The iOS 8 Review
by Brandon Chester on September 17, 2014 1:00 PM ESTMessages
According to Apple, Messages is now the most frequently used application on iOS. That's hardly a surprise considering the way most people use their smartphones (e.g. texting), so let's quickly discuss some of the changes. While Apple is fairly limited in terms of building on top of the SMS protocol, they have free reign to do whatever they wish with their iMessage platform. Because of that, feature additions for iMessage conversations and their accompanying design alterations are what make up most of the changes to Messages in iOS 8. That being said, there are a couple of additions that work for both iMessage and SMS conversations so it's best to talk about those first.
The core interface of Messages remains the same under iOS 8. Much like many other areas of the OS, the visual improvements are refinements to the interface rather than the drastic overhauls that we saw with iOS 7. For example, sending and receiving photos in a conversation features larger preview bubbles that stack atop one another when sent in succession. While this is a very minor design change, the resulting effect looks much nicer than on iOS 7 where each image was given a separate bubble with all the corners rounded off. This change also applies to videos sent in a conversation.
The photo picker is also greatly improved. Apple has added a scrollable list of recently taken pictures to make it easier to quickly share them. For older pictures the button to open up the Photos app interface is still present, as well as the button to take a new photo or video.
The contact button in the top right has been replaced with a details button. In addition to displaying buttons to call a person or view their full contact information, this new screen also has a switch to mute notifications for that conversation and a list of all media attachments that have been sent. For iMessage conversations there are also options to add users for group conversations, remove yourself from a group, assign a name to a group conversation, and to send location information in a vCard file with a message displaying a preview from the Apple Maps interface.
Things get more interesting once you take a look at what else Apple has done with iMessage. iMessage has the inherent advantage of being integrated into the stock Messages application. Apple is able to build in features to compete with other platforms while keeping the user in a familiar interface that includes all their SMS messages and iMessages. As you can see in the above screenshots, when the user has not typed anything into the input field the send button is replaced by a microphone. By holding down the microphone a user can record a voice message. The interface does feel a bit foreign at first, but essentially as long as the user is holding down the microphone button, the message will continue to record. If the user removes their finger while it is over the arrow it sends the voice clip instantly, while removing it when over the X deletes it; anywhere else gives the user the option to play back the clip before sending.
Holding down on the camera icon brings up the same sort of interface, although it works slightly differently than with recording audio clips. Once the user brings up the camera interface they no longer need to keep holding their finger down. Tapping the camera icon within the circle takes a photo, while holding down the red button takes a video recording. With the photo option there's no confirmation before the photo is sent so users who want to make sure they're sending a good photo should use the traditional button for taking photos and videos, which is accessed by tapping the camera icon in the Messages app rather than holding it down. One thing to note is that the photos taken with the new quick photo and video interface use a 16:9 sensor crop and scale, and have a resolution of 1920x1080.
Since these features are meant to compete with other apps for sharing photos and videos like Snapchat, they wouldn't be complete without features for self deletion and for notifications when they're saved. By default, all audio and video messages sent will delete themselves after two minutes. Users can also set them to remain forever. In both cases, the user who sends the file and the users that receive it are given the option to watch/listen to the file and to keep it. Both actions send a notification to the sender, much like how Snapchat notifies users when someone takes a screenshot of a photo or video they send. Even after the message has deleted itself in the sender's conversation thread, if another user saved it there will be a notification and a time stamp to let the sender know.
As far as features go, iMessage and the Messages app are pretty much on par with every other messaging service. I do wish that Apple would add the ability to link accounts from other messaging services like you can with Messages on OS X. Having Messages become a central hub for Facebook, Hangouts, iMessage, and SMS would clear a number of applications off my phone. The risk that the dominance of the Messages app would crush the apps from other manufacturers may be exactly why Apple hasn't added such a feature yet.
