As expected, Apple yesterday presented iOS 14, the new version of the operating system for the iPhone.
Although it did not take long for the meme to emerge that (almost) everything they have presented was already on Android (for which there is much reason), after testing the beta of iOS 14 we can conclude that there are many new features that have gone unnoticed and that a good part of those that were already in Android have been integrated quite strikingly.
The iOS 14 beta is available from the iPhone 6s onwards, although we will have to wait until autumn for the final version.
In our case, we have been able to install it on an iPhone 11 Pro, so we are going to tell you in detail what we found and what it offers.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTF1QtBe7zY[/embed] [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3y8iMzyI90[/embed] Widgets, everyone is talking about widgets Even though Apple introduced its widgets in 2014, the integration was not good, since it was restricted to the "today" tab and the customization options were minimal.
Six years later Apple has deigned to enable "real" widgets on iOS.
The downside is that lag is not understood, but the downside is that it's one of the best widget integrations we've seen.
Now it is easier than ever to personalize the screen of our iPhone.
We just have to do a long press on the desktop, hit the '+' button and access the widgets interface.
This interface is much more elaborate than that of Android, where the widgets have been without prominence for years and there are no improvements at the UI level.
The widgets come in different sizes and fit within the iPhone app grid.
The animations when adding them are specially taken care of.
By clicking on each widget we have three sizes and the button to add it to the desktop.
The widget is added with a very neat animation and we can place it wherever we want, as long as it fits the grid on the Apple desktop.
One of the great novelties comes at the hands of the 'Smart Battery'.
It is a stack of widgets that we can configure to show various widgets according to the time of day.
In the same way, we can change the stack widget from the desktop itself, without having to enter the configuration section.
In short, Apple has been late to widgets, but it has arrived very well.
It remains to be seen how developers integrate their widgets into iOS, something we want to see since Apple is much more restrictive with its design and development lines, so it will be difficult to see poorly maintained widgets.
For the first time we have "an application drawer" 'App Library' automatically organizes all the applications so that we do not have to have them scattered around the different desks.
iOS 14 incorporates the 'Library of Apps', a kind of application drawer that allows us not to have to go around doing dozens of folders manually or having dozens of desktops to fit all the apps.
Here we have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it is useful to have all the applications well organized automatically on a single desktop, apart from the fact that the animations are taken care of in detail.
The app library is useful to keep the desks more organized, but it is not the fastest option when searching for apps.However, the app library is designed to be a mixed bag (it is located to the right of the last desktop that we have, that is, when we no longer have apps that we have located manually), that is, so that you can go to it when you want to find that app that you do not want to have on your desktop.
It is much faster for this purpose to do a search in Spotlight (since you just have to scroll down and put the letter of the app you want to search for), instead of swiping between the desks, reaching the library and finding the app.
Be that as it may, it is appreciated that all the application chaos is finally sorted out automatically.
Better privacy management One of the most unnoticed functions in iOS 14 has to do with managing access to the application gallery.
It has always been possible to give access to the apps so that they can see our photos, but with iOS 14 it takes a turn of the screw.
Now there is one more option, which allows us to manually select the photos that the app can access.
That is, we may want to send a photo through an application, but not that it access our gallery completely.
With this option we can select the photos to which you will have access, a security measure that has caught our attention and that Apple did not want to highlight in the presentation.
Now when an application uses the camera or microphone, it is indicated by a small LED and it appears in the Control Center that these permissions have been used.
Apart from this, Apple now shows when an application is using the camera or microphone.
It does so through a small dot at the top of the screen.
It is quite useful to know if an app is accessing these sections without our permission.
This information also appears in the Control Center.
Things that stop being a nuisance by not occupying the entire screen Siri has long lagged behind alternatives such as the Google Assistant.
Apart from being more limited in terms of functions, because its interface was very intrusive, occupying the entire screen even for minor queries.
Now Siri has been redesigned to occupy a minimal portion of the screen, apart from having improved its operation by adding more queries.
Those elements that occupied the entire screen when used, such as incoming calls, Siri or Facetime, have adapted their interface to occupy a small portion of the screen.
Another novelty that iOS was crying out for was that calls be shown in a small portion of the screen, not occupying the entire screen, preventing the use of the phone.
