If your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad is losing battery life faster than normal, it could be the result of an app or service using more power than it ought to be. Thanks to "battery shaming," you no longer have to wonder about which app or service it might be, or try to quit them all just to stop the drain. Now you can see exactly what's using your battery life and how.

• How to check battery usage on iPhone and iPad
• How to check your iPhone's battery health
• How to understand battery usage
• How to reduce background activity on iPhone and iPad
• How to force quit apps on iPhone and iPad
• How to reset your iPhone or iPad
• The nuclear option

How to check battery usage on iPhone and iPad

Battery is at the top level in Settings, and Battery Usage includes providing a breakdown of how much power each app or service is using while on screen (foreground) and while in the background.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap on Battery.
3. Wait a moment for Battery Usage to populate.

4. Tap on the Show Detailed Usage button to get a breakdown of foreground and background power usage.
5. Tap on Last 7 Days to get a broader look at power consumption over time.

Checking battery usage in iOS 12 works the same way that it has for years now, but there are some changes of which you should be aware, such as the new battery readout.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Battery. You might need to wait for battery usage to populate.
3. Tap Show Activity to see how much time an app has been working. You'll get a breakdown of "on screen" vs. "background" activity.

4. Tap Battery Usage to go back to a breakdown of usage by percentage.
5. Tap Last 10 Days to get a broader look at your device's power consumption over time.

How to check your iPhone's battery health

Since iOS 11.3, you've been able to check in on the health of your iPhone's battery. While batteries with more than 80% of their capacity left are still considered to be functioning well, those under 80% may be eligible for a replacement from Apple. Here's how to check on the health of your device's batter.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Tap Battery.
3. Tap Battery Health (Beta).

You'll now be able to see the maximum capacity of your battery relative to when your iPhone was new, as well as an indicator of the level of performance your iPhone's battery currently supports. Lower maximum capacities could lead to performance throttling through the iOS performance management feature.

How to use Battery Health in iOS 11.3 to monitor and control power throttling

How to understand battery usage

The screen lighting up, radios transmitting, and chips processing are the biggest single causes of power drain on your iPhone or iPad. That's why Apple shows you "on screen"—the screen lit up—and "background"—the radios and processors working when the screen isn't lit up.

Now, just because an app is using a lot of power on screen or in the background doesn't in and of itself mean there's a problem. For example, if you're reading Twitter or watching movies on an airplane, Tweetbot or Videos might show really high "on screen" usage. Likewise, if you're downloading a ton of podcasts or streaming a lot of Beats 1, Overcast, or Music, it might show really high "background" usage.

It's when the numbers don't match what you're actually doing that there's likely a problem. If you've barely opened an app and it's still showing a very high level of battery use, that's where your attention should go.

Looking at my screen, Tweetbot is really high but I use it a lot, and the background isn't out of proportion to screen time. So, for every minute I'm using it, it's taking less than a minute to complete actions and otherwise finish things up. Instagram is doing even better, using only a tiny fraction of the amount of time in the background as it does on screen.

Facebook, though, is the worst. It's using almost twice as much time in background as it is on screen, which is ridiculous. (That's not surprising—Facebook has historically been so callous about power consumption it borders on user hostility.)

iOS 12 will come with breakdowns of your overall battery usage in the form of two charts. Just like the app-specific breakdowns, these charts can display information for the past 24 hours of the last 10 days.

The first is Battery Usage, which is pretty straightforward, though the chart actually changes based on the period of time for which you're getting information. When viewing your usage over the last 24 hours, you'll see how your device's battery behaved, the period of time over which it drained to a certain level, as well as when it started charging (denoted by a green lightning bolt icon at the bottom of the chart). When looking at the last 10 days, though, you'll get a day-by-day look at the percentage of the battery that you used. So if you, for instance, ran your phone's battery all the way down, charged it, then used it some more on a particular day, you'd see usage over 100%.

The other chart is all about activity. This chart shows you how much time your device was in use, broken down either by hour or by day. The activity chart uses a darker blue color to indicate activity that took place while your screen was on, and a light blue to indicate activity that took place while your screen was off. So if you only browse Twitter a little, but you listen to audio a lot while your iPhone is in your pocket, then you'll have a more activity taking place when the display is off.

How to reduce background activity on iPhone and iPad

You can only reduce an app's "on screen" battery usage by reducing the amount of time you use the app. In other words, don't open it and it won't be "on screen". You can, however, reduce the amount of background activity an app is permitted.

Because iOS coalesces network and location requests, it's tempting to think turning off one or a few apps won't make much difference. Fewer apps—or no apps—asking, however, means far less to coalesce and ultimately fewer and shorter background requests.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Background App Refresh.
4. Switch Off any app whose background access you want to minimize.
   
   
   

Note that turning off background app refresh makes apps slightly less convenient. For example, if you turn off background app refresh on a messaging app, you'll still get notifications about new messages, but the app itself will only download new messages when you open it, and that might take a few seconds.

You can also prevent apps from using your location in the background.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap on Privacy.
3. Tap on Location Services.

4. Tap on the app you want to change.
5. Tap on Never to prevent any location access or While Using the App to allow access only when the app is open.

Note that turning off persistent location means apps can't alert you when you're near a friend or there's a special offer nearby. It also means that can't track you wherever you are, all the time. You'll need to figure out whether convenience or privacy (and potentially power savings) is more important to you.

My recommendation is to turn off everything you think you don't need and then add back when and if it turns out you do need them.

How to force quit apps on iPhone and iPad

Some apps, again especially Facebook, have been accused of cheating on background access, however, so you might also need to try other mitigations. That can include "force quitting" an app you think has gone rogue and begun consuming way to much power.

Force quitting isn't something you should do often, because re-launching it again from scratch will consume more power and take more time as it updates in the foreground, but it is something you should know how to do for when you need it.

I'll confess to force-quitting Facebook and Skype semi-regularly. That's because, historically, they've been offensively bad at power management. I used to force-quit Maps and Google Maps after turn-by-turn navigation but they've both gotten much better at powering down over the last year or two.

How to force quit apps on iPhone and iPad

How to reset your iPhone or iPad

If you can't figure out exactly which app or service is draining your battery but you feel like something isn't working the way it should be, you can escalate to full-on reset. Again, it's not something you should do often, and it's a total troubleshooting cliche, but once in a while it really can clean out bad bits and knock things back into shape.

1. Press and hold down the On/Off button on the right side (iPhone 6 or later) or top (all other iPhones, iPods, and iPads).
2. Press and hold down the Home button on the front of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad while still holding down the On/Off button.
3. Keep holding both buttons as the screen turns off keep holding both buttons until the turns back on again and displays the Apple logo.
   
   
   

Silver, gold, and rose devices will show a white screen with black Apple logo. Space gray devices will show a black screen with white Apple logo.

The nuclear option

If an app is really destroying your battery life and nothing you do seems to stop it, here are your last, best hopes for resolution:

1. Uninstall the app and use the website, if there is one. For example, delete Facebook.app and use Facebook.com in Safari.
2. Uninstall the app and only re-install it when you need to. For example, delete Skype and only re-download it when you know you need to make or take a Skype call.

Hopefully, bad apps will clean up their acts, and every update is a chance for them to do better. So if you do delete, make sure to check back every once and a while, and see if things have improved!