The Mail application receives some much needed usability improvements in iOS 8. Apple has implemented new swipe gestures for managing email. On iOS 7 swiping an email to the left would bring up an option to move the message to the trash as well as a menu labelled "More" that contained additional options like marking as unread, flagging, and moving to another mailbox. iOS 8 makes some of these options easier to access by giving them gestures rather than putting them all in a menu.
As you can see above, swiping an email to the right now brings up a button to mark as read/unread, and swiping to the left now contains the option to flag an email. Swiping to the very left edge of the screen now deletes an email without having to press the trash button. In practice this gesture is helpful but can sometimes result in unintentionally deleting an email, and so having an undo button show up temporarily after deleting an email like Google does with Gmail on Android would be a nice tweak to add to Apple's Mail app.
A simple swipe down moves the email draft to the bottom of the screen
Apple has also included a new feature for thread specific email notifications. By default, iOS does not give individual notifications for emails that arrive. While this still remains the case on iOS 8, when composing an email an icon shaped like a bell will now appear in the subject field. The bell allows the user to enable notifications for a specific email thread without having to enable notifications for every single email that arrives. This can be useful when waiting for a reply to an important conversation, without having to also be notified about unimportant emails and spam that may also arrive in the interim.
Composing your own emails is also improved in iOS 8. The Mail app now renders over the device's wallpaper, much like the tabs in Safari and the Reminders app. Above you can see that email drafts are now cards that pop up in front of the mailbox, and they can be swiped down to grab or reference content from other emails without having to save and close the draft. This can be a real time-saver when you just want to quickly grab a photo from another email to insert into your own.
In the rightmost screenshot above you can see that Mail is also much smarter in iOS 8. The app can grab content from an email and give suggestions for things like new contacts and calendar appointments. As it stands, the email app on iOS 8 has most of the features I want in an email app. The one thing I would like to see added in the future is the app's ability to pick out information from emails extended to finding the unsubscribe link in spammy emails to be displayed at the top.
Recent Contacts
Recent Contacts, or "Recents" as Apple is calling them, is a new feature built into the iOS multitasking tray. Essentially the feature acts as a way to quickly contact people you talk to frequently. Optimally, each circle would have the person's contact photo, but in my case most just display the person's initials. Selecting someone's circle displays all the methods of contacting them that you have on file. If someone is frequently communicated with but not added to the iOS Contacts app, they will not appear in the Recents section of the multitasking tray.
Above you can see how the contacts are displayed and how clicking a list expands showing the different methods of communication. In theory this seems like a nice feature addition, but in practice I've had two issues, although both really stem from one main issue. The issue is that I don't find myself using the Recents list to contact people; I just go straight to the application I normally use to contact them. This is because every iOS app for communication has some form of built in contact list or history, so I can just as easily access the people I've recently contacted from within the app itself as I can using Recents. In my use case this makes the recent contacts list redundant, and I'm not sure how much use it will see with other iOS users. I've personally never felt a need for it.
164 Comments
View All Comments
Brandon Chester - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
No I'm not. None of the A5 devices maintain 60fps everywhere on iOS 7.1.2 (I own an iPad 3 and a relative owns a 4s). Scrolling lists like the settings app are one of the best examples.mjh483 - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
"From the perspective of a user there's no real wow factor with iOS 8 right now".I get what you are saying, but I don't get why you say it. This just tells me that you are EXPECTING to be amazed by just downloading one software update and not using anything other than the stock apps. The general expectation for Apple products is just purely wrong. I am not saying it's perfect, but criticising the lack of a wow factor doesn't SEEM AT ALL like a way to judge a new mobile operating system. If you only use Whatsapp, Facebook and play a few casual games, there's only so much any software update can improve your experience.
houkoholic - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
> but criticising the lack of a wow factor doesn't SEEM AT ALL like a way to judge a new mobile operating systemYet that is always done with other OS like Windows Phone.... "oo but it lacks this WOW feature the other OS has".