Now we have a small notice at the top (as Android had for years) that allows you to continue using the phone.
In the same way, iOS finally has a Picture in Picture mode, which allows applications like FaceTime to run in a small window at the same time that we use our iPhone.
Ultimately, most of those functions that took up the entire screen become less intrusive.
New Translator and Fitness application Two new apps arrive with iOS 14: Translator and Fitness.
Drawing on what already exists in Google Translate, Apple has created its own.
This translator can work both locally and online and, after a few tests, we can say that its performance is outstanding.
The speech recognition time is quite low and the translations are good.
It's the first time we've got a native Apple alternative to Google Translate, good news.
On the other hand, the 'Activity' application has been redesigned.
This had five menus that have now been reduced to two: summary and share.
In 'Summary' we can see everything related to the training sessions, now all are grouped together on this screen through submenus.
The share menu does what its name suggests, unsurprisingly.
A necessary redesign, which now makes it easier and easier to monitor our sports activity.
Search for emojis on the keyboard Another function that Apple did not comment on at its event has to do with improvements at the keyboard and emojis level.
Finally, iOS allows you to search for emojis on the native keyboard, by integrating a small search engine superior to the Google Keyboard style.
It is enough to write the name of the emoji for the related ones to appear Other novelties of iOS 14 With iOS 14 the 'Apps Clips' also arrive, something that we already saw in Android with the 'Instant Apps' and that will depend on the developers to allow or not use parts of their apps without having to install them.
The selfie camera finally allows us to take the photos as we see them in the preview, we have a greater possibility of controlling demotic elements from Control Center, etc.
iOS 14 borrows from Android for many of its new features.
Despite this, Apple has managed to make several of these its own, integrating them in an outstanding way at the interface and functionality level.
In short, iOS 14 is much more than new widgets and some functions that were already in Android.
It is undeniable that a good part of these new functions were already present in the Google operating system, but Apple has done a good job with its new version.
Regarding performance, far from the disaster we saw with the first versions of iOS 13, this first beta of iOS 14 works very smooth and stable.
We haven't encountered any issues with third-party or native apps, payment services work, and overall it's a very good start.
As expected, Apple yesterday presented iOS 14, the new version of the operating system for the iPhone.
Although it did not take long for the meme to emerge that (almost) everything they have presented was already on Android (for which there is much reason), after testing the beta of iOS 14 we can conclude that there are many new features that have gone unnoticed and that a good part of those that were already in Android have been integrated quite strikingly.
The iOS 14 beta is available from the iPhone 6s onwards, although we will have to wait until autumn for the final version.
In our case, we have been able to install it on an iPhone 11 Pro, so we are going to tell you in detail what we found and what it offers.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTF1QtBe7zY[/embed] [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3y8iMzyI90[/embed] Widgets, everyone is talking about widgets Even though Apple introduced its widgets in 2014, the integration was not good, since it was restricted to the "today" tab and the customization options were minimal.
Six years later Apple has deigned to enable "real" widgets on iOS.
The downside is that lag is not understood, but the downside is that it's one of the best widget integrations we've seen.
Now it is easier than ever to personalize the screen of our iPhone.
We just have to do a long press on the desktop, hit the '+' button and access the widgets interface.
This interface is much more elaborate than that of Android, where the widgets have been without prominence for years and there are no improvements at the UI level.
The widgets come in different sizes and fit within the iPhone app grid.
The animations when adding them are specially taken care of.
By clicking on each widget we have three sizes and the button to add it to the desktop.
The widget is added with a very neat animation and we can place it wherever we want, as long as it fits the grid on the Apple desktop.
One of the great novelties comes at the hands of the 'Smart Battery'.
It is a stack of widgets that we can configure to show various widgets according to the time of day.
In the same way, we can change the stack widget from the desktop itself, without having to enter the configuration section.
In short, Apple has been late to widgets, but it has arrived very well.
It remains to be seen how developers integrate their widgets into iOS, something we want to see since Apple is much more restrictive with its design and development lines, so it will be difficult to see poorly maintained widgets.
For the first time we have "an application drawer" 'App Library' automatically organizes all the applications so that we do not have to have them scattered around the different desks.
iOS 14 incorporates the 'Library of Apps', a kind of application drawer that allows us not to have to go around doing dozens of folders manually or having dozens of desktops to fit all the apps.
