iOS 8 FAQ: What we know about Apple’s next-generation mobile OS

Given iOS 7’s major visual overhaul last year, it wouldn’t have been surprising if Apple decided to take a step back and focus on small under-the-hood improvements in iOS 8. But that didn’t happen: iOS 8 looks like it’ll be every bit the game-changer that its predecessor was.

But this time, the focus is on system features and app improvements more than visual tweaks. In particular, the impending update will see a seismic foundational shift in the way apps communicate with each other, opening the door to a richer, more colorful experience for all Apple’s mobile users.

Make no mistake: There’s a lot of new stuff in iOS 8. Here’s what we know about it so far.

The basics

When is iOS 8 coming out?

The wait’s nearly over. On September 17, you’ll be able to download iOS 8 for free, and install it on all your compatible devices—more on which below.

What devices will it run on?

Essentially everything from the iPhone 4s onward: The iPhone 4 won’t run iOS 8, but the iPad 2—and its technological twin, the iPad mini without a Retina display—will. iOS 8 will also run on the fifth-generation iPod touch.

So what’s new in iOS 8?

How much time do you have? There will be new photo features, big changes in Messages, predictive typing, the first major update to the iOS keyboard, iCloud and iTunes improvements, support for health apps and home automation, an improved version of Spotlight, and much, much more. And then there are Apple’s Continuity features, which will mate the Mac and iOS devices in a whole bunch of interesting ways.

System services

OK, so explain: What’s this Continuity?

Continuity will connect your work across multiple devices with little to no effort on your part. That will include things like: seamless file transfers using AirDrop across Macs and iOS; accessing files from iCloud Drive from any device; answering phone calls coming into your iPhone on your Mac; sending SMS messages from an iPad or Mac; starting an email on one device and finishing it on another; and more. Apple previewed Continuity’s feature set using its own built-in applications, but it looks as though third-party apps will be able to build in support for some of the features, such as Handoff.

Wait, wait—iCloud Drive? Does iOS 8 finally get a file system?

Another feature that will span multiple devices, iCloud Drive is a central storage locker for your documents and projects from various apps on both iOS and OS X. You can find out more about it in our iCloud FAQ.

But to answer your question, yes, it does mean that iOS 8 will have access to files and not just from within the apps that created them. The Document Picker—as Apple has dubbed the new interface—looks a lot like a traditional Open dialog box on the Mac, right down to the search field and (from what we’ve seen) the ability to toggle between icon and list views. While files will be grouped by the application that created them in by default, Apple says you’ll also be able to create your own folders and organize your documents any way that you see fit. In OS X and Windows (yep, we said Windows), you’ll be able to simply drag files into the iCloud folder to sync them between your devices, à la Dropbox.

What’s this QuickType thing?

Auto-correct has been part of the iPhone since the beginning, in part to because our big fat fingers kept mistyping messages from the phone’s on-screen keyboard. But now auto-correct is getting a much-needed retooling. QuickType is iOS 8’s auto-correct successor, adding a word-selector atop your iOS keyboard for quicker conversations.

When you type in iOS 8, QuickType will attempt to predict the words you want to use next, offering suggestions that aren’t defined just by the letters you’re typing, but also by the conversational context. The service will not only recognize the difference between chatting in Messages and writing in Mail, it will provide slightly different suggestions depending on who you’re communicating with as well. QuickType will learn your habits the more you type, but will keep that data confidential and stored locally on your device, so you won’t have to worry about your keystrokes being accidentally (or maliciously) revealed to the world.

I heard that interactive notifications made the move to iOS. True?

Yup! OS X Mavericks brought the notion of Quick Reply and interactive buttons to notifications on the desktop; now iOS 8 is bringing that idea to the mobile realm. You’ll be able to pull down banner alerts to quickly reply to texts or email, accept calendar notifications, or snooze reminders—without having to open the requisite app. This should even work with third-party apps if they’ve enabled the feature; at the WWDC keynote, we saw a demo of a Facebook notification with a Like button and Comment feature.

What’s that row of people I saw in the demo of the new multitasking screen?

