iOS 9 on the iPhone 6s
The killer new feature of the iPhone 6s is its 3DTouch display. This is a new type of touchscreen that senses depth and pressure in addition to touch. That means your iPhone 6s will be able to tell how hard you're pressing it and respond with new actions based on the strength of your touch. Apple calls these actions “Peek” and “Pop” and they work both in-app and on the home screen.
For example, in Messages you can force touch on a message to “peek” into it without needing to navigate into the thread. You can then press a bit harder if you like what you see and “pop” into that thread automatically. Peek and pop also works for calendar events, web URLs, and more.
The 3DTouch display also allows you to jump to sections of a specific app right from the home screen. For example, you can force touch the Phone app to get a popup menu that shows you favorite contacts. Simply touch their name and the call will be made without needing to open the Phone app at all.
The 3DTouch display changes the way we interact with iOS 9, which is why it will feel like a totally different operating system on the iPhone 6s. iPhone models below the 6s won't have access to all the cool new Peek and Pop features.
iPhone 6s aside, there are a ton of new features for all iPhones, but for now these listed below are, in our opinion, the most significant:
INSANE Improvements To Battery Life
One of the biggest things we’re excited about, however, are the developments Apple is making in its war against poor battery life. The iPhone 6 Plus has an exceptional battery life, so good in fact it is difficult to switch to another phone for very long –– you just miss it too much. However, Apple isn’t done yet –– and the latest development will bring even BIGGER improvements to battery life across the board. It’s called “Low Power” mode and it is likely to be a very big deal.
“Across the entire operating system, apps and key technologies have been made more efficient to trim battery usage wherever possible — so you get more battery life for the things you do every day. Thanks to ambient light and proximity sensors, your iPhone knows if it’s facedown on the table and prevents the screen from turning on, even when you receive a notification. And the new Low Power mode lets you extend your battery life even further,” noted Apple at WWDC 2015.
Transit Maps
Yeah, Apple’s Maps app got off to a horrible start because of a piss poor POI (point of interest) database when the service was unveiled a few years ago. But also another feature Maps lacked was transit directions. Well, no more! In iOS 9 Apple Maps offer a new feature called transit that will show bus, metro, and train directions in the app. Transit will be available in a limited number of cities at first, including Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto and Washington D.C., as well as over 300 cities in China, including Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. Nearby information is available in the US and China.
Proactive and Siri
A major new feature of iOS 9 is called Proactive. This is a system-wide feature that allows your iOS device to learn your habits and provide recommendations to you based on place, time of day, and activity. How does Proactive work? Well, it’s a lot like Google Now. For example, if Proactive sees you’ve got a meeting at 2pm, it will alert you beforehand and notify you when you have to leave and the best way to get to the meeting based on current traffic conditions. If you like to listen to music at 7am when you work out, Proactive will automatically have your music cued up for you at that time when you plug your headphones in. If you like reading Flipboard at night before you go to bed, Proactive will pull of the Clipboard app automatically at your bedtime.
Apple says Siri features an all-new design, contextual reminders based on time and location, and new ways to search photos and videos. Search queries deliver more relevant results from more categories, including sports scores and schedules, simple math calculations, weather conditions and stock prices.
iPad Split screen Multitasking
A huge new feature of iOS 9 is limited to the iPad–split screen multitasking. In iOS 9 the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro will support multitasking. The way this works is while using an app on the iPad you can swipe left from the side of your screen to pull up a SlideOver window. This window features any app of your choice. For example, if your main app is the Mail app, you can SlideOver the Messages app, which will appear as a column on the side of the screen. When using a SlideOver app only that app is usable. However as soon as your tap the divider, the iPad goes into multitasking mode and allows you to have two usable apps side by side. You can then position two apps on the single screen at the same time and use them both. It’s quite a cool feature and one that is going to make the iPad a much more desktop-like productivity machine.
The best keyboard EVER (iPad only)
My favorite new feature of iOS 9 is also one that is limited to the iPad. There’s a new QuickType keyboard that allows you to use the keyboard as a trackpad by placing two fingers on it and moving them around. Doing so will allow you to move the text entry cursor in any app around the screen. For example, in the Notes app you can place two fingers on the keyboard, slide them around, and watch the cursor on the note move around on the screen. This makes adjusting the cursor position on screen infinitely less frustrating than needing to tap its position on the screen to move it as you need to do now.
Picture in Picture (iPad only)
Another big iOS 9 feature (and one related to multitasking) is, again, iPad-only. Now the iPad supports picture-in-picture (PIP). So, if you have a video app you can encapsulate the playing video in its own window and then open up another app (such as Mail) to get some work done. The video will play on the screen floating above the other app. You can move the PIP around the screen to place it wherever you want and you can even adjust the size of the PIP window.
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