How to troubleshoot battery life on iPhone and iPad

If you think you have something unusual going on that might be adversely affecting your battery life, here's more help!

• How to fix iPhone battery life problems

Update July 2018: Updated some information and screenshots, added information about iOS 12's new battery features.

Apple has released an updated version of iOS 9.3.2 for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. While Apple originally launched the update a little over two weeks ago, owners of the smaller iPad Pro reported that the update caused problems for their device, and the company later pulled that version.

iOS 9.3.2 is a fairly minor release, offering the following bug fixes:

• Fixes an issue where some Bluetooth accessories could experience audio quality issues when paired to the iPhone SE
• Addresses an issue that prevented typing email addresses when using the Japanese Kana keyboard in Mail and Messages
• Fixes an issue for VoiceOver users using the Alex voice, where the device switches to a different voice to announce punctuation or spaces
• Fixes an issue that prevented MDM servers from installing Custom B2B apps

You can grab the update either as an over-the-air download or through iTunes.

How to download iOS 9.3.2 to your iPhone or iPad

With iOS 9.3 Apple is introducing a new feature called Night Shift. As the name implies, it shifts the color spectrum of your iPhone or iPad display at night. So, why is that important?

Read how to use Night Shift on iOS 9.3

Light and the brain

During the day we soak in light from the sun. Unlike Superman or Supergirl, to whom it grants unbelievable power, in us the light suppresses melatonin. As it gets darker we produce more melatonin. It usually starts a few hours before bedtime and increases greatly towards the middle of the night. That helps keep us asleep and ensure we get a good night's rest.

Shorter wavelength blue light, by contrast, does the opposite: It suppresses melatonin and builds up histamine that helps wake us up. Unfortunately, electronic displays like those on phones and tablets have a higher concentration of blue light than the sun. So, when you're lying in bed at night playing Candy Crush, watching YouTube, or reading iMore, you're soaking in the blue light and wreaking havoc with our circadian rhythm. In other words, it resets that feeling of tiredness and hurts our sleep cycle.

And we need sleep. We do most of our healing when we sleep. It's when our bodies repair themselves and our minds process the information we accumulated during the day. Lack of sleep can have an extremely adverse affect on our mental and physical health. It can interfere with our brain's ability to form memories efficiently and even reduce our immunity to disease.

Night shift

That's where Night Shift comes in. When you enable Blue Light Reduction in the Display & Brightness settings, it moves the color spectrum from cooler (blue) towards warmer (yellow).

You can enable it at any time but what's really nice is that you can schedule it as well. There's a default that shifts from sunset to sunrise, but you can also set your own custom schedule if you prefer.

If you simply play around with it, the yellow might look really yellow. Our brains are amazing at adapting, though. When it happens on schedule we adjust to it and reset what we perceive as white. So, after a while, the shift towards yellow is as barely noticeable as the usual shift towards blue is.

The bigger picture

Of course, Night Shift only addresses part of the problem. Using your iPhone and iPad at night, especially for highly-engaging activities like video games, social networking, and messaging can also keep you awake and mess with your sleep hygiene.

Use Nightshift to help you wind down, but when it gets time for sleep, do yourself a bigger favor and just put your devices down!

Night Shift is currently available as part of the iOS 9.3 for 64-bit devices. That includes iPhone 5s and later.

Originally published January 18, 2016.

After pulling the original iOS 9.3 update for older iPhones and iPads, Apple has released a new build of the operating system for one of the affected devices, the iPad 2. This new build, 13E236, is for older devices only, and iPhones and iPads that successfully installed the update earlier this week don't need to update to this new build.

Apple originally paused the update to iOS 9.3 for older devices after several owners of such devices had trouble activating them after the original update. Note that if you've experienced activation issues, you'll need to install the update through iTunes.

How to download iOS 9.3 on your iPhone or iPad

Update: Apple has released a new version of iOS 9.3 (build 13E237) to address the activation issues. You can download and install it now.

Some people with older versions of iPad and iPhone, have experienced problems updating to iOS 9.3. The problems stem from the password authorization required to complete activation. In an effort to address it, Apple is pausing the update for those devices and working on a fix, which the company hopes to release soon. Apple provided iMore with the following statement:

If you've already gotten into a problem state, for example by accidentally entering an incorrect password or if you weren't able to enter a password, Apple has posted a support document with a potential work around.

• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407

The steps involve signing into iCloud, activating via iTunes, or temporarily removing Activation Lock via the web.

If you've been having problems, please let us know which, if any of these steps, worked for you!

Apple has officially released iOS 9.3 to the public. The update adds a number of new features, along with a slate of bug fixes and performance improvements. New features include Night Shift, which changes the temperature of your device's display, along with the ability to lock Notes with Touch ID, CarPlay and News enhancements, and more.

• Read how to use Night Shift on iOS 9.3
• Read how to use Notes lock on iOS 9.3
• Read our complete iOS 9.3 FAQ

Here's the breakdown of what's in iOS 9.3:

• When enabled, Night Shift uses your iOS device's clock and geolocation to determine when it's sunset in your location, then it automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum and may even help you get a better night's sleep.

• Protect notes that contain your most personal data with Touch ID or a passcode
• Sort notes alphabetically, by date created, or by date edited
• When sketching, quickly bring up a fresh canvas with a two finger swipe, or by tapping the New Sketch button
• A new checklist button at the bottom of every note makes it easier to create lists
• Show thumbnails instead of large images and attachments by long-pressing on any image or attachments in a note
• Choose whether photos and videos taken within Notes are stored only in Notes or also added to Photos
• Long-press on an Evernote Export file to import its contents into Notes

• New Top Stories section in For You highlights the most important stories of the day
• Discover something great to read in Editors' Picks, a selection of channels and topics handpicked by our Apple News editors
• Swipe left on stories in For You on iPhone to quickly share or save or swipe right for more options
• Play video stories right from For You — without opening the article
• Read stories and watch videos in landscape orientation on iPhone
• Change the text size in articles to make reading easier

• Related third-party apps for select data types such as weight, workouts and sleep are displayed in the health app
• Health dashboard adds support for move, exercise, and stand Activity data and goals from Apple Watch
• Easy access to Dashboard and Medical ID using 3D Touch Quick Actions form the Home screen
• Third-party apps now have access to Activity rings and summaries from Apple Watch through HealthKit

• Add songs from the Apple Music catalog to playlists without having to add them to your library
• Watch music videos on iPad in full screen
• See what's playing on Beats 1 directly from the Radio tab — without having to tune in
• Tap the name of the currently playing song in Now Play to go to the album
• See which songs are the most popular on albums in the Apple Music catalog

• Extract the still image from a Live Photo by tapping Duplicate which will give you the option to duplicate the Live Photo, or just the still image
• Improved download performance of full size original photos or videos stored in iCloud Photo Library
• Share Live Photos between iOS and OS X through AirDrop and Messages

• Adds the ability for iBooks to store your PDFs in iCloud, making them available across all of your devices
• Adds support for downloading previously purchased audiobooks from the iBooks Store
• Adds the ability to share your audiobook purchases with any of your family members using Family Sharing
• New controls for reading Manga more comfortably with faster page turns and simple controls for enlarging text
• Adds Apple Pencil support to highlight and save your favorite passages for later

