what is new in IOS 8

iOS 8, announced by Apple at WWDC, will feature major improvements to Messages and inter-app communication, a new Health app and predictive keyboard, and changes to several system apps and features.

Among big additions and redesigns, however, there are always smaller features and hidden tweaks that the company only briefly mentioned during the keynote or described with a short paragraph on their preview website. In this post, I collected 15 other iOS 8 features that are worth noting and waiting for.

Emergency card. In the Medical ID section of the Health app, you’ll be able to set up personal information for medical conditions, allergies/reactions, and other medical notes to be displayed in an Emergency card available on the Lock screen. In some cases (such as severe allergies and reactions), immediate access to this information can be a lifesaver.

iBooks will be pre-installed. Gone are the days when you needed to open the App Store to download iBooks like any other third-party app. In iOS 8, Apple’s eBook and PDF reader will be pre-installed and ready to sync your items over iCloud. It’s unclear whether making iBooks a system app will also result in slower, less frequent updates (right now, Apple is free to update iBooks on the App Store without issuing a full iOS update), but bundling the app with iOS should certainly help more users get accustomed to its capabilities.

Automatic night mode in iBooks. A popular feature in read-later apps like Instapaper, iBooks for iOS 8 will offer an automatic night mode to facilitate reading in low-light. Apple hasn’t shared further details on the feature, but it will likely be based on the user’s time zone and switch the iBooks app to a dark design after a specific time of the day.

Pano photos on iPad. If you don’t mind taking pictures with your iPad, you’ll be glad to know that iOS 8 will bring panoramic mode – previously exclusive to the iPhone – to the larger screen.

Battery usage by app. One of my iOS 8 wishes, battery consumption details for individual apps will be available in iOS 8’s Battery Usage screen in the Settings, which will show a proportion of battery used by each app when a device isn’t charging. These statistics will be useful to understand which apps are consuming your device’s battery life, allowing you to take action if necessary (either by deleting an app or figuring out why it’s consuming so much battery).

DuckDuckGo search option built-in. If you don’t want to use Google or Bing and prefer a search engine that doesn’t track you, iOS 8’s Safari will come with a DuckDuckGo option in the Settings. DuckDuckGo has recently undergone a major redesign that added cleaner layouts for mobile searches and more flexibility with smart results and recognized queries, which will certainly come in handy with quick searches on iOS.

Here’s how Apple describes DuckDuckGo (from the Yosemite page, as the engine will also be added to OS X):

Safari now gives you more control over your privacy on the web. You can open one Safari window in Private Browsing mode — which doesn’t save your browsing history — while keeping others in regular browsing mode. So while you do your online banking privately in one window, your browsing history is still being saved while you surf in another. You can also now search the web using DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track you.

And from the DuckDuckGo blog:

DuckDuckGo is thrilled to be included in Safari and it’s great that Apple is making it easy for people to access our anonymous search option. This makes DuckDuckGo the first privacy-focused search engine to be added to one of the top four browsers and is a huge milestone for both us and privacy supporters.

For more on the new DuckDuckGo, check out our overview.

Travel time notifications. Travel time was previously exclusive to OS X Mavericks, and it’ll come to iOS 8 through (optional) notifications that’ll suggest you the best time to leave for your next calendar event. It’s not clear whether iOS 8 users will also be able to turn on travel time and get inline Maps previews when creating new events in Calendar, but notifications are a good start.

A “Tips” app. We don’t know much about this, except for a brief mention on Apple’s slide for additional iOS 8 features. Considering the popularity of “Getting Started” guides on the App Store and the fact that OS X comes with a built-in electronic manual, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple offering an app with a collection of tips and videos to learn the basics of iOS as well as its more advanced features.

Camera timer. Need to take timed shots with the Camera app? iOS 8 will feature a timer icon in the camera view, so you’ll always be able to take the perfect group photo with your friends – or perhaps time a selfie just right.

Shazam in Siri. Apple’s assistant didn’t get much stage time yesterday, but it’ll receive a big addition for music lovers thanks to Shazam integration. Simply long-press the Home button to bring up Siri as usual, don’t speak, and let Siri listen to music that’s playing on a speaker. Siri will understand that you’re waiting for song recognition, and it’ll return the top Shazam result with artist and song name as well as a button to buy the song on the iTunes Store. Shazam integration inside Siri will be a terrific addition to iOS as it’ll allow for faster song-tagging and users won’t be forced to find the Shazam app, launch it, and tap the music ID button.

Purchase iTunes content with Siri. And speaking of the iTunes Store, iOS 8 will let you purchase iTunes content that has been presented by Siri. Again, more details aren’t available right now, but it’s safe to assume that the system will be integrated with the existing Touch ID authorization for purchases.

Private Browsing per tab. iOS 7 made Safari’s Private Browsing mode easier to activate, but it’s an all-or-nothing deal: you can either keep all your current tabs when switching back and forth between normal and private browsing, or you can close all of them. In iOS 8, Private Browsing will be updated with granular controls, so you’ll be able to keep separate sets of private and normal tabs without having to decide what to do with all of your current tabs. It’s a small change, but a welcome one.

