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All the new features in iOS 9

Apple has finally unveiled the much awaited iOS 9. This new soon to be launched operating system is more intelligent and packed with improved privacy and Siri features. The system also features new multi-tasking features that’s specifically designed to allow iPad users to simultaneously work with 2 apps, side-by-side.

The new iOS also comes with picture-in-picture feature that allows one to browse the web, compose an email, or use any other app while watching a video.

More so, the built-in apps become more powerful with this new operating system. You will therefore encounter a redesigned Notes app that allows for easy capturing of ideas, an all-new News app that allows for easy access and reading of the news, together with detailed transit information in Maps.

A detailed look into iOS 9 Features is available below:

Siri is Pre-loaded with an all new Super-Effective Design

Siri becomes more intelligent with iOS 9 as it provides for new ways to search videos and photos together with contextual reminders. Proactive assistance provides you with the most relevant info without compromising your own privacy. Your usage patterns allow iOS 9 to automatically suggest the apps to launch or the people to contact even before you start typing. You will also be notified when to leave for appointments, taking into account the traffic conditions at the time. Typed queries will deliver even more precise and accurate results than ever before.

Slide Over feature for your iPad

The Slide Over feature allows you to work on a second app without leaving the first with a simple swipe. A quick tap will give you access to the new Split View feature. The Picture-in-Picture feature allows you to continue watching a video or go on with your FaceTime call and still get to use your favorite apps. A new Shortcut Bar also provides for easier and faster typing.

More Support for the Built-in Apps

You now get even more support and functionality with the built-in apps. For instance, Maps features more precisely mapped subway station entrances and exits together with metropolitan schedules and transit systems. A Nearby feature in Maps will quickly find the nearest shopping mall or restaurant.

The Notes app is also completely redesigned to allow you to easily create checklists, draw a quick sketch with your finger, or snap a photo directly to your note. You can as well easily save important items from other apps directly to your note. Keep them synced across all devices using iCloud.

The News app on the other hand delivers a rich reading experience using an immersive design of a print magazine and the interactivity of digital media. The app will quickly learn your interest and suggest relevant content for you.

Apple Pay also receives support for Discover. It also issues rewards for merchant programs such as Kohl’s Department Stores and Walgreens. The Wallet app allows for easy management of store-issued debit and credit cards. Apple Pay will be available to UK users starting July, 2015.

Availability

The iOS 9 SDK and beta software are available for iOS Developer Program members. The beta program will be available for public use starting July, 2015. iOS 9 is however set to launch this fall as a free software update for iPad mini and later, iPad 2 and later, iPod touch 5th generation, and iPhone 4s and later. Some features may only be available for certain regions only.

June 11, 2015
Everything you need to know about Apple’s OS X El Capitan

Apple has finally announced the OS X El Capitan – the latest operating system for Mac. El Capitan features improved Spotlight search with natural language enhancements, new versions of multiple stock apps, including Mail, Notes, and Safari, together with Metal for Mac and other refinements and features that Apple announced at WWDC.

Here’s a deeper look into the OS X El Capitan features:

Mail: The OS X El Capitan Mail app comes with enhancements for its full-screen mode and ability to hide in-progress messages. The OS also features enhanced tabs on the compose window. Delete or archive messages with a gesture enabled swipe feature.

Safari: The new enhanced Safari browser comes with a pinned feature that allows you to easily and quickly keep most important websites at the top of Safari. You can as well mute websites that are playing music without having to close them down.

Metal for Mac: Metal for Mac combines the graphics power of OpenGL and the computing power of OpenCL to form a new API that does both. This therefore means you will need 40% less CPU processing power for graphics and still have 50% rendering improvement with the new system. Metal for Mac also promises improved graphics and better battery life.

Spotlight: The OS X El Capitan Spotlight search has been significantly improved with contextually aware search results and natural language enhancements.

Availability

A preview of the OS X El Capitan is already available for Mac Developer Program members. However, the final version will be available for free this fall in Mac App Store. A public beta version is going to be available starting July, 2015.

June 11, 2015
First Batch of Apple’s HomeKit IoT Accessories now Available

True to their word, the first batch of Apple’s HomeKit compatible accessories has been released. Just last month we heard of the possibility of Apple releasing the much awaited HomeKit accessories in June and they have not disappointed.

For those of you who might be hearing of Apple’s HomeKit for the first time, then you need to know that this tech allows you to control any compatible connected sensors, plugs, thermostats, lights and many more functions using your iPhone or other iOS device.

Currently, there are 5 home automation accessories that work with HomeKit and we have discussed each of them below.

