This year at World Wide Developers Conference keynote, Apple spent a significant amount of time focusing on and speaking about the iOS 8. And it got everyone thinking about how the new version would look like. But you will have wait until September for the iOS 8 release. That’s too long, right? Well, being in the iOS app development business has its perks. The new operating system is available for iOS developers and we will tell you what makes iOS 8 more than just a new number.
No redesigning has been done to the new operating system. iOS 8 is built on iOS 7, taking its design and has included new features to it. The latest iOS updates are nothing like you have seen before. The new iOS 8 features will let the third parties score more with their apps. Yes, Apple is finally allowing the third-party apps to communicate with its own operating system as well as server through a number of extensions. The extensions that will allow the app developers to make apps are:
- Today Extensions
Like Windows Phone’s Live Tiles and Android’s home screen widget, iOS 8’s Today extension will let you show limited information in the Today view in the Notification Center.
- Share Extensions
Share extensions will let you share information from one app to online service. While one could share links or photos on Facebook and Twitter earlier also, the iOS8 is now open for online services such as Tumblr and Pinterest as well.
- Action Extensions
The most interesting of all extensions, Action extensions will allow apps to manipulate or view content in another app. For example, by using Bing Translate one can translate the text in a Safari window.
- Custom Keyboard Extensions
With the Custom keyboard extension, you can ditch the default keyboard and use third-party keyboards such as Fleksy or Swype.
- Photo Editing Extensions
The Photo editing extensions will allow the use of third-party photo editing apps by the users without exiting the main Photos app. This opens the way for many more photo apps like VSCO cam.
- Storage Provider Extensions
Storage provider extensions will let apps select documents from a variety of cloud services, such as Microsoft’s OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud.