New Apple OS's!
I've done some looking into iOS 11, WatchOS 4, and tvOS 11. I haven't looked much into the new macOS, since I don't have a usable computer.
First up is watchOS 4.
Did a little research on that. Not overly impressed. About the newest will be three new faces. There are a few new workout features, but I am not excited about them. Apple needs to remember that not everybody who wears an Apple Watch is a healthnut.
The Siri watch face seems interesting, I am curious to try that one out.
Second year in a row where the newest watchOS kind of sucked, and was marketed towards hipsters and kale-eating runners.
TvOS 11.
I am not entirely sure if this exists or not, but if it does, from what I heard, was extremely minimal. Only one and a half new features. Home screen syncing (which will be useless for me and most people who have only one TV), and night mode (Which I am pretty sure is last year's dark mode)
Again, not overly excited for this one. However, I am excited for
iOS 11.
Last year, iOS 10, at least to me, was a disappointment. They changed (not added) one or two things.
However, Apple has redeemed themselves this year with iOS 11. If you are not an iPad owner, you will be missing out on the best features, just warning you.
First up, we have been asking them since iOS 7, and they finally delivered. Customizable Control Center! Control Center can be customized with first- and third-party settings and features. And the dreaded two-paged panel is finally gone. That was a bad move on Apple's part, dividing Control Center into two (sometimes three) panels. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of the main function. Anyways, its back to one panel, and it covers the whole screen. On the iPad, Control Center is combined with the new app switcher (Only the iPad gets the updated switcher), which means there are now three ways to open the app switcher on the iPad.
There isn't much left I can remember for iPhone. But these next few parts are for iPad (namely, Air 2 and Pro) users.
Two words: New dock!
So I downloaded iOS 11 onto my spare iPad (I was smart this time). As I was messing around with it, I noticed not only the dock looked different. It was also changing! On the right hand side of the dock, theres a divider, and on the right of the divider, the apps change to your most frequently used, or relevant apps. On the other side of the divider, there is more magic happening. You can add as many apps you want on the dock. The dock will grow, and the apps will shrink accordingly to fit the screen.
That isn't the best part.
The dock is accessible anywhere. Yes, anywhere, you can pull up the dock from the bottom and use it to switch apps quickly. Without leaving or suspending the app in the switcher. Or, you can actually drag the app to either side of the screen to open up in an overlay bubble, or split screen.
Speaking of dragging, in split screen mode, you can drag pretty much any entity from one side, and drop it to the other side, provided the second side is editable. Words, pictures, videos (I think), links, selections, you name it. That is a godsend. Sadly, I do not have access to this feature yet, as my spare iPad is incapable of split screen.
That about wraps this up. Keep in mind, this only highlights my favorite features. There is more to iOS 11 in store.
Also, for you Android users who read this, we get it. Samsung already had this, Apple is a copy cat, blah blah blah. We already know you think you're better than us Apple users, so don't bother commenting.
A few more features I found when playing with iOS 11:
* Document scanning is nice feature added in Notes. You click the (+) icon to open the menu and choose document scanning. It opens the camera applet with a yellow highlight quad showng where a document is detected. Once the photo is taken, the document scales to be perfectly flat for annotating, signing, etc.
* Screenshots don’t immediately save to the Photo Gallery anymore. The show as a thumbnail in the bottom left of the screen. If you dismiss the thumb (by swiping off the screen), it will save; if you tap the thumb, it opens for editing and annotating with tools like crop, pen, highlight, etc.
* The iPad app switcher is no longer than endless scrolling of icons. They’ve replaced it with thumbnails of the last app states - including previously paired split views of apps. You can no longer just swipe to close apps, though - you have to longpress a thumbnail to activate editing mode and tap the little X to close.