Originally appeared on What’s On iPhone. Read the full article.

June 3, 2015
shomi is Coming to All Canadians this Summer

Canada, make room on your couch and time in your schedule – shomi is moving in! Following a successful beta launch in November 2014 to Rogers and Shaw Internet or cable customers, shomi is now coming to all Canadians across the country this summer.

The comapny is moving in and unpacking “great stuff” to watch – including exclusive series not available on other streaming services, celebrated Canadian content, human-curated collections, plus fun kids and family programming.

shomi has exclusive content deals for some of the most buzz-worthy TV series being produced today. Canadian exclusives such as Golden Globe-winner Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, and Catastrophe; exclusive day-and-date releases of hot new series including iZombie and multiple award-winning Jane The Virgin; top-notch Canadian content including Vikings, Rookie Blue, and Mr. D; and past-seasons of some of the most popular shows on television, featuring Modern Family and Sons of Anarchy – these are just a few of the series that are coming this summer with shomi.

Beyond TV binges, shomi offers hand-picked movie favourites plus great kids-and-family content, including Thomas and Friends, Blue’s Clues, Johnny Test, Scooby Doo, and Boy Meets World.

shomi is accessible across the variety of platforms – tablet, mobile, online, Xbox 360, Apple TV, Chromecast, as well as set-top boxes for Rogers and Shaw TV subscribers; the service is also on offer to other distributors.

May 28, 2015
A Number of Macs and iPhones are about to become ‘Vintage’ or ‘Obsolete’ in June, losing Apple Repair Support

Starting 9^th June, 2015 a couple of Apple products will be classified as either vintage or obsolete in Europe, Canada, Asia-Pacific, United States, Japan, Latin American and Apple Retail Stores.

According to Apple, vintage products are those that have been in production for more than 5 years and less than 7 years. Apple has discontinued hardware service for all vintage products apart from Macintosh products purchased in Turkey and Products purchased in California, United States.

Obsolete products on the other hand are those that were discontinued more than 7 years ago. These products hardware service has been discontinued with no exceptions.

Some of the iPhone models that are about to get the boot include the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G (China), iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS (China). These models will achieve the vintage status if they were bought in California.

Other Apple products that are becoming obsolete come 9^th include iMac (24-inch, Mid 2007), iMac (20-inch, Mid 2007, and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid-2009). These products will no longer be supported for service or repair unless they were bought in Turkey. In addition, a few more Apple products lose the vintage status after they were marked as obsolete in the US and they include Xserve RAID (SFP, Late 2004), Xserve (Late 2006), AirPort Express Base Station, MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.4/2.2GHZ), and MacBook Pro (17-inch, 2.4GHZ).

The above products will achieve their new status (vintage or obsolete) sometime next month and they will therefore no longer be supported for repair by authorized resellers or Apple Stores. However, Apple will continue offering support to AppleCare customers by phone.

A comprehensive list of the vintage and obsolete Apple devices is available here.

May 26, 2015
Confirmed: Apple HomeKit Products to Start Shipping in June

Soon your iPhone will control your locks, cameras, lights, thermostats, doors, plugs and switches via corresponding apps.

Apple has confirmed to Mashable that the HomeKit products will start shipping in June this year. This news comes in the wake of another published by Fortune claiming that Apple users might have to wait longer for HomeKit products.

Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said in an email directed to Mashable that the HomeKit had already attracted dozes of partners who are ready to provide HomeKit accessories, with the first hitting the market as early as next month.

The HomeKit platform was first announced in June last year during Apple’s developers conference promising to replace garage clickers, thermostat dials, and light switches with a single control panel that seamlessly integrates with Apple devices. Siri could for example be extended to respond to commands for HomeKit enabled products.

It is important to note that Apple won’t be launching HomeKit by turning on a switch since the HomeKit products will be available once the approved accessory developers go live with their products.

Apple opened the certification process last November and the first batch of approvals came in January. Apple says it is now waiting for the device makers to launch their products.

Also read: Apple TV will be the center of Apple’s smart home

May 22, 2015
VoIP Innovations Launches New VoIP Fraud Detection Service
VoIP Innovations, a company that specializes in providing DID and termination VoIP footprintshas, released a Fraud Detection Tool for ITSPs, VoIP resellers and enterprise customers that analyzes their traffic patterns and warns them when something isn’t right.

The detection tool continually runs an algorithm than analyzes and processes CDRs in near real-time searching for anomalies in traffic patterns. When an anomaly is found an alert is sent as a text message or email.