• Introduces a preview of Shared iPad that enables multiple students to use the same iPad at different times throughout the day
• Adds support for signing into iCloud with Managed Apple IDs
• Adds compatibility for the new Classroom app
• New configuration options to control the organization of apps on the Home Screen
• New controls to determine which apps to show or hide on the Home Screen
• Adds support for new restrictions for iCloud Photo Library or Apple Music

• Apple Music members now have access to their For You and New content in CarPlay
• New Nearby screen in Maps to quickly find Gas, Parking, Restaurants, Coffee, and other driving essentials
• Siri speaks more concisely when reading aback and composing messages in CarPlay
• Equalized sound levels between different audio sources in CarPlay

• Adds support for playing video encoded with Dolby Digital Plus audio streams with support for multichannel output using the Apple Lighting Digital AV Adapter

• Enables the use of arrow keys to navigate through lists in Spotlight, Mail and Safar
• Enables the use of space bar to scroll in Mail
• Improves performance when using the space bar to scroll in Safari
• Adds the ability to bring up the software keyboard from the Shortcut Bar when a hardware keyboard is connected
• Fixes an issue that could prevent unlocking an iPad using the hardware keyboard
• Fixes an issue that caused hardware keyboards to become unresponsive in captive login pages
• Fixes an issue that could cause the Message input field to disappear behind the Shortcut Bar when connected to a hardware keyabord

• Maps adds support for getting a highlighted view of destinations and stops for a specific transit line by tapping on it
• Maps now displays whether there are multiple transit line options for each route suggestion
• Wallet app adds the ability to view the app related toa card or paass in the Wallet app by tapping an icon on the card or pass
• Apple Pay adds support for signing up for store rewards programs with Apple Pay at point of sale terminal
• Podcasts adds support for fullscreen video playback
• Activity app adds a new Workout tab with monthly summaries of key metrics and ability to filter by workout type
• Move to iOS now offers app suggestions from the App Store based on apps installed on you Android device
• iCloud Storage adds proactive status information and in-app notifications to let you know before you run out of space
• Two-factor authentication is now available for all iCloud accounts
• Support for Spanish (Latin America) system language
• Siri support for Finnish (Finland), Hebrew (Israel), and Malay (Malaysia)

• Resolves an issue that could prevent some VPP purchased apps from launching after being updated
• Adds iCloud backup support for device-assigned VPP apps
• Addresses an issue that could prevent certificates from installing correctly when updating configuration profiles
• Fixes an issue to prevent iBooks from emailing enterprise managed PDFs from unmanaged accounts
• Resolves an issue for some Exchange users that caused Calendar to send multiple responses to the same invitation
• Improves reliability for devices connecting to OS X Caching Server

• Improves 3D Touch reliability with Switch Control Accessibility option
• Fixes an issue where VoiceOver interferes with speech after dictation
• Fixes an issue where VoiceOver users could not write a review on the App Store
• Resolves an issue where VoiceOver becomes unresponsive when receiving a phone call with a Bluetooth headset
• Fixes an issue where large text was unreadable in Reminders

• Fixes an issue where manually changing the date to May 1970 or earlier could prevent your iOS device form turning on after a restart
• Fixes issues that could prevent some iCloud Backups from completing
• Fixes an issue for some users where Health data was incomplete after restoring from iCloud Backup
• Fixes an issue where an inaccurate battery percentage could be displayed
• Addresses an issue that prevented iMessage or FaceTime activation for some users
• Addresses an issue that enabled overriding restriction applied to cellular data toggle
• Fixes an issue that caused notification settings to appear in the Watch app for apps that were not installed on Apple Watch
• Improves reliability of using 3D Touch on the keyboard
• Improves stability of the Phone app when setting up voicemail
• Improves stability of the Mail app when your device is low on storage
• Improves stability in Mail while using Mail Drop to send large attachments

You can grab the update now as an over-the-air download directly on your iPhone or iPad, or through iTunes. If you've already installed the update, be sure to tell us how it's treating you in the comments below.

How to download iOS 9.3 on your iPhone or iPad

iOS 9.3 brings new features to the current version of Apple's mobile operating system for iPhone and iPad. Highlights include a new Night Shift mode, Touch ID security for Notes, greater personalization for News, app discovery in Health, Apple Music and Nearby for CarPlay, and a new education experience for iOS.

When is it coming out?

It's out! With it, comes Night Shift Mode, Notes Lock, and a whole lot more. We have everything you need to know.

How do I get iOS 9.3?

You can either download it over-the-air from the Software Update feature on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or download it via iTunes by connecting it to your computer. Here's how.

Who should be excited about it?

Everyone, because bug fixes and security updates are always great! More specifically:

• Anyone who enjoys reading in bed or otherwise in the dark.
• Anyone who keeps private information in Notes and needs better security.
• Anyone who uses News but hasn't found the content personalized enough.
• Anyone still searching for great Health and Fitness apps.
• Anyone who uses CarPlay and has been waiting for more music and points of interest.
• Anyone who uses iOS in the classroom.

So, Siri supports more languages now?

A few more regions and languages, yes! iOS 9.3 adds support for Malaysia (Malay), Finland (Finnish), and Israel (Hebrew).

What's the deal with Night Shift?

Our eyes and bodies were never designed to stare at computer screens all day. As a result, the blue light emitted from said screens can seriously mess up sleep schedules and lead to mid-day exhaustion and tension headaches. OS X has long had third-party utilities like F.lux to help address this problem with display recoloring, but with 9.3's Night Shift, iOS gets its own proprietary version.

It uses your geolocation data and local clock time to automatically determine when the sun sets in your area, and gradually shifts your iOS device's display to a less harsh, more late-night-brain-friendly hue. In the morning light, your display colors shift back to their normal state.

• Night Shift in iOS 9: Explained
• How to use Night Shift on iOS 9.3

Is this going to make everything obnoxiously orange?

No, your eyes should adjust pretty quickly to oranger hues, especially in darker environments. But yes, it will likely add an orange tint to your screen, making tasks like photo or video color correction slightly more difficult. But, don't worry. You can disable the feature if you really prefer to stare at glaring blue light in the evenings.

I heard Notes has touch ID support now?

It does! With iOS 9.3 you can secure all your notes—especially the ones that might contain private personal, medical, login, or financial data—with a password or with Apple's fingerprint identity sensor, Touch ID.

That means, even if you lend someone your iPhone or iPad so they can call an emergency contact or keep busy while waiting for the food to arrive, they won't have access to your private notes.

It's not the system-wide [Touch ID protection of Guest Mode]/./ios-9-wish-list-guest-mode) we've been waiting for, but it's a great start towards making iOS better protected so we can more comfortably share our devices with others.

• How to use Notes lock on iOS 9.3

What's new with the News?

There is now a New Top Stories section in For You that highlights the trending stories of the day, and you'll also get suggestions from the new Editor's Picks and curated channels made by Apple News editors.

Video will now play right from the story, and iPhone is getting landscape support as well.

Oh, and you can now change the text size in articles.

And the Health app is going to make me healthier?

I don't know if any app can make you healthier, but the Health app is certainly making it easier to keep track of your health. The app now has categories for your Apple Watch's move, exercise, and stand trackers, and even tracks your day-to-day goals. The Dashboard and Medical ID is now accessible with 3D Touch and Quick Actions on the Home screen. In addition, third-party developers can now use the Activity rings to share data with their apps.