WakarusaJack - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
Updated my iPad to iOS 8 and now I leave it on the table, virtually unusable. Slow. Locks up. So sorry I upgraded!!!!raj5151 - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
Wow, really useful information post. Thanks for sharinghttp://techhowdy.com/blackmart-alpha-black-market-...
dopehat - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Okay... I understand your love for Madoka Magica... lolAppleCrappleHater2 - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Worship the holy apple.The apple way, selling over expensive crap to stupid consumers that like to
get robbed.
This has been a disastrous launch in every respect. The iwatch is such an
ugly piece of crap, it is truly unbelievable how a company, formerly known for
its remarkable design, dares to put out such a crap ton of shit. Some
characteristics are glaringly obvious and inherent to it: over expensive,
hardly innovative, limited functionality and usability (need of an iPhone to
make it work), looks exactly like a toy watch and so on.
There are of course way better smart watches out there, especially form the
likes of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Asus, LG, simply put, there is no need for
another piece of over expensive junk.
The iPhone 6 is technologically stuck in pre-2011 times, a base model with
a capacity of 16GB without the possibility to use SD cards isn't even funny
anymore. The screen resolution is horrendous, it isn't water proof, shock and
dust resistant, it offers nothing innovative, just some incremental
updates over its predecessor, both lacking severely behind their competitors at
their respective launch dates.
Now the Iphone 6 Plus offers a „Retina HD“ screen, full 1920x1080p, oh wow,
where have you been for the past 4 years apple, talk about trailing behind.
That’s pathetic. The interesting thing about that is the fact that apple
always manages to sell backwards oriented, outdated crap to its user base, all
while pretending to be an innovative technology leader. The similarities
regarding any form of sectarian cult are striking.
You gotta love how Apple always comes up with new marketing bullshit terms,
aka "Retina HD", with the intention to manipulate its users while preventing easy
comparisons with its competitors by withholding the actual specs. Apparently it’s
not enough to have a 1080p screen, you have to call it "Retina HD" to make those
suckers buy it, otherwise someone could look at the 4K Amoled and Oled screens
form LG and Samsung devices and get outright disappointed. Same goes for
everything else. Every outdated „feature“ needs to get its own marketing label
to persuade buyers with crappy „experience“ and „usability“ ads, while covering
the truth with marketing gibberish, knowing full well that only a fraction of
aforementioned buyers cares to look at the facts and dares to compare them.
Car engines come to mind. For comparisons shake let’s look at a 1.0 liter, turbo
charged petrol engine and a V8 compressor. What’s better should be obvious, but
by calling the former an „ecobooster“, thus giving it a special marketing label,
this joke becomes a „feature“, something positive that can be added tot the list
of features of a car.
By doing so a negative aspect is transformed into a positive one, the
reality is distorted, non tech savvy buyers are manipulated and comparisons are
made more difficult (another layer of marketing bullshit to overcome), well done
marketing department. You see , if something is seriously lacking (of course for
profit, what else), don’t bother explaining, just give it a nice marketing term, distort
reality, make it a feature and call it a day. Fuck that!!
The Apple Iphone 1 and Ipad 1 might have been innovative at their time,
but since then, the bitten apple has been continuously rotting from the inside
outwards, always swarmed by millions of Iworms which regale themselves with its
rotten flesh, not forgetting all other Americans who support apple by means of
their tax dollars to finance its bought US Treasury/Government bond interest rates.
Last but not least, every Apple product includes a direct hotlink to the nsa,
free of charge, something that might make it a good value, after all.
Ceterum censeo Applem esse delendam.
Breach1337 - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Rendered my wife's iPhone 4S completely unusable. It's not just lag and worse performance compared to 7.x - the whole thing just stops responding, touchscreen, couldn't even reboot it. So much for it simply works for me.xenol - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
I lost it at the Madoka Magica Nendroid figures.phoenixash87 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Not sure if this was already posted, but to undo an unintentional delete, one can simply shake the iPhone which is the standard gesture for undo-ing any action.