According to VoIP Innovations, it’s more than just an alert system: “it helps you sleep peacefully knowing you will receive an alert if traffic patterns become abnormal and it provides you with data to hone in on your customer calling patterns.” With this information, users are adequately armed to tweak their service offering for maximum profit potential.

All VoIP innovations clients are eligible for a month free trial service, up to 5,000 minutes worth of CDRs.

A few features that you can expect include:
- Ability to set multiple severity notification thresholds
- Easy to customize fraud detection dashboard
- Monitor local, international, and toll-free origination and termination
To enable the Fraud Detection Tool simply go to the Add-On section of your VoIP Innovation backoffice, where you will be able to enable the service and while at it you can as well set your alerts and customize your widget dashboard.
May 21, 2015
Big Data Storage now Available on Google’s Storage Platform

Google just launched a data storage service that will allow multi-national corporations and big organizations to run big data analysis on its cloud service.

Google Cloud Bigtable is not an entirely new service, as Google has been using it internally for years to manage its core services, such as Google Analytics, Gmail, and Google Search.

Finance companies can use the new service to store petabytes of trading data for analysis of emerging trends. The service can also be used to store sensor data from internet-of-things monitoring system.

Other industries that stand to benefit from the service as well include energy firms, digital advertising firms, telecommunication companies, biomedical industries and other data-intensive corporations.

The Bigtable Google Cloud service is a hosted NoSQL data store. Users can read and write data using the application programming interface (API) for Apache HBase.

Users can use the cloud service with existing Hadoop software since the Bigtable can be accessed through HBase commands. The Hadoop is an open source data processing platform that allows users to work with extremely huge sets of data. The Bigtable will also work with other Google cloud services, including Google Cloud Dataflow and Google BigQuery.

Google fully runs the service offering encryption of data for security and backup through data replication. Additional storage is automatically provided as data grows.

The pricing for this service will depend on a number of things such as amount of storage used, number of nodes deployed, and network usage. The service is still in beta and those interested in using it can sign up for a free trial.

May 18, 2015
Broadcom’s Internet of Things WICED Platform Now Offers Full HomeKit Support
Broadcom has announced that its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED) SDK now offers full HomeKit support. As the first company to meet HomeKit technical specifications for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Smart, Broadcom expands its Internet of Things (IoT) portfolio offerings.

Broadcom’s WICED platform enables developers and OEMs to take advantage of the growing Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem. By helping companies create IoT products that are HomeKit compliant, Broadcom is said to reduce time-to-market and improve the consumer experience.

Broadcom’s WICED platform can also connect endpoints through a process known as bridging that delivers the benefits of HomeKit through a hardware module. This allows a product like a Bluetooth Smart light bulb to connect to a smart plug containing Broadcom’s WICED module, creating a bridge from the light bulb to the user’s HomeKit-supported app on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

HomeKit offers a set of common protocols making it easier for customers to control HomeKit-enabled accessories using Siri or iOS applications. HomeKit is built on a secure foundation with end-to-end encryption which provides customers a secure connection between their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and HomeKit-enabled accessory.

Key Features:
- Support for 802.11ab/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Smart
- Compact design to support multiple microcontrollers (MCUs) and systems-on-a-chip (SOCs)
- Low memory footprint
- Integrated development tools
- Reliable interoperability and integrated security
- Upgradeable over wireless connections
Availability
Broadcom’s WICED SDK and hardware module with HomeKit support are available now.
May 14, 2015
The Open Mobile Summit London 2015 – Big Business Mobile Transformation
The Open Mobile Summit London 2015 (29th – 30th June, The Proud Archivist) brings together mobile marketers, creatives and strategists to investigate the impact of placing mobile at the heart of all business operations. Expert speakers from Thomas Cook, Bayer, Bupa, Shazam and many more will share their transformative journeys.

Biz-news is a Media Partner for the event.

This is the event for the executives leading the mobile transformation in every sector, including FMCG, finance, travel, automotive, telecoms, utilities and more. They will seek to explore innovative tactics to drive outstanding financial results and increased brand loyalty.

Highlights include:
- 20+ expert speakers incl. Shazam, Bayer, Thomas Cook and Financial Times will share their mobile transformation journeys to inspire the audience
- Meet 150+ mobile marketers, creatives and strategists to discuss how to align the mobile strategy across marketing, IT and corporate culture to stay in tune with their customers and increment the business revenue
- Get up to speed with the latest mobile marketing strategies, the money making mobile ad tech and the talent that will support the mobile transformation initiative
Face-to-face networking is crucial to business success. Attendees will have access to our pre & post show e-networker, networking breaks, including a drinks reception on day one.

Event website.
May 13, 2015