RSS in Safari. When Apple unceremoniously cut native RSS support from Mountain Lion’s Safari, many wondered whether the company was done with RSS or if the standard could eventually return in some other form. The RSS comeback will happen with iOS 8, albeit with no user-facing “RSS” nature: Safari will be able to subscribe to individual sites in Shared Links by using RSS feeds under the hood, but users won’t have to deal with traditional RSS aspects like feed URLs. Instead, Safari will abstract subscription management from sites to make reading new articles as simple as possible. While power users will still prefer dedicated RSS services and clients, the inclusion of site subscriptions in Safari will offer a good basic solution for users who just want to see what’s new on their favorite blogs.

Rich text editing in Notes. In iOS 7, Apple’s Notes app could only edit plain text content with no formatting options; in iOS 8, you’ll be able to add bold, italic, and underlined fonts to style your notes like you want to – and you’ll also be able to insert images like you can on OS X.

Streaming voice recognition in Siri. In my iOS 8 wish list, I also noted how Siri’s input mechanism was inferior to Google and Microsoft’s voice-based solutions, which display transcribed text as you speak and dictate commands. In iOS 8, Apple is going to improve Siri with streaming voice recognition – essentially, the ability to see recognized words appear on screen as you talk to Siri. The feature is long overdue, and it will allow users to easily see if Siri interpreted their commands correctly, providing corrections without having to wait for results to return from Siri’s network connection.

samsung galaxy s5 camera reviews

The snapper on the S5

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S5 is one of the more powerful on the market, featuring an Isocell unit that offers up 16MP snaps.

There are a whole host of other features here as well that a lot of people will like: real time HDR mode lets you see how your photo can be enhanced before shooting, for instance.

But the big thing that Samsung's touting is the speedy autofocus, which can manage to work out the image sharpness in up to 0.3seconds.

It's fast, and there's no doubt that it can indeed focus that quickly. However, I've got a couple of gripes before we get into that.

I've mentioned it already, but for some reason it can take a few seconds to boot up the camera, which is way longer than the competition. If you're trying to use the 'quick swipe' from the lock screen, it can take even longer as it's very easy to think you've hit this icon when in fact you haven't swiped far enough.

The camera then takes around 3 seconds to even be ready to start firing, which means if you trying to capture a moment that has come upon you suddenly, you'll likely have missed it.

The autofocus, as I mentioned, is indeed fast and will often get what you're trying to shoot - especially if it's on a well-framed scene. However there were a few occasions when I was waiting to capture something and the autofocus went green, despite the subject clearly still being blurry.

It's an odd situation - I kept finding myself cleaning the lens or flicking through the settings to see if there was something amiss, but there was nothing to be seen.

At least the HDR mode works well, and it's nice to have it alongside Selective Focus as one of the main options. You really do get some better snaps with real time HDR, and it doesn't take very long to process at all, which is a plus.

Selective focus is something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it can work in macro mode, which means you can take some close up shots and have the background blur out, which is what you'd want (and can't be done on some competitors).

On the other hand, too often it would tell me that it couldn't work out what I was taking a picture of, so the picture couldn't be altered after the snap.

The output wasn't blurry enough for me either - if you compare it to the HTC One M8, which has a weaker sensor but faster shutter speed, better defocus and all round better chops in the low light scenarios, you'll realise that this is something of an afterthought for Samsung... or at least that's how it feels.

But if it sounds like I'm railing against the camera in the Samsung Galaxy S5, then apologies – I'm certainly not. It's a competent and powerful sensor, but one that needs more effort to unlock the stunning pictures than the rivals.

The larger sensor needs a little longer to process pictures (we're talking nanoseconds for the main pictures in automatic mode) and the autofocus isn't as sharp as I'd like, but line up your shot and you'll definitely get a better image.

If you're trying to take a picture of something in candlelight, the S5 is the better option. If you've got a glorious landscape, you'll get better colour reproduction with the S5.

However, the modes are a little redundant as before – GIF-creating animated shot aside, I can't see ever wanting to use any of the modes.

Samsung has dialled these down massively since the over-complicated S4, and it really helps. Touch Up beauty mode will never cease to scare me, and as much as a like Virtual Tour, I can't ever envisage a time when I'll ever want to share a walk-through of my house.

It's one of only a few devices on the market to offer 4K video recording as well - however, I think we're at least a year or two off needing such a capability, and it will certainly require more storage to shoot in this high-res format for now, regardless of how it looks.

The camera in the Galaxy S5 is as competent as it is powerful – it's nowhere near as good as the Nokia Lumia Pureview sensor, but then again, it's more adept than the HTC One M8 if you're willing to put the time in.

However, the One M8 is the better option for day to day point and shooting – the sharpness is actually comparable as too many S5 pictures didn't quite come out as pleasant as I thought they had when viewing on the screen.