of deep learning so that it'll be easier to organize photos with what it calls "advanced computer vision." This is how Apple plans to rival Google Photos.
Apple plans to take Photos to the next level with Memories, which are supposed to remind you of events in life by clustering together photos into trips, people and topics. It seems to have a nice
magazine-style interface I can get behind.
iOS 10 will also let you assemble your captured photos and videos of a particular memory with a special movie that's cut automatically. It's customizable, with a number of mood choices and three length options, just in case you don't want to fine tune it yourself.
Despite the AI-infused deep search and facial recognition capabilities, Apple promises privacy protection.
Apple Maps is way better
iOS 10 fixes my biggest complaint about Apple Maps - its inability to scroll ahead on a route. Right now, Maps annoyingly springs you back to your current location whenever you try to look anywhere else.You'll be free to pan and zoom around the map with the new Apple Maps update and the navigation software is also dynamically zooming in and out of long stretches and complex interchanges.
Maps for iOS 10 is adding traffic on route to better compete with Google Maps and expanding its Nearby functionality with more points of interest that you can find along your route.
Vehicles that supports Apple CarPlay not only get suggested alternate routes based on traffic conditions, Maps' turn-by-turn directions can pop up on the instrument (if they have a screen next to the odometer).
Apple is weaving iOS 10 information from other apps into Maps, like if it knows you go to work at a certain time, it'll make a suggestion for the route, or make one based on a calendar event address.
That's just the start. It's also opening up Maps to third-party developers, so Uber riders can call, follow and pay for their ride without ever leaving Apple's app. It's getting there.
Apple Music
Apple Music with iOS 10 is being redesigned for its 15 million paid subscribers, and it "allows the music to be the hero," according to Apple. It lets the cover art
It looks to be a much cleaner design, highlighting cover art properly and suggesting music that you'll like in a more logical fashion. But it's not going to excite you for iOS 10 if you're not a paid subscriber.
The Apple Music refresh does add some more depth by way of lyrics (though it doesn't seem to follow along with the words like other apps do, like SoundHound do).
The For You tab is does a better job at curating your personal playlists and it absorbs the Connect tab that we previously heard was getting a diminished role. Likewise, the 'New' tab has become 'Browse.'
Apple News
News for iOS 10 will also introduce subscriptions so that you can see every issue of National Geographic or read the Wall Street Journal, periodicals usually behind a paywall.
Breaking news notifications have been added to this pre-loaded app so that big stories appear right on the iOS 10 lockscreen.
Home app
Apple's developer-focused HomeKit is coming to end-users with iOS 10 (and also Apple Watch), and the new app appears right on the homescreen unsurprisingly called "Home."
It'll tie all of your home-based IoT gadgets together into a simple interface and include Scenes to change the mood of rooms in a pinch, no matter who makes your home's previously fragmented smart tech.
Siri acts as a shortcut to interact with your home accessories, and Control Center does too. Two swipes to the right in the Control Center menu brings up a grid of home accessory toggles.
Also from the lockscreen, you can peek at home notifications, say, if you get a doorbell alert. Peek into the notification by hard pressing on the bubble and a video doorbell like Ring will give you a live camera view.
Phone
Hate listening to voicemails? Never actually check them? Me too. That's why I'm excited that the rumored voicemail transcription idea made it into iOS 10.
VoIP is no longer going to take a backseat, as a WhatsApp call, for example, can be answered right from the lockscreen, just like a normal incoming call. They'll also be part of your recent and favorites lists.
Messages
Messages is introducing rich links within a conversation and a live camera view as soon as you press the camera button. Like emoji's? You're going to love iOS 10.
Apple is making bigger emojis that are now three times as large as before, and the keyboard can now identify words you can easily replace with emojis via a single tap on each word.
There'll be bubble effects so you can "say it loud" with a bursting bunch of text, or say something "gently" with slow-to-exist texts.
You can also use "Invisible Ink" that requires the message receiver to slide their finger over a text or photo. It'll either be a nice surprise, or horrific shock to your friends.
Apple showed off an Invisible Ink demo in which a blurry photo turned out to be a bride-to-be's hand with a wedding ring on it. I'm pretty sure there are going to be a lot of appendages sent using Invisible Ink.
You can react to individual messages with expression-driven Tapbacks (reminds me of Facebook reactions) and write out meaningful messages with handwritten "digital ink."
With club disco lights, big emoji and full-screen fireworks for iOS 10, Messages is one crazy app. But it'll get even more insane in the future because Apple is opening up Messages to developers with an SDK.
So far, Apple has shown off integration for licensed Disney stickers, food ordering services and bitmoji-like expressions provided by JibJab.
More to come from iOS 10
Rounding up iOS 10, Apple quickly mentioned Notes with multiple users editing a document, the ability to edit Live Photos without annoyingly relegating them to stills and a new conversation view for Mail.On the iPad, Split View support for two Safari windows has been added, finally letting you open up dual Safari windows at once on your tablet, you multitasker, you.
Apple said that despite the deep learning capabilities of iOS 10, it'll keep that to the silicon on your device and not invade your privacy. It's been working on something called differential privacy.
We'll have more on iOS 10, as the developer beta prepares us for the iOS 10 public beta. When that launches in July, we'll certainly discover additional features to talk about.
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