The New iOS 8 Keeps the Family Closer Together

Yesterday was a big day for all Apple fans and consumers, as the Worldwide Developers Conference was indeed a great event for the tech giant. The company presented all sorts of changes, improvements and upgrades to its operating system, devices and apps, but it also rolled out a few novelties the world has been waiting for a long time. We will begin with the freshly announced iOS 8, a new upgrade to come this fall for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The new iOS 8 will be free to download sometimes this fall.

The forthcoming operating system upgrade has a few specs that might interest all Apple fans: a new intuitive typing technology which

can predict replies to text messages based on the content of the text and the person you’re talking with.

In other words, the new iOS 8 can “learn” your speaking patterns and can predict speech and vocabulary based on your previous texting habits. This predictive feature is also present on Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, but with a better and more intuitive speech predicting keyboard, maybe the Internet will cleanse itself of all those funny auto-correct related pics. For the first time ever, the new iOS 8 offers its users the opportunity to install third – party keyboards, like the ones produced by SwiftKey and Swype.

However, one of the most interesting features of the new iOS 8 is the Family Sharing option, a feature that allows family members to share among them almost all their i-content to up to six members. We are talking about reminder lists, photos and calendars, while the “Find My Friends” and “Find My [device]” features allows members of the family to find each other or their missing phones. The catch is that all family members should own similar tools and apps, all bought with the same credit card. Simpler put, family members can share most of their media content, including ebooks, movies, music, apps and other purchased media, as long as all of them have been paid with the same credit card.

This feature has some implications over the use of credit cards by kids or teenagers, giving the parents more control over their shopping habits. If a young member in the family wants to get a new episode of a TV series or buy an app, the parents receive a credit card notification, asking them to confirm and allow the purchase via an alert on their i-device. Maybe the kids won’t like this too much, but the parents will have a clearer picture on where their money are going to.

All in all, the new iOS 8 comes with a bunch of specs that are not only interesting, but also useful. Stay tuned, as we will come back with more news on the upgrade.