iOS 8 Has Dropped. Be Prepared To Wait However

iOS 8 has dropped but be prepared for a bit of a wait as download speeds go up and down depending on the gods. Right now on a 10mb connection i’m looking at 3 hours for the 1.5 gb download. Yo’ll also need to make sure you have 5gb free for the installation.

This update contains hundreds of new features, including the following:

Messages improvements

Tap to Talk to send your voice, a video or a photo with just a swipe
Group messaging options to name a conversation, add a contact, remove a contact or leave a conversation
New details view with Do Not Disturb, location sharing and attachments view

Photos improvements

Smart editing tools to adjust light and colour with a swipe
Fine-tune controls to adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows and more
Search by date, location or album name, or use smart suggestions
Smart albums for Slo-mo videos, Bursts, Panoramas and Time-lapse
Third-party photo filters and editing tools supported directly in Photos
Your photos and metadata from iPhoto will be migrated to Photos. Books, Journals and Slideshows will be converted to albums containing only photos. iPhoto for iOS is not supported on devices running iOS 8 or later.

Camera improvements

Time-lapse mode
Capture timer
Adjust exposure with a simple nudge to lighten or darken a photo prior to capture
Burst mode on front-facing camera on iPhone 5s
Panorama for iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display

QuickType keyboard

Predictive typing personalised to your writing style, and customised based on the recipient and the app
Predictive typing is available in English (Australia, Canada, UK, US), French (Canada, France, Switzerland), German (Germany, Switzerland), Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish and Thai
Third-party keyboard support

Health

New Health app with easy-to-read dashboard of health and fitness data
Ability to share health data with apps to provide a more comprehensive way to manage your health and fitness
Add a Medical ID with information about allergies, medical conditions and more, with the option to make this accessible from the Lock screen

◦ Available on iPhone and iPod touch
• Family Sharing
◦ Share iTunes, iBooks and App Store purchases with up to six members of your family.
◦ Pay for family purchases with a single credit card and approve purchases by children with Ask to Buy
◦ Easily share family photos, a family calendar, locations and more
• iCloud Drive
◦ Store all your documents in iCloud and access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC
◦ Share the same file across multiple compatible apps
◦ Edits you make on one device update on all your devices automatically

Continuity features so your iPhone, iPad and Mac work together more seamlessly

Handoff to continue what you’re doing as you move from one device to another
Make and receive calls and send and receive SMS or MMS messages on your iPad or Mac
Instant Hotspot to automatically use your mobile connection to get online with your other devices
AirDrop compatibility with OS X Yosemite
Available on iPhone 5 or later, iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation)

Spotlight improvements

Displays suggestions from Wikipedia entries, places nearby, films (US only), popular web sites, App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store
Safari also supports Spotlight suggestions alongside Top Hit and search suggestions
Supported for local languages in US, UK, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland

Mail improvements

Easily jump between drafts and your inbox with a simple swipe down on the draft
Intelligent suggestions for Calendar events and Contacts
VIP threads

Siri improvements

Improvements to responsiveness, reliability and accuracy
“Hey, Siri” option to initiate Siri using just your voice when your device is plugged in
Streaming voice recognition
Works with Shazam to answer “What song is playing?”
Purchase content from iTunes Store

Safari improvements

DuckDuckGo search engine support
Private browsing per tab
Subscribe to RSS feeds in Shared Links
Use Camera to scan and enter credit card info

Maps improvements

Flyover city tours
Maps place cards in Phone and Contacts
Inline map view and travel time notifications for Calendar events

App Store improvements

New Explore tab for easier category browsing
Top trending searches displayed in Search tab
Scrolling search results
App video previews
Editors’ Choice badges
Quick access to key contacts in multitasking view
• Interactive Notifications for Messages, Mail, Calendar, Reminders and enabled third-party apps
• New Tips app to help you do more with your iOS devices
• iBooks app built into iOS, now with auto night mode and new organisation for book series
• Podcasts app built into iOS
• Battery usage by app
• iCloud Keychain can use saved website passwords to easily sign in to associated apps
• FaceTime Audio call waiting
• Rich text editing in Notes
• Peer-to-peer AirPlay discovery and playback

Enterprise features

Expanded data protection to Calendar, Contacts, Messages, Reminders and Notes in addition to Mail and third-party apps
Per-message S/MIME email controls
Improved UI to make it easier for users to understand the remote management of their device
Automatic reply for Exchange
Free/busy lookup for Calendar invitations
MDM Managed books can be automatically pushed to users

Accessibility features

Redesigned Zoom with one-handed control and multiple zoom modes including picture-in-picture
Built-in timer and Touch ID support for Guided Access
Speak Screen to read out contents of the screen via gesture or Siri command
VoiceOver improvements including Alex voice option and Braille input support
Multi-device support for MFi hearing aids to seamlessly switch from one paired iOS device to another

Features for China

Vector-based maps
Turn-by-turn navigation
◦ Lunar calendar support
◦ Improved predictive input
◦ Improved weather data
• Expanded language support
◦ Dictation support for 22 additional languages: Croatian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese
◦ New keyboards for English (India), Bengali, Filipino, Marathi, Slovenian and Urdu
◦ Hindi localisation
◦ Definitions of a selected word for additional languages: Russian, Portuguese (Brazil), Thai and Turkish
◦ Spanish-English bilingual dictionary
◦ Spell check for Turkish
◦ Hebrew language support for Text to Speech and VoiceOver
• New developer capabilities, including
◦ Extensibility, giving apps new sharing options and the ability to create widgets, photo filters and editing tools in Photos, and third-party keyboards
◦ Metal, a new graphics technology for game providers to bring console-class 3D games to mobile devices
◦ SpriteKit and SceneKit for improved 2D and 3D games
◦ HealthKit, so health and fitness apps can share their data with each other
◦ HomeKit, a new way for you to control supported devices in your home using Siri
◦ Touch ID support so you can sign in to third-party apps with just your fingerprint
◦ CloudKit, offering a complete and scalable back-end solution, helping developers eliminate the need for writing server code and maintaining servers
• Bug fixes