Didn't Apple Music get some love?

That's right. You can now add songs directly from Apple Music's catalog to your playlist without having to first add them to your library. One step beyond!

If you want to check in on what's playing on Beats 1, you can see it right on the Radio tab instead of having to go to the section.

You can also watch videos in full screen mode on the iPad and getting to the album that a currently playing song is from is easier. Want to know which songs are the most popular on a given album? Well, you can now on Apple Music.

I heard you can finally grab a still image from a Live Photo

You heard correctly. When viewing a Live Photo, tap Duplicate to either make a copy of the live photo, or extract a still image. You can also now share Live Photos between iOS and OS X using AirDrop and Messages.

Did Apple finally make it possible for me to re-download my audiobooks onto a different device?

Aren't you the lucky one! Apple has finally added support for downloading previously purchased audiobooks from the iBooks Store. Plus, you can share your audiobooks purchases with anyone in your Family Sharing network. Sharing is caring.

Apple also made some improvements to reading Manga and added Pencil support for highlighting and saving passages in e-books.

What's this I hear about Dolby Digital on my iPhone?

With iOS 9.3, you can play video encoded with Dolby Digital Plus. Your device now supports multichannel output when you use the Apple Lightning Digital AV adapter.

CarPlay has some new stuff too, right?

It does! If you have a CarPlay-compatible car, you now have better Apple Music integration, with both the New screen and For You custom playlist suggestion screen available to you. And if you're an Apple Maps fiend, CarPlay now supports the Nearby feature, which lets you quickly find gas, parking, restaurants, and more.

What's this about iPad and education?

The iPad got a huge education upgrade with iOS 9.3, and it's sure to make a lot of educators using iPads in their classrooms thrilled.

The education improvements essentially boil down to three categories: Shared iPads, a new Classroom app for teachers, and the Apple School Manager app for OS X.

• Empowering education with iPad and iOS 9.3

iOS 9.3 supports the new Shared iPads protocol, which allows a student to load their Apple ID and information on any iPad the school owns. When students log in to an iPad, all their personal information, iCloud Drive documents, books, and apps will appear on that iPad. Apple is using intelligent caching to make this system work quickly; as such, when a student logs in to a classroom iPad they've used previously, it won't have to take a ton of time to redownload each student's apps.

In addition, Apple has added two features for younger students: Photo ID, which displays the student's photo on the lock screen of the iPad they used last, and a four-digit pin option for students who don't yet have the dexterity to type a username and password.

Apple's new Classroom app is designed for the iPad-toting teacher, and lets them check on their students' progress, bring them to various apps in a lesson plan, and share student work via AirPlay.

Teachers have access to a new Screen View command, which lets them virtually look at any iPad screen in their class; in addition, they can use Remote Control to launch a specific app, website, or ebook page on every iPad in the classroom. If teachers have students who are struggling with attention issues, they can even lock iPads to specific apps to keep the class focused on the task at hand.

The Classroom app offers a few other useful features, too, like being able to help your student reset a forgotten password.

An education-focused device manager, Apple School Manager lets administrators control every iPad in their school fleet. It also allows them to set up and manage school-focused Managed Apple IDs for teachers, students, and staff; buy and distribute books and apps (with the institution's education discount automatically applied); build and deliver iTunes U Course Manager courses; and do it all remotely.

What else?

• Apple fixed a lot of issues with hardware keyboards. Plus, you can now use the arrow keys to navigate lists in Spotlight, Mail, and Safari.
• Maps now supports a highlighted view of destinations and stops along a specific line in Transit mode.
• Wallet now has the ability to access an app related to a card or pass.
• Apple Pay now supports signing up for store rewards programs within the app at registers.
• The Podcast app now supports full screen video playback.
• There is a new Workout tab in the Activity app with monthly summaries of key metrics and the ability to filter by workout type.
• Move to iOS now suggests apps based on content you had installed on your Android device.
• iCloud Storage now warns you before you run out of space.
• Two-factor authentication now works with all iCloud accounts.

When the Apple Pencil launched alongside the iPad Pro, I was primarily excited to test it as a drawing and writing tool. I'd hoped that it would, at last, satisfy my yearning for a perfect iPad stylus, and it did: The Pencil is an incredible tool for artists, drafters, and calligraphers alike.

But unlike a real-world pencil or pen, the Pencil is also a competent navigational tool on the iPad Pro's screen. You can tap on brushes or buttons with it, of course, but also perform any of iOS's other finger-based gestures: swiping menus in or out, selecting text, and scrolling lists.

Navigating with the Pencil

I've never been much of a navigational-stylus-on-the-iPad person, so it initially surprised me when I began using my Pencil outside of traditional drawing and sketching apps. But on the iPad Pro, it feels right — especially if you're switching between sketching a drawing or altering a photo with the Pencil to another app. If I'm looking at Google Images in one Split View pane while drawing in the other, it's easy to move the Pencil from side to side.

I also found it hugely useful at times when I couldn't sit or stand at a desk: When I first got the iPad Pro, I was recovering from an illness, and spent about a week working on the couch. When reading, the Pro's screen was often just a hair too far away or awkwardly angled for me to scroll or tap with my fingers alone, but the angle and length of the Pencil made it the perfect tool to use on the screen while I rested.

The iOS 9.3 problem

Unfortunately, whether by bug or intentional design, the Pencil's navigational prowess appears to have vanished in the iOS 9.3 public betas. With 9.3, you can no longer scroll or manipulate text; the only places the Pencil works are on canvas or when pressing digital buttons.

Normally, I don't write about beta bugs and features, because it's a beta: There are always bugs, and features change. But this functionality is important enough that I wanted to talk about it before Apple submits its final 9.3 release. It could be a bug, yes: But several betas in, we've seen fixes for Smart Connector keyboards and new features, and the Pencil remains crippled. Which makes me think, more and more, that this is a conscious decision on the part of Apple's engineering team. (I did reach out to the company about the issue, and will update if and when I receive a response.)

I can partially understand the reasoning behind the change: Navigation isn't one of the Pencil's primary uses, and you've never needed a stylus to use an iOS device, after all.

But the fact remains that the Pencil's owners use those navigation options, and frankly, the idea that Apple would take away functionality that people have come to expect and depend on is a significant hit to usability and overall experience.

Worse, it makes the Pencil useless for video and audio editing, creative pursuits that I'd hoped to explore further on the iPad Pro. I'd initially enjoyed editing and cutting several videos in iMovie for iOS with the help of the Pencil; now, you can only select and drag clips. You can't cut a clip with the downward swipe gesture, nor can you scroll the timeline.

If it's not interfering with the iOS touch architecture — and according to third-party developers I've talked with, it shouldn't be — there's no reason to limit functionality on the Pencil.

Expected results

I'm not the only one upset about this issue. Earlier this month, Relay.fm founder and host Myke Hurley wrote about his concerns. Stephen Hackett, Relay co-founder (and iMore contributor), is also concerned:

The Pencil has also been hugely beneficial for those with RSI (Repetitive Strain Injuries), including Hello Internet host and YouTube producer CGP Grey. He told iMore:

A Pencil plea

This is a plea to the development team at Apple: There's still time to add these Pencil features back for the final iOS 9.3 release. They're not only useful for the folks that just draw or sketch with the Pencil — they also provide functionality for video and audio editing, and offer priceless accessibility for those who have trouble with their hands.

