What is new in iOS 8 ? A lot of things. We are certainly late to the party, but it couldn’t stop us from sharing the best features of iOS 8. It has been a while since iOS 8 upgrade was rolled out for Apple devices and the end user’s response has been tremendous, as expected. With the introduction of iOS 8, Apple has introduced a host of new features. There are quite a few new features in iOS 8 that you may not necessarily know about. Let’s take up the top features of iOS 8 one by one.
10 best features of iOS 8
1) Quickly reply to an incoming message
With iOS 8, you can reply to a message instantly on arrival by enabling the “Alert Style” from the settings menu. This will pop-up an alert whenever you receive a new message and you can reply to the message at that very instant. This is one of the cool new feature in iOS 8 !
Go to Settings – Notifications – Messages to enable this new feature.
2) Recover deleted Photos
Let’s say you took a photo and didn’t really like it that much, so you go ahead and delete it. But then you realize that this was your favorite photo ever and you want to get it back. You won’t be able to do that with the old iOS 7. One of the new features in iOS 8 the introduction of a “Recently Deleted” tab. This enables you to recover your deleted photos easily.
You just need to go to Albums – Recently Deleted. Select the photo, tap on “Recover Photo” and the photo will be back in you album. Mind you, the deleted photo is stored only for 30 days. You can also delete the photo from you Recently Deleted folder. This is one of the best features of iOS 8
3) Check battery usage per app
One of the new iOS 8 features gives you the ability to check the battery usage per app. This is a great way to check what applications are hogging your battery. Simply navigate to Settings – General – Usage – Battery Usage.
Once there, you can view the battery usage per application which will give you a fair idea on the battery consumption.
4) Easily view desktop version of websites in Safari
Most of the times Safari will load the mobile version of websites. This can be pretty annoying if you want to view the desktop version. A very simple way to overcome this is to tap the url in the browser, swipe down and you will notice an option to “Request Desktop Site”. Just tap on this option and you will be navigated to the website’s desktop counterpart.
This is very handy at times when you are trying to access features that are not available in the mobile version of websites.
5) Turn your entire device UI into grayscale
Want to have a vintage look on your Apple device ? Just navigate to Settings – General – Accessibility – Grayscale. Turn this feature on and the UI will turn into grayscale. All the apps will load into grayscale as well ! This is one of the very cool new iOS features
6) Find My iPhone/iPad: Send the last location of your device before the battery dies
This is a very useful feature which has found its place in this list. There are times when you tend to misplace your iPhone or iPad and start looking for it frantically. At such instances, a lot of people generally use the find my iPhone/iPad tool to figure out the last location of your Apple device. Now, you will only be able to use this utility when the battery is still charged. This feature is useless if the battery dies up on you. So, to overcome this, go to Settings – iCloud – Find My iPhone/iPad – Send Last Location and enable this feature.
Once enabled the device will automatically send its last location to Apple when the battery is critically low. This is a very useful feature and is of great help if you have lost/misplaced your Apple device.
7) Insert Photo into the notes application
Previously you could only type in text using the notes application on your Apple device but with this new iOS 8 feature, you can insert photos as well. Just press down for a second and you will be able to see the Insert Photo option. You can use this to select a photo that you like and insert it directly into the notes application. This is really a great way to make a photo note and to keep everything organized.
8) Automatically delete text messages after a certain timeframe
A very handy feature in iOS 8 is the Keep Messages option. You can use this to automatically delete the message that are more that 30 days or 1 Year old respectively. Just navigate to Settings – Messages – Keep Messages and select your preferred option. Text messages, especially long conversations can add up to a lot of storage space and it is a good idea to use this option to delete the old messages and free up storage.
9) Hey Siri !
Among the other features of iOS 8, this one is for the Siri fans. You can launch Siri without the press of any button just by saying the words “Hey Siri”. This requires your device to be plugged in and you need to enable the feature by navigating to Settings – General – Siri – Allow “Hey Siri”. Sweet !
10) What Song is Playing ?
Picture this – You came across a great song and you really want to download it on your apple device but you do not know what song is it. Not to worry, just launch Siri and say ” What Song is Playing ?”. The Shazam that is built into Siri will identify the song instantly. Download the song and listen to your heart’s content. If you compare the other best features of iOS 8, this has to be the one for music lovers.
This was our comprehensive guide to the best features of iOS 8. We would love to read your thoughts in the comment section below. Also, do let us know if you come across any more new features in iOS 8