iOS 8: What must-have features does Apple need to add?

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is only a month and a half away, and interest in the impending iOS 8 announcement is starting to surge across the internet. iOS has come a long way since its original version in 2007, and it’s quite mature now. It’s no longer missing any major features on the scale of copy and paste and third-party apps, so what can Apple offer in iOS 8 to deliver an exciting new revision?

As rumor has it, Apple is incorporating the functionality of the popular Shazam app directly into iOS 8. Bloomberg reports that Apple is working with the folks at Shazam to integrate the music-recognition engine into iOS devices, and it has two inside sources confirming that information. Considering that the iTunes music store still plays a major role at Cupertino, a partnership with Shazam makes complete sense. Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora are breathing down Apple’s neck, so a return to innovation in the music space would be a smart move right about now. If Shazam’s song detection feeds directly into iTunes Radio, even better.

Beyond that rumor, a number of potential improvements for iOS 8 immediately come to mind. First and foremost, we need real competitors in the browser space. If Apple would lift the ban on third-party rendering engines, we would most certainly see some stiff competition from Mozilla, Google, and Opera on the App Store. Apple’s WebKit is perfectly fine, but iOS users would undoubtedly benefit from the competition. Android already has access to a number of high-quality rendering engines, and iOS is missing out on all of the action.

While we’re on the subject, Apple needs to allow users to choose their default web browser as well. When I tap on a link in an email, it always loads in Safari. If I want to open the link in Chrome or Atomic instead, I have to long-press, copy, switch to a browser, and paste in the URL. It works, but it’s much more complicated than it should be. Apple already allows users to configure default applications in OS X, so there’s seemingly no legitimate reason why iOS shouldn’t have the same functionality.

iOS has had the ability to select text, copy, and paste since version 3.0 was released, but it’s still not exactly up to snuff. Selecting the exact string of text you want from a website or PDF can be incredibly frustrating, and we all know Apple can do better. If nothing else, the addition of on-screen arrow keys would be a huge step forward in usability.

Come to think of it, many different aspects of the OS could use some polish. An offline mode for Siri would be appreciated, app switching could be much easier, and the home screen hasn’t really seen a major update in years. Whatever whiz-bang additions Apple has up its sleeves, let’s just hope that it deems fit to improve the existing features as well in iOS 8.

Microsoft’s Cortana hands on: The best of Google Now and Siri combined

Microsoft has been active in speech recognition research for decades, so it isn’t surprising that it has introduced a voice-based personal digital assistant — only that it took them so long to do so! Named Cortana, the application is a hybrid of local and cloud functionality that will be built into Windows Phone 8.1. I had a chance to try it out this week at Microsoft’s Build 2014 conference. For the most part I was quite impressed, although the code’s beta designation is certainly still appropriate.

Cortana combines elements of Siri and Google Now

The core of Cortana is a Siri-like speech recognition capability, coupled with enough intelligence to put some context around your commands and questions. Added to that is a card-based proactive display of what it thinks might be important to you based on your calendar, contacts, and interests — similar to the cards that Google Now pops up. Microsoft’s real claims to innovation in Cortana is its personalization and extensibility.

Cortana starts off by trying to get to know a little bit about you — what you like to do in your spare time, who is important in your life, what sports teams you follow, etc. It uses that information to begin preparing tidbits of information it can show you first thing in the morning, or when it thinks you might need them. It also learns about your habits and becomes more personal over time. Obviously that’s hard to test in a short demo session, so we’ll need to wait until it ships to see how powerful the learning capability is in real life. The other really exciting feature of Cortana is that it is completely extensible. Microsoft has documented how third parties can integrate with Cortana, and demonstrated integration with Flixster during the show.

Windows Phone 8.1: Cortana

Cortana can almost converse

Cortana has a reasonably sophisticated conversational model. You can follow-up a question with another related question, and it knows how to link them together. For example, you can ask it for nearby restaurants and then ask something like “which of them take reservations?” and it will know to filter the restaurant list. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know how to further link to sites like OpenTable to actually help you make them.