If you want to duplicate (or you're at Apple and want more information), rdar://23980150 is the root radar (courtesy Hunter) on the issue; feel free to duplicate and signal boost if you agree.

There's a bug in iOS 9 affecting some people using its pasteboard: The gist is, when you go to copy and paste something on your iPhone or iPad, instead of pasting what you just copied, it pastes whatever you copied previously instead. So, if you copied some text yesterday, then copy a web link today, you'll paste the text instead of the link. It doesn't happen all the time, but does happen often enough that we've gotten several requests for help troubleshooting it. Well, here's what you can do!

How to fix copy/paste problems in iOS 9

To make sure you paste what you most recently copied, here's what to do:

1. Go to the text, link, or other item you want to copy.
2. Tap to bring up the Edit menu.
3. Tap Copy.
4. Tap to bring up the edit menu again.
5. Tap Copy again.

Most of the time repeating the copy cycle twice gets the right content onto the pasteboard.

If you're trying to copy a selection, you can simply move the drag handles around a bit first. That seems to ensure the copy. If your goal is to share something, you can also use the Share Sheet instead:

1. Go to the content you want to share.
2. Tap the Share button.
3. Choose the service you want to use to share it.
4. Send away!

That's especially useful for situations where you just want to iMessage a link from Safari, for example.

The problem currently seems to affect all versions of iOS 9, though not for everyone. Given how core pasteboard is to the system, hopefully Apple will have a fix ready soon.

I've filed it with Apple's bug reporter system as rdar://24334129, and it came back as a dupe of rdar://23129518.

A few years ago, after a WWDC session, a group of people were chatting with an engineer and one of the student attendees asked why, in the era of Facebook and startups, the engineer was at Apple. I'll never forget the reply. The engineer said he dreamt of revolutionizing education, of how hard existing tools like whiteboards were to use, and how he believed iPad could change all that. Apple was a place, he said, where any engineer could have passions like education and propose features that would benefit those passions, and have a shot at getting those features in front of hundreds of millions of people. For the engineer, that was why Apple.

Flash forward to this week, and Apple's announcement of compelling new education features coming soon to iPad, and I can't help but remember that story.

The new features, previewing as part of the iOS 9.3 beta, make iPads easier for schools and teachers to manage, and students and teachers to use. Aimed at K-12, that's quite a challenge. A five-year-old and a seventeen-year-old have very different capabilities and needs. To try to meet them all, Apple is once again making very clever use of several technologies the company has spent the last few years building out.

Unlocking potential

Take unlocking and logging in, for example. Touch ID can't yet support the scores of people it would need to in a school setting, yet a passcode and a strong iCloud password would be impossible for a child in kindergarten to use. So, to maintain privacy but enable access, Apple has created a hybrid passcode that treats the managed iCloud ID as a quasi second factor, unlocking and logging in all at one go.

Pragmatic in the best sense of the word, it makes sure each child gets their own data but makes it easy for the child to remember and access it.

Pictures of the child and children and icons for the apps they're using help both student and teacher get into the iPad and go exactly where they're supposed to. Teachers can even help children who need a focused experience by launching their iPad into a specific app and setting it to stay there.

No child left out

While each child can still have their own iPad, Apple is also making it easier to share. Using the same kind of "nearline" strategy as iCloud Photo Library and on-demand resources, iOS intelligently manages the storage on the iPad. So, if the same student logs in every day, all their data is still there, local to the device. If a different student logs in, their data is downloaded and as much of the other student's data is kept as possible, in case they switch back soon.

Over time, and as the limits of the storage are reached, older, less frequently used data is cleared from the iPad but kept safe in the cloud, so if the original student comes back a week or a month later, their data is only a download away.

In other words: Apple is doing everything possible to make sure students get to an iPad and get learning without having to wait for IT or anyone to set them up again.

On the administrative side, Apple is taking what were cantankerous old interfaces from enterprise and making MDM (mobile device management) as easy and accessible as possible for teachers and school IT. For example, passwords can be reset right in the classroom, so students don't have to sit, locked out, until an admin can be found. Apps and iBook textbooks can be purchased with volume discounts automatically applied. Custom content can also be more easily produced and distributed using iTunes U.

It's all designed so that teachers and teach, students can learn, and the overhead is taken out of their way.

Privacy options

If I sound optimistic it's because education is everything and connected computing is the most important tool in making education effective, efficient, and empowering as we go forward. We'll have to wait and see how Apple's new education features work in the real world, but right now, the more options the better.

Google has made great inroads into education with accounts for students and inexpensive access via Chromebooks. Yet not everyone, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is happy with the potential privacy implications that come from using Google's services.

Both my god kids have Google Accounts through their school and I know from personal experience parents want to be better informed and have more options about which companies handle their children's data and what's done with it.

Apple is using privacy as a differentiator, which also positions iPad in education as an alternative.

Of course, schools may use Apple devices in conjunction with Google or Microsoft services, so those accounts are also supported on the iPad.

Coming soon

Apple's iPad for education features will be rolling out sometime this spring and, hopefully, will continue to improve in iOS 10 and the years and versions to come. This is a beginning but, if Apple gets it right, an important one.

How iCloud will work backing up and distributing so many children's' data across potentially multiple devices is an open question. Current iCloud accounts top out at 5GB for the free tier. Will it work differently in education? Will a local mid-point be possible?

Likewise, beyond education, how far and how fast these options migrate into the rest of iOS — especially multiple account support and better device management — and become available to families and individuals.

For now, you can learn more about iOS 9.3 and the education preview on Apple.com

Apple has removed root certificate-based ad blockers from the App Store, like Been Choice, because they pose a potential privacy and security risk. To get the root certificates off your iPhone or iPad, however, you need to dive into Settings. Here's how to do it!

How to delete root certificates from your iPhone or iPad

Removing a root certificate—sometimes conflated with VPN profile—isn't obvious, but it is easy once you know how.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Profile. (If you don't see Profile it means you have nothing to delete or worry about!)
4. Tap on the profile you want to delete.
   
   
   

5. Tap Delete profile.
6. Enter your passcode if prompted.
7. Tap Delete to confirm.
   
   
   

That's it. The root certificate is now deleted and will no longer be able to do any deep packet inspection of your web activity, secure transactions, private communications, or anything else of the kind.

Over the last year, Apple has introduced new services like iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Music Library that keep recent and frequently accessed data on the device but offload older and infrequently accessed data to Apple's servers. That nearline strategy helps ensure more space is available for updates to begin with. With iOS 9, Apple is taking space-savings to a whole new level with App thinning, which includes asset slicing, on-demand resources, and bitcode.

• Check out our comprehensive iOS 9 review for more

How asset slicing works

Asset slicing recognizes that apps have been getting bigger over the years. They've added support for all sorts of device traits, including iPhone and iPad idioms, @2x and @3x resources, 32-bit and 64-bit chipsets, OpenGL ES and Metal in high and low quality, 1 GB and 2GB of memory, different audio sampling rates, and more. All of that overhead slows downloads and takes up storage. Since no single device needs all those resources, though, asset slicing aims to pare them back down.

Developers still upload the full universal app to the App Store but then the App Store takes it and delivers only a variant app tailored specifically for the device that's downloading it.