Here we have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it is useful to have all the applications well organized automatically on a single desktop, apart from the fact that the animations are taken care of in detail.
The app library is useful to keep the desks more organized, but it is not the fastest option when searching for apps.However, the app library is designed to be a mixed bag (it is located to the right of the last desktop that we have, that is, when we no longer have apps that we have located manually), that is, so that you can go to it when you want to find that app that you do not want to have on your desktop.
It is much faster for this purpose to do a search in Spotlight (since you just have to scroll down and put the letter of the app you want to search for), instead of swiping between the desks, reaching the library and finding the app.
Be that as it may, it is appreciated that all the application chaos is finally sorted out automatically.
Better privacy management One of the most unnoticed functions in iOS 14 has to do with managing access to the application gallery.
It has always been possible to give access to the apps so that they can see our photos, but with iOS 14 it takes a turn of the screw.
Now there is one more option, which allows us to manually select the photos that the app can access.
That is, we may want to send a photo through an application, but not that it access our gallery completely.
With this option we can select the photos to which you will have access, a security measure that has caught our attention and that Apple did not want to highlight in the presentation.
Now when an application uses the camera or microphone, it is indicated by a small LED and it appears in the Control Center that these permissions have been used.
Apart from this, Apple now shows when an application is using the camera or microphone.
It does so through a small dot at the top of the screen.
It is quite useful to know if an app is accessing these sections without our permission.
This information also appears in the Control Center.
Things that stop being a nuisance by not occupying the entire screen Siri has long lagged behind alternatives such as the Google Assistant.
Apart from being more limited in terms of functions, because its interface was very intrusive, occupying the entire screen even for minor queries.
Now Siri has been redesigned to occupy a minimal portion of the screen, apart from having improved its operation by adding more queries.
Those elements that occupied the entire screen when used, such as incoming calls, Siri or Facetime, have adapted their interface to occupy a small portion of the screen.
Another novelty that iOS was crying out for was that calls be shown in a small portion of the screen, not occupying the entire screen, preventing the use of the phone.
Now we have a small notice at the top (as Android had for years) that allows you to continue using the phone.
In the same way, iOS finally has a Picture in Picture mode, which allows applications like FaceTime to run in a small window at the same time that we use our iPhone.
Ultimately, most of those functions that took up the entire screen become less intrusive.
New Translator and Fitness application Two new apps arrive with iOS 14: Translator and Fitness.
Drawing on what already exists in Google Translate, Apple has created its own.
This translator can work both locally and online and, after a few tests, we can say that its performance is outstanding.
The speech recognition time is quite low and the translations are good.
It's the first time we've got a native Apple alternative to Google Translate, good news.
On the other hand, the 'Activity' application has been redesigned.
This had five menus that have now been reduced to two: summary and share.
In 'Summary' we can see everything related to the training sessions, now all are grouped together on this screen through submenus.
The share menu does what its name suggests, unsurprisingly.
A necessary redesign, which now makes it easier and easier to monitor our sports activity.
Search for emojis on the keyboard Another function that Apple did not comment on at its event has to do with improvements at the keyboard and emojis level.
Finally, iOS allows you to search for emojis on the native keyboard, by integrating a small search engine superior to the Google Keyboard style.
It is enough to write the name of the emoji for the related ones to appear Other novelties of iOS 14 With iOS 14 the 'Apps Clips' also arrive, something that we already saw in Android with the 'Instant Apps' and that will depend on the developers to allow or not use parts of their apps without having to install them.
The selfie camera finally allows us to take the photos as we see them in the preview, we have a greater possibility of controlling demotic elements from Control Center, etc.
iOS 14 borrows from Android for many of its new features.
Despite this, Apple has managed to make several of these its own, integrating them in an outstanding way at the interface and functionality level.
In short, iOS 14 is much more than new widgets and some functions that were already in Android.
It is undeniable that a good part of these new functions were already present in the Google operating system, but Apple has done a good job with its new version.
Regarding performance, far from the disaster we saw with the first versions of iOS 13, this first beta of iOS 14 works very smooth and stable.
We haven't encountered any issues with third-party or native apps, payment services work, and overall it's a very good start.