When you double-press the Home button (or use a gesture on the iPad) to open the multitasking interface, a new row of icons will appear atop your recently-used apps: avatars of people you’ve recently communicated with; if you scroll to the right, you’ll get your Favorites list. From there, if you tap one of those photos, you’ll get quick access to buttons to call, message, or FaceTime that person.

What’s this about a new and improved Spotlight?

Though OS X Yosemite is getting the biggest improvements in its search tools, iOS 8 is getting its fair share, too. Now, when you search in Spotlight, you’ll be able to access inline Wikipedia information; news; Maps data for nearby places; results from Apple’s iTunes, iBooks, and App Stores; suggested websites for your query; and movie showtimes—all in addition to the contacts, email, messages, apps, and music that already appear in search results. The same engine will be built into the new Safari’s toolbar, too, so you can choose to do searches there instead.

Are there any improvements to Siri?

Apple’s virtual assistant got only a short nod in the keynote, but there are a few cool new improvements coming in iOS 8. For one thing, Siri promises to become even more responsive. When your phone’s plugged in, you’ll be able to get Siri’s attention without even pressing the Home button: Just yell, “Hey, Siri,” followed by your command, and the phone will come to attention. If you’re thinking this will eat up battery life, don’t worry: the device needs to be plugged in.

Even if your device isn’t charging, though, you’ll still be able to access some of Siri’s other tricks: It will now recognize words as you say them, rather than waiting until you’ve completed your sentence; and you’ll be able to use Shazam technology to have Siri listen to and identify music (and buy that song from iTunes if you’re so inclined).

Is AirPlay any better?

Those who use the Apple TV as a presentation device (or a good way to share slideshows at your friend’s house) will be excited about iOS 8’s peer-to-peer AirPlay discovery/playback service, which will let you AirPlay video and mirror your device’s display to an Apple TV without connecting to a Wi-Fi network. It’s a neat way to share projects, photos, or video without fussing with network passwords.

What’s Family Sharing? Is it multi-user?

Family Sharing—due to debut with OS X Yosemite—should bring a measure of sanity to households full of Apple devices. The idea is simple: You have multiple people in your home and just as many Macs, iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. Each member of the family will be able to join the Family Sharing group (up to six people are allowed), which will be associated with a single credit card. That done, any member of this group will be able to download almost any media bought by any other member of the group, without sharing Apple IDs or passwords. (Apple has indicated that not all media will be eligible for sharing.)

Family Sharing will also allow families to share family photo albums, calendars, and even the locations of themselves and their devices.

Alas, Family Sharing won’t provide user accounts or profiles, a feature many parents have been hoping for since the first iPad. Apple still seems content with assuming that “multiple users” means “one iOS device per person.” But even though Family Sharing won’t help us better share a single device between multiple family members, at least we won’t have to buy multiple copies of an app or tune—or all share a single “Purchasing Apple Stuff” account.

Built-in apps

I heard there were some new Photos features?

Yup! It’s almost like folks at Apple saw our Photos wishlist. The Photos app is getting an overhaul that combines iPhoto for iOS’s editing tools with a fully-functioning cloud-storage locker for your images.

For starters, any photo you take and store in the Photos app will be automatically uploaded to iCloud, where your images and video are stored at full resolution and in their original formats (JPG, PNG, Raw, you name it). All of those images will be viewable on any iOS device or on the Web; starting in early 2015, you’ll be able to upload and view photos from your Mac, too. And the storage is going to be dirt-cheap: You get 5GB for free as part of your iCloud account; you can buy an extra 20GB of storage space for just $1 a month, and 200GB for $4.

Having all those images at hand might make you nervous about ever finding anything again, but luckily, Apple is adding a smart search feature and a Favorites button. The search field will initially prompt you with a collection of nearby photos, images taken at the same time last year (for nostalgia factor), and all-time favorites; but you can also search by date or time, location, or album name.

There will also be new editing features for images: Download an image to your device, and you’ll be able to use a bevy of iPhoto-inspired features to crop, straighten, remove red eye, adjust lighting and contrast, and more. All of those edits sync across your devices, so that the fixed image appears in your library immediately. They’ll also be non-destructive: if you decide you preferred your image unfiltered, you’ll be able to revert it.