Standard resources are automatically sliced but, for custom data, developers are encouraged to add asset catalogs, including the new named data and sprite atlases options, and declare which data is needed for which device traits. The better organized and catalogued the assets are, the better the slicing will be.

So, if you have an iPhone 5s, for example, and you tap to download an app, the App Store will give you the iPhone 5s variant. That means you won't get the interface elements for an iPad, the @3x graphics resources for the iPhone 6 Plus, the 32-bit code for iPhone 5 or earlier, or the shader code for an iPhone 4s or iPad 2 graphics processor. You'll only get what your iPhone 5s needs, and you'll get it in a smaller package that takes less time to download.

Apple claims storage savings in the range of 20-40%, even for social networking and video streaming apps.

How on-demand resources work

On-demand resources (ODR) takes things a step further by only downloading content you might need when you first start using an app. That can included game levels, video tutorials and other media, document templates, instrument packs, and more.

For example, when you download a new game, the App Store could only include the first five levels and keep the rest ready and waiting on Apple's servers. As you complete level three, the App Store could download level six and remove level one. Then download level seven and remove level two, and so on.

In other words, as new content comes in, old content goes out. So, an app or game may vary slightly in size over time as you use it, but you never have to store all of it at once.

Using asset slicing and ODR makes it easier for apps and games to stay beneath the current 100 MB cellular networking download limit. A game that was previously 150 MB for its full universal binary, for example, may be only 90 or 100 MB for any individual device variant and resource payload, and so be able to be downloaded anywhere, at any time.

What's more, very large apps like triple-A games won't have to worry as much about Apple's Wi-Fi download limit of 4 GB either. That's because, even if the complete universal binary package is 4 GB, as long as no individual device slice variant and resource payload exceeds 4 GB, it'll be under the limit.

Depending on the type of app, space savings can exceed 50%, which across all apps on a device can result in a significant return on storage space. It will most benefit legacy 8 GB devices and current 16 GB devices, which compromise storage for entry-level price points.

It's even better on the new Apple TV, where Apple never wants a customer to see an out of storage space error or have to worry about manually managing space.

• How on-demand resources work on the new Apple TV

How bitcode works

Shifting from the present to the future, the App Store will also be delivering apps in bitcode, a forward-looking LLVM intermediary representation of the binary. That will let Apple optimize and re-optimize an app binary for the specific device architecture that's downloading it without requiring the developer to manually update and resubmit the app.

It's not a way to abstract out processor platforms so Apple can switch architectures on the fly at some point. It's a way to make sure customers get the benefits of the latest architectures, instructions, and optimizations as soon as they're available.

Although mandatory for watchOS apps, bitcode is still optional for iOS, though Apple believes it's important enough to opt projects in by default.

Lastly, for developers who no longer want to support older devices, Apple will now let them release apps that are 64-bit only. That way they only have to concern themselves with iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPod touch 6, and later devices.

What you need to do

The nice thing about app thinning is that it's absolutely transparent on the customer's end. As long as developers are building for iOS 9, and making sure they tag their assets and resources as best as they can, the App Store will handle everything. All you need to do is download the updates when they're ready and the newer, thinner apps will be yours.

For 16 GB device owners, every megabyte will matter. But even for 64 GB or 128 GB device owners, being able to fill storage with real, useful apps and content and not a bunch of stuff we don't need is a huge win.

While many websites in this day and age have embraced responsive design, which rescales a full webpage to properly fit on smaller screens, there are still a pesky number who insist on serving "slimmed down" mobile versions to iPhone and iPad users. This can be a pain, especially if you're using an iPad and are triggering a far-too-big-for-your-screen mobile display, or you're trying to find a feature that the website owner simply hasn't provided in mobile form.

Thankfully, you can disregard the website owner's wishes and get whatever version you prefer with a quick Safari trick.

Note: While this will work for "m.[domain].com" websites—you just have to retype the original "domain.com" in the URL bar to get the site—you won't get a "desktop"-sized version if the site you're visiting has been responsively designed to scale to certain screen sizes.

How to request the desktop version of a website in mobile Safari

1. Visit the affected site in Safari.
2. Tap and hold the Refresh button in the URL bar.
3. Tap Request Desktop Site.
   
   
   

4. The website will then reload as its desktop version.

This will last as long as you have that tab open for that website; close the tab, or enter in a new web address in that tab, and you'll revert to the mobile version if you return.

Apple provides Enterprise Distribution as a way for companies to create and share internal apps without having to go through the App Store. Unfortunately, bad actors have been using the associated process as a way to try and trick people into installing malicious apps. With iOS 9 that's now a lot harder to do.

Previously, all that was required to install an Enterprise app was to tap the Trust button on the popup (see above). That's it. Tt was convenient, but too convenient. Now there is no Trust button on the popup. There are no buttons at all. Or instructions of any kind. So, unless you know what to do, you can't install an enterprise app either accidentally or obliviously.

How to trust Enterprise apps on iPhone or iPad

If you really need to install a legitimate app—if you work in IT or need to test a beta for your company—and you're absolutely sure it's a legitimate app, here's what you need to do:

1. Launch Settings from your Home Screen.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Profiles.
4. Tap the name of the distributor under the Enterprise App section.
5. Tap to trust.
6. Tap to confirm.

Only then, when it's made super-double-extra sure you really want to trust an app, will iOS set it as trusted. And only then can you launch it.

No security system that includes humans in ever truly safe but by making it require concerted effort to trust apps in iOS 9, Apple is making it harder for malware and other bad apps to run.

And that's absolutely worth a little inconvenience.

If you've recently upgraded to iOS 9, you may find that you can no longer sync your beautiful new Notes app with your Mac. This is because on OS X Yosemite, your Notes app is still the same sad, pre-attachment version that you had in iOS 8—and they can't talk to each other.

Good news: OS X El Capitan has an iOS 9-compatible Notes app. Bad news: OS X El Capitan doesn't ship until September 30.

But don't worry, friends: You don't have to rush to install the OS X El Capitan beta if you're relying on getting your notes from iOS to OS X. Instead, you can use iCloud.com for your syncing needs. Unfortunately, this does only talk from iOS 9 to iCloud.com—so you'll have to do your notes-writing in one of those two places, and leave the OS X Notes app alone until you upgrade to OS X El Capitan.

Note: This only works for Notes you're syncing through iCloud.com; if you're syncing them through a different service, you won't be able to see them.

How to view iOS 9's Notes on a Mac running OS X Yosemite

1. Open Safari on your Mac.
2. Visit iCloud.com and enter in your username and password.
3. Click on the Notes app.
   
   

From there, you should be able to edit your current notes, add checklists and text, and delete any unwanted information.

Rene's put together a 20,000-word behemoth of a review, but if you don't have the time and you just want to know what's new, we've got your back. Here's an overview of what's changed in the latest version of iOS.

Haven't downloaded it yet? What are you waiting for? Get at it!

