Follow
During its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple announced a handful of updates and upgrades to its operating system, desktop platform and cloud storage, making all Apple enthusiasts cheer endlessly. One of the most important updates is, without a doubt, the new OS we know as iOS 8.
It sports a few specs and apps people have asked for in the past and Apple was happy to deliver. First and foremost, the new operating system allows the use of third – party keyboards produced by several manufacturers. In order to rise up to the expectation, Apple also improved its own keyboard with a predictive text feature that “learns” your speech patterns and helps you talk easier with different types of people.
For instance, this keyboard represents a
much more impressive word prediction system based on the words you type and the context of what you are typing. In other words, if you use slang when messaging with one person and a more formal tone with another, the keyboard will predict appropriate words for each, depending on the recipient.
There are many other improvements brought to the OS, but one of the most important, and the most welcomed is the new iOS 8 Health App. There have been long – time rumors about Apple wanting to help us monitor and improve our health and fitness habits, and here we have the first step in the process.
The HealthKit, which you will see in the form of an app called Health, tracks down your individual biometric data (including blood pressure, weight and activity levels) and is able to connect with other products coming from different vendors that too collect biometric data.
One such vendor is Nike for instance, but also Fitbit and Jawbone. Also, the new iOS 8 Health app also connects with the latest iPhone models. They are able to collect similar information about precise location and movement and all these are fed up to the HealthKit, in an attempt to give you a clear picture on your current status.
The best thing about the HealthKit is that it works together with healthcare providers and it gathers data from reliable sources, such as the Mayo Clinic. In other words, the Health app will collect and store all your health and fitness related information in a private manner (hopefully) and then alert you when your health information and key-points go off the chart.
The issue of personal data privacy is quite hot, but Apple promised users will have their information protected. According to Financial Times,
Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering, who took an unusually prominent role in the WWDC keynote this year, promised that HealthKit would protect customers’ privacy and give them “total control” over which apps have access to different kinds of information.