On top of that, iOS’s new Actions options for developers means that your favorite third-party apps could provide filters and adjustments that you could use from within the Photos app.

What about the Camera app?

Apple didn’t talk about it much on-stage, but the Camera app is getting its own fair share of improvements. Focus and exposure are now two separate controls and third-party developers will have full access to those settings. In addition, two new time-based features make their debut in Camera: a self-timer and time-lapse videos. The latter lets you record a video and then automatically creates a time-lapse from the data you’ve recorded, while the former gives you more flexibility when trying to take selfies with your back camera.

What’s new in Safari and Mail?

Glad you asked. Mail is getting some more gestures, for starters. You’ll be able to swipe left or right on a message in your inbox to mark it read or unread, flag it for followup, or swipe it all the way off the screen to delete it. While you could already mark contacts as VIPs (a feature added in iOS 6), Mail in iOS 8 will let you slap a VIP label on individual message threads. (Shouldn’t that be VIT?) That way, you’ll always stay on top of new replies to that thread, no matter who they come from. Exchange users will be able to set their out-of-office auto-replies from within the Mail app in iOS 8, too.

Mail in iOS 8 will get some new contextual power. While composing a message, you’ll be able to swipe it down to minimize it, giving you access to other messages in your inbox in case you need to copy and paste something into your new email. And if you type something into an email that should go on your calendar, like a dinner reservation, Mail will toss up a notification that you can tap to add to your calendar.

Safari on iPad will get a cool new tab view that shows you all the tabs you have open and groups tabs from the same website into stacks. When you’re browsing, a sidebar will be able to pop out on the left for your Reading List, bookmarks, and Shared Links (which work like RSS subscriptions), to further align Safari on iPad and the Mac.

What’s going on with the Messages app?

There are a couple new exciting features coming to Messages in iOS 8. First is the app’s new tap-to-talk feature, which will let you send quick sounds and voice memos to friends and family members. Like messages in apps such as Snapchat, those snippets will be temporary and disappear within a few minutes of being read unless you choose to save them. You’ll also be able to send a quick video or multiple images to your contact (or contacts) of choice.

Speaking of multiple contacts, group texting in Messages is getting a huge overhaul. You’ll be able to name your group conversation, easily add and subtract users to the conversation on the fly, and leave the conversation (or hit the Do Not Disturb button) if you’re getting flooded with texts. In addition, you’ll be able to share your location with a specific group inside Messages, giving them permission to find where you are for an hour, a day, or indefinitely.

Messages will also make browsing images and video in a thread much simpler; tapping the Details button will let you see any attachments you’ve saved in that conversation over time.

iPad users who also have iPhones will get one bonus feature, too: the ability to see and respond to SMS messages from non-iOS users.

Apps from other vendors

Are my apps going to be more powerful in iOS 8?

Boy, are they. In the past, apps were apps—when you saw them, you were in them. (Sometimes they would run in the background, but you couldn’t see them then.) But in iOS 8, apps will be able to manifest visually in unusual ways—as widgets and by being projected into other apps.

What are widgets?

Widgets are miniature versions of apps that will run within Notification Center’s Today view. When you install an app that contains a widget, Notification Center will let you add it to the Today pane. These are very simple interfaces through which apps can provide at-a-glance information—the latest baseball scores, say—within the Notification Center window. Apps will also be able to also provide links within the widget to launch the full app.

What do you mean that apps can project themselves into other apps?

You know how when you use the Photos app to email a picture, a Mail window slides in? You’re still in the Photos app, yet some small portion of Mail has appeared inside of it. In iOS 8, apps will have the ability to launch small, short-lived services that extend functionality—for example, sharing content to a Web service, transforming data, photo editing, changing webpages in Safari, and hooking up with Internet storage providers.

I keep hearing about Apple’s interest in health and fitness apps. Does iOS 8 have anything like that?

Rumors have swirled about Apple entering the crowded yet underwhelming wearables market. But the iOS 8 health announcements aren’t intended to tie directly to one device. Rather, iOS 8 will connect many different health-related devices and apps.

iOS 8 will feature its own new app, Health, which is powered by a system called HealthKit. HealthKit is a set of tools for health and fitness apps to report your personal health information into a shared database. Connected medical devices will be able to pour data into the HealthKit database, as will apps. The Health app will be where users can get a comprehensive picture of their health, with a customizable dashboard that shows you the metrics you care about.