Cortana seems much better at complex commands than Siri or Google Now. For example, you can tell it, “the next time I talk to my wife, remind me to let her know that I spend too much time talking to my phone.” It will identify the contact entry for your wife, and in fact remind you the next time you call or text her contact that you have something you want to say. Like Google Now and Siri, Cortana leverages search technology — in this case Microsoft’s Bing. Besides relying on Bing for search and custom vocabularies (like lists of movies and restaurants), it also benefits from any personalization you’ve done in Bing.

Joe Belfiore introduces Cortana digital assistant

Several of the Microsoft demoers had trouble with Cortana recognizing some of their speech, but when I tried it out it was nearly perfect in recognizing everything I said — except for names of some foreign countries and cities. However, I did find that Cortana’s seemingly magical understanding of reminders and restaurants didn’t extend to other similar tasks you might delegate to an assistant. It had no idea how to find me a taxi, for example, or where the nearest bus stop was. Microsoft is quick to point out that Cortana is still in early beta (it won’t be publicly available until Windows Phone 8.1 ships later this spring), and it will be adding additional smarts to the system during that time of course.

The designers behind Cortana have worked really hard to have it work the way you’d like a personal digital assistant to — they interviewed human assistants to build a model of common tasks. For example, if you start speaking to it, it will reply with voice. But if you type at it, it will assume you don’t want to be using audio, and it will reply in text. It can also do some clever, if seemingly obvious, tasks like search your email (with your permission) for meetings and airline flights you might want to track or add to your calendar. All in all, Cortana is an exciting addition to the Windows Phone platform, and I suspect we’ll see more of it (her?) in future versions of Windows for the desktop and for tablets as well. It’ll be a while before Cortana is as intelligent as her Halo character namesake, though.

Apple releases iOS 7.1 with CarPlay, improved UI, and more lifelike Siri

Start your updating because Apple has finally released iOS 7.1. While this point-release offers a handful of tweaks and bug fixes, the biggest news is undoubtedly CarPlay support. The phone, music, maps, and messages apps are all accessible through CarPlay, and even third-party audio apps like Downcast or Pandora can benefit from this system going forward. The update itself weighs in at a hefty 214MB, so you’ll definitely want to wait until you’re near a wall outlet before you tap “Update.”

Right out of the gate, you’ll find that a number of basic UI elements have been noticeably tweaked for this release. The keyboard has been refreshed, numerous buttons have been redesigned for Apple’s core apps, and everything seems a little bit more responsive. From performance improvements on the iPhone 4 to refined fingerprint recognition on theiPhone 5S, it seems that this update is a no-brainer for anyone already running iOS 7.

iOS 7.1 is the first public release that natively supports Apple’s brand-new CarPlay initiative. While compatible automobiles aren’t available to the masses just yet, this will be a major feature going forward. Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo will all have CarPlay-compatible vehicles on the market this year, and more than a dozen more automakers have signed on for future support. This initial release is simply laying the groundwork, but CarPlay will likely serve a huge role in Apple‘s future plans for world domination.

That’s not all Cupertino has up its sleeves, mind you. If you load-up the iOS 7.1 release notes, you’ll see that a few interesting tidbits made their way into this latest release as well. The Calendar and Music apps have received a number of usability modifications, but Siri is the real star of 7.1. Previously, Siri insisted on guessing when you were finished speaking commands — if you stopped to think while dictating a text message, Siri would assume that you’ve finished, and stop listening completely. Now, Siri’s listening mode can be manually controlled by holding down the button, and releasing it when you’re finished. If you need time to think before you finish your thought, this update will make your life a little bit easier. Siri has also been given more natural-sounding voices when speaking in Mandarin Chinese, UK English, Australian English, and Japanese.

Also worth noting, Apple has significantly improved a number of accessibility features in iOS 7.1. In the Settings app, users can now turn on bold fonts to ensure that UI text is easier to read. The “Reduce Motion” feature now applies to animations for Weather, Messages, and multitasking. Even better, users can now toggle button shapes, reduce the white point, and darken application colors across the entire OS. Even if you’re not impressed by the flashier features, these accessibility enhancements are an important step forward in usability for the visually impaired.