• How to download iOS 9 on your iPhone or iPad

User interface

By and large, iOS 9's interface has remained largely the same from iOS 8's reinvention. You've got a few new blurs and animations, but that's about it. There are a few UI tweaks here and there:

• iOS 9 now uses Apple's new system font, San Francisco
• Siri has a new interface and waveform
• The multitasking screen has been replaced with a compressed cards-like interface, removing Favorites from the top bar
• The Music app has a new, more compressed More button (looks like •••) that makes it easier to access albums and specific features.
• The keyboard now changes from uppercase to lower-case when changing shift
• There's a redesigned Notes app (more on that later)

Siri and Search

Perhaps the bit I most looked forward to about iOS 9, Siri has become prettier, smarter, and now runs the underlying search engine in iOS. Apple's voice-activated assistant has a new, watchOS-inspired look, and can now search for a variety of new items:

• Date- and face-contextual photos: "Show me photos of Georgia Dow from last Sunday"
• Contextual awareness: "Remind me about this when I get home"
• Car-based reminders: "Remind me to buy dog food when I get in the car"
• Apple Music-based commands: "Play the top song from 1990"
• More HomeKit phrases: "Leave home"

For even more fun, try asking Siri what you should say to Tim Cook when preparing to interview him.

Siri's power isn't just in speech anymore, though: Apple's assistant now powers all of iOS 9's search functions behind the scenes, and opens up doors for new, proactive actions, like so:

• Knowing what music you like to listen to when in the car, connected to Bluetooth running headphones, or on your speakers at home—and queuing it up for you
• Guessing unknown phone numbers based on whether iOS has seen them in Messages or emails
• Providing estimated driving directions to your usual places at this time of day when you get in a CarPlay- or Bluetooth-equipped vehicle
• Providing estimated driving directions and "Leave Now" warnings for events on your calendar with addresses
• Suggesting contacts you normally pair in a group email or calendar event
• Offering app and contact suggestions based on time of day on the Search screen

All of this "proactive" functionality is done on-device, so there's no server-side storage of your personal information.

More magic under-the-hood will now allow your favorite apps and services to register for deep links and universal links: Universal Links let iOS 9 turn normal Web URLs into direct links into your app. So if you're searching Twitter, for example, and click on a link to a tweet, you'll now see that tweet directly in the Twitter app. (You sadly can't force a deep link to use a third-party client; primary clients only.) Deep Links work within iOS 9 itself, and let you use the Search screen to actively search within your favorite apps.

In addition, whenever you tap on a link or button to switch from one app to the other, you'll get a new bit of text in the upper left corner of your screen: This allows you to quickly jump back to the app you were just in, without having to access the multitasking bar. It's called a back link, and it exists seamlessly all over iOS 9.

Spotlight is no more: It's been renamed "Search", and you can now use it with natural language the same way you would Siri. Type in "who's greg" and get a Contacts listing of your pal from high school. Ask it basic math problems, or who won the Cubs game last night, or what the weather is in San Francisco. The Search screen can handle it all.

When you first visit the new Search screen, it's populated with Siri Suggestions: Contact and app suggestions based on the current time of day. (This replaces the multitasking screen's Favorite section.) You'll also see Yelp-sourced "Nearby" suggestions that include time-based food suggestions, shopping, and gas. And if you're in a country that supports the News app, you'll see some of the top stories currently circulating. You can dismiss all this by pulling down on the screen, which will activate the Search bar, or by simply tapping the search bar itself.

You can get into the Search screen one of two ways: By swiping down from the middle of any Home screen, or by swiping right from the foremost Home screen. Swiping down from the middle will only get you app suggestions and a search bar, saving the rest of iOS 9's proactive information for a proper right-swipe visit from the Home screen. It's a little shortcut—ha ha.

• For more on Siri and Search
• Deep and back linking in iOS 9: Explained

Apple Pay and Wallet

There are a bunch of little tweaks here. Perhaps the biggest is that Passbook has been renamed Wallet and now contains credit cards, Passbook passes, store credit cards, and loyalty cards. For a complete list of what cards are supported, you'll want to check Apple's website.

On the Apple Pay side, it's available for both the U.S. and U.K. now (though still no Canada—sorry, Rene!). You can also enter the Apple Pay screen by double pressing on the Home button from the Lock screen, Apple Watch-style, rather than having it automatically trigger whenever an NFC reader was nearby. (If you find yourself accidentally triggering this, it's easy to turn off in the Settings app.)

• For more on Apple Pay

Notes

Notes has been completely rethought and now allows rich attachments, photographs, drawings, lists, and more. You can add styles like Titles and Headings, put together a quick little to-do list, draw your favorite cartoon character, embed a music clip or a Safari webpage, or really whatever your heart desires.

Notes keeps the in-app controls simple: You can embed an image from Photos by tapping on the camera icon, but if you want to add anything more complex, you're doing it from that app's Share screen. Tap the Share button and tap Notes, and that piece of information can be instantly added to the note of your choice. (You can even do this without the Share button proper by highlighting any text in an app and tapping Share.)

As before, Notes syncs between all your iOS devices—save for the Apple Watch, womp womp—and offers both text and attachment search.

• For more on Notes

Maps

After several years of yearning and wanting, Maps has heeded the call: Transit directions are real, they're here, and they work (pretty well)! In iOS 9, you'll have access to transit in a number of major American, European, and Chinese cities (with more coming soon); transit directions include trains, buses, and ferries, and you'll be able to see individual schedules for each as well as plan specific trips. One bonus feature: When you search for a transit stop, Apple will actually show you where that stop entrance is located—particularly useful if you spend a lot of time on the subway.

With iOS 9, you can also peer inside major venues, stadiums, and shopping malls, thanks to a major update in the company's indoor mapping data.

Maps also has a much-improved new search screen, offering shortcuts for local Yelp-sourced food, drinks, shopping, travel, services, fun, health, and transport (gas stations) in the area, along with a list of your Favorite locations, a quick link to go home from your current location, and recent searches.

• For more on Maps

News

Goodbye, Newsstand folder: You are no more. (And good riddance.) In your place, we have the News app: Apple's new answer to news and information on the iPhone and iPad. The News app collects both RSS feeds and custom-built News Format articles and curates them for your reading pleasure: You can check out what the app thinks you'll like in For You, bookmark some publications under Favorites, Explore new topics and publications, Search for content, and save pieces to read later. It's early days for the News app yet, but it's a fun place to explore and a clean way to read RSS.

And yes, there will be unblockable ads—but they'll be served by Apple's iAd service, so you hopefully won't have to deal with full-screen monstrosities or over-eager trackers.

• For more on News.app

QuickType

Apple's iOS 8 predictive keyboard gets a huge bump in iOS 9, especially if you own an iPad. UI-wise, the keyboard has lost its large character preview loupe—the one that popped up a big version of the key to let you know you were typing the correct character—and it now switches from uppercase to lowercase when tapping shift or caps lock. (Yes, our long national "is the shift key on?" saga is over.) If you hate change, however, you can reinstate the loupe or force the keyboard to stay uppercase in the Settings app.

In the iPad realm, the QuickType keyboard has gotten a lot more interesting: There are now customizable shortcuts on either side of the predictive text entries that change depending on the app. You can have a photo insertion point, attachment button, Bold/Italics option, Undo, and tons more.

On top of that, you can lay two fingers on the keyboard to turn it into a pseudo-trackpad and finely place your cursor anywhere in your current text entry. (You'll be able to do this on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, as well, but you'll use a 3D Touch gesture to do so.)

iPad Bluetooth keyboard users can also rejoice: Apple's added two new awesome features for you. First, Command-Tab now works on the iPad like it does on the Mac to allow you to quickly switch from app to app. Second, holding down a modifier key will now display all the keyboard shortcuts you have available in any given app.