If Apple releases its own health-related device, presumably it’ll take full advantage of HealthKit, but there’s no need to wait. Users can integrate data from whatever wearables and apps they’re using now, and Apple doesn’t have to pick a one-size-fits-all winner in a fragmented market.

Apple announced partnerships with Nike, which isn’t surprising, as well as with the Mayo Clinic and Epic Systems, a software provider for a host of major hospitals and healthcare organizations. The Mayo Clinic, for example, is developing an app that will let patients’ doctors keep an eye on metrics like blood pressure and reach out if they see something that causes concern.

What about home automation?

Like HealthKit, Apple’s HomeKit isn’t a gadget. It isn’t even an app—not yet, anyway. HomeKit is a set of APIs for third-party connected home companies to integrate devices like smart door locks, thermostats, lights, and appliances more deeply into iOS 8. That, in turn, could let you coordinate multiple devices from different companies and trigger actions with Siri. For example, telling Siri you’re off to bed could prompt a series of automated actions that would check your doors, while cutting the lights and turning down the heat.

Apple is working with partners like Honeywell, Haier, August, Philips, Netatmo, Withings, and many others to develop a secure communication protocol that will let your iPhone talk to a wide range of devices without forcing you to use unitasker apps to control each gadget individually.

Android’s got the ability to install third-party keyboards. Does iOS 8 finally add support for this?

Funny you should ask! In addition to upgrading the the existing Apple keyboard with QuickType, Apple has opened up the keyboard for third-party alternatives. This allows companies who want to support different languages and alternative input methods with their keyboards to move to iOS. For example, Swype (which uses a system where you type by sliding your finger across the keys) appeared on a sample slide during the WWDC keynote.

Some keyboards send your data across the Internet to make auto-correct suggestions, which is scary if you don’t want your keystrokes being logged by other people’s servers. Apple will let third-party keyboards send your data, but only after asking—so if you don’t like the idea of sharing what you type with others, you can say no.

What if I don’t want a bunch of apps getting in my way or causing security problems?

As with most things on iOS, you’ll be able to turn this stuff off in the Settings app. Apple says these new app options will be sandboxed and are designed to be very secure, but ultimately the control will be in your hands. If you want to tell an app to go away, you’ll be able to do so in Settings.

Can other apps use Touch ID?

Yes! In iOS 7, the touch sensor on the iPhone 5s could only be used to unlock the phone and approve purchases. But in iOS 8, apps can be updated to unlock themselves when the Touch ID sensor verifies a person’s identity. The apps themselves won’t get any access to your fingerprint data; that remains held in the “secure enclave” area of the iPhone’s processor. But they’ll get a thumbs-up message—so to speak!—when the fingerprint has been verified.

What about that newfangled Apple Pay system? Is that part of iOS 8?

Well, sort of. Keep in mind that Apple Pay requires specific hardware: the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus (not to mention the Apple Watch). But, software’s a big part of it as well. Apple says that an update to iOS 8 will bring Apple Pay support to compatible phones later this fall—we’re guessing it might arrive in an iOS 8.1 update in a month or so.

What’s new for enterprise users?

Apple actually spent a decent amount of time in Monday’s keynote going over enterprise improvements—hardly surprising given the iPhone’s increased presence in the workplace. For starters, all apps with sensitive data will be protected with a passcode until after the device is unlocked following a reboot; in addition, there will be several perks for Mail users, including signing and encryption for individual messages; external domain email messages distinguished by color; and Exchange automatic reply messages. On the Calendar side, you’ll be able to view your colleagues’ free/busy information when scheduling meetings; mark events as private; create better custom repeating events; and email meeting attendees.

If your enterprise devices are centrally managed, iOS 8 will give your iT people more advanced remote device management. It’ll also make it easier for them to manage user data, filter the apps that can open documents from iCloud Drive, and send books, ePubs, and PDFs to devices automatically.

Updated on 9/9 with more details about iOS 8’s release date and Apple Pay.