At the last Apple’s WWDC event held in June this year, the Cupertino company unveiled iOS 11. This latest iDevices OS is currently available in beta; the stable version is expected to roll out sometime in September this year.
Currently, only power users have iOS 11 running on their iDevices; beta software come with the risks of crashing, being unreliable, and at other times might brick your device. That said, Apple’s more recent mobile OS is not yet ready for the mass market.
The lion’s share of iDevices mobile OS goes to iOS 10, which currently holds 87% of the market worldwide. Its predecessor, the iOS 9 holds 10% with the remaining 3% shared among the earlier versions.
Looking at how fast iDevices users upgraded from iOS 9 to iOS 10, Apple can, with a great level of confidence, say users will quickly upgrade to the upcoming iOS. So what are some of the features found on iOS 10 that made it become quite the hit among iDevices users?
You can delete default apps: The ability to free up space as much as possible by deleting redundant apps that come pre-installed on your mobile device is quite liberating. Unlike earlier iOS, the iOS 10 gives users the ability to delete Apple apps they come with out of the box.
New Apple Music: Apple Music was first launched last year, and judging by the numbers of paying subscribers, the service has really taken off. Apple says there are about 20 million subscribers. The Cupertino company built the app from the ground up, and in their own words “it uses a new design language that allows music to become the hero and a new structure that makes it easy to navigate and discover new music.”
Better Apple Maps: When Apple Maps was first launched, it seemed more of a joke than anything you would actually want to use. However, over the years, Apple tweaked it and added features such as showing public transport system for instance, and little by little it won over many hearts. In iOS 10, Apple redesigned the app giving it larger buttons and opening it up to third party extensions allowing you do such things as book your Uber ride right on the app.
Siri is now more open: Siri is now five years old. That makes her pretty senile compared to the young blood in the hood; the likes of Alexa and Cortana. To make her more competitive, Apple opened Siri to third parties in iOS 10. Now you can summon Siri to do things like open your WhatsApp, dictate down your message and have it send the message to your contact.
Photo Memories: With the extensive grasp Apple has on your photos on iDevices, it launched ‘Memories’ with iOS 10 which essentially does a recap of animated pictures of places and times you took photos. Taking you on a trip down memory lane.
Apps in iMessage: These days the instant messaging space seems crowded with big wigs like Facebook Messenger taking the lion’s share. In iOS 10, Apple revamped iMessage and somewhat enabling it to make a big comeback to the messaging scene, by fitting it with its own App Store. Right now, you can accomplish multiple tasks such as ordering your take out, book a travel ticket, do some shopping, and send or receive money on iMessage.
Widgets: iOS 10 ushered in the age of widgets on iDevices that gives you a richer apps experience. From the lock screen, you can get information from an app and enhances the use of 3D Touch on an app.
These are just a few of the new features available in iOS 10 that propelled it to become the leading version of Apple mobile OS worldwide. If there is a particular feature you love about the OS, and we have left it out from the list above, kindly share with us in the comment section.