• For more on QuickType

iPad Multitasking

The iPad's getting smarter. As of iOS 9, you'll be able to use three new multitasking features: Slide Over, Split View, and Picture-in-picture.

Slide Over can be accessed on most iPads by swiping from the rightmost bezel, and lets you open a tiny quarter-size pane on the right side of your device for a second app. When the Slide Over app is present, you can't edit or work in the main app; dismiss the Slide Over pane to return to your main app. (You can even switch apps in Slide Over view by pulling down from the top of the bezel in that side pane.) Slide Over should work with most of your apps as long as they support size classes.

Split View is only available on the iPad Air 2 (and soon, the iPad Pro) and lets you work on two apps simultaneously. To enter, start in Slide Over and continue to pull the drawer out until it takes over half of the screen in landscape mode—or 40/60 in portrait. (Note: Apps need to be custom-configured to support Split View, so you may not be able to do this for many apps in the beginning.) Sadly, you can't drag and drop between split apps. (Maybe for iOS 10?)

Finally, Picture-in-picture lets you shrink any video (that's incorporated the PiP APIs) and let it hang out in quarter-size on your screen while you work in other apps. It'll continue playing while you do just about anything else on your iPad—save for watching another video. You can even tuck PiP in a corner of your screen and listen to it audio-only if you don't want the video in your way. (PiP even works for FaceTime, so you can multitask while chatting with your buddies, family, work pals.)

• For more on iPad Multitasking
• Picture-in-picture multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained
• Slide Over and Split View multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

Safari

Safari has three major new tweaks in iOS 9, one of which isn't even technically part of the Safari app. The Safari View Controller offers third-party apps a better, faster way to present web pages inside a specific program; it disables the URL bar, but lets apps display the current web page (and anything you navigate to within it) in its full glory.

The second big feature in Safari has a lot of people buzzing: content blocker extensions. These allow you to install an app that, when given permission in Settings, can block all sorts of HTML, CSS, and Javascript content. That could be spoilers from the new Star Wars film, all GIF images, or—the thing that most will use blockers for—advertising.

Safari also gets a second app extension, Shared Links, which lets third-party apps add recommended links to your Shared Links pane.

If it's miscellaneous improvements you've come for, Safari gets a few of those, too—searching for weather in Cupertino, for instance, gets you a brief snapshot of the day; Safari Reader has new fonts and background colors; you can upload files to the web from myriad locations, including iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and more; and there are new Share Sheet options. (One of those new share sheet options? Save to iBooks, AKA "Print to PDF." Awesome.)

• For more on Safari
• Content blocking extensions in iOS 9: Explained

Performance and Battery Life

iOS 9 should be faster, smarter, and easier on your battery than ever before. Under-the-hood tweaks to Metal and battery optimization means that your device is working more efficiently and using less battery to do it—giving you up to an hour more of battery on each device.

On top of that, there's Apple's new Low Power Mode: It automatically asks you to activate when you hit 20 percent battery, but you can turn it on as soon as you hit 79 percent. Low Power Mode disables the following: - Mail fetch is turned off. (You'll have to open Mail to get new messages.) - Background refresh is paused. (You'll have to open apps to get new content.) - Non-urgent networking is put on hold. - Motion effects are dialed way back. - CPU and GPU are prevented from ramping up to their fastest, most power-hungry speeds.

Once it's done so, Apple claims you're able to get up to three more hours of battery life on your devices. I believe them: I almost wish I could run Low Power Mode on my iPhone all the time, because it makes the device much more efficient.

You can also now monitor your battery (and who's hogging it) in Notification Center, along with the battery life of any Bluetooth-connected accessories.

• For more on Performance and Battery Life

Security and Privacy

There are a few new fun security and privacy bits in iOS 9 to be aware of: For one, you're now required to have a 6-digit-or-more passcode. (Well, mostly. You can revert back to a 4-digit by digging into the Touch ID & Passcode settings screen, but we're going to recommend that most users stick with 6 digits or more.)

Apple will also begin offering two-factor authentication setup for on all new iOS 9 devices when first activated. (You can set up two-factor on an existing device by going to Settings > iCloud, tap on your account at the top, then tap on Password & Security.) Unlike most other two-factor systems, there's no emergency recovery key: If you lose your authentication device, you'll have to call up Apple and undergo a multi-day recovery process. Time-consuming, but probably effective against social engineering hacks.

There's also a new way to authenticate enterprise apps, and better secure under-the-hood transmissions between the web and apps in the form of App Transport Security.

• For more on Security and Privacy

Miscellany

I feel like I've written a quarter of a novel on iOS 9's new features, but yes, there are still plenty more hiding about in the operating system! Here are just some of the awesome little tidbits you can look forward to in iOS 9:

• Photos gets a thumbnail scrubber (with video scrubbing incorporated)
• Screenshots and selfies (front-facing camera shots) get their own smart albums
• You can insert file attachments in Mail from iCloud Drive
• Save email attachments to iCloud Drive or open them elsewhere
• Mail gets Markup and Reply, which opens a new email message with the attachment ready to be annotated.
• Music gets a new More button interface (looks like •••) with easier access to albums
• Home Sharing returns to the Music app
• You can now stream high-quality tracks in the Music app over cellular (via the Settings app)
• Notification Center organizes alerts in reverse chronological order, rather than alphabetically by app
• Anyone can incorporate quick text reply from a Notification banner into their app
• Find My iPhone and Find My Friends are now built into iOS 9
• Redesigned Podcasts app to bring it more in line with the new Music app
• iCloud Drive now has an app (if turned on in Settings)
• Game Center gets guest players (for when you don't want to mess up your high scores because a friend is playing)
• Games have the option to include ReplayKit, which lets you record what you're playing (with optional voiceover commentary)
• The Health app adds reproductive tracking, water intake, and UV exposure
• The Settings app now offers a search bar
• HomeKit now supports window coverings, doors, alarm systems, sensors, and switches, and offers new pre-defined scenes
• You can now manage your HomeKit house in the Settings app
• CarPlay goes untethered (if you have a compatible car)
• Over-the-air updates will be smaller—iOS 9's update is just 1.3 GB.
• Right-to-left localization for languages like Arabic and Hebrew
• Accessibility gets Touch Accommodations for folks with motor control issues, allowing you to set a customizable tap-and-hold duration, ignore tap repeats, trigger actions with an initial touch point, and keyboard customization
• Apps can offer audio extensions, essentially creating audio plugins, and network extensions for VPN and Wi-Fi management
• Content filters for education have gotten better with on-device content filtering
• For more on iOS 9 miscellany

Questions, comments?

What's your favorite feature in iOS 9? Got a question about something in the OS? Let us know in the comments.

Apple has officially released iOS 9 to the world. The update is available to customers both over-the-air and through iTunes.

iOS 9 brings a number of new capabilities and major enhancements. Siri has gotten more powerful, and Spotlight can now search apps, helping you find exactly what you need, no matter where it is. Multitasking has improved on more recent iPads, and apps are now able to run side by side on the iPad Air 2.

As with any major Apple software release, don't be surprised if the download takes some time. Demand is always high, so just be patient.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the iMore review of iOS 9, and discuss the update with the community in our forums.

• Complete iOS 9 review
• iOS 9 FAQ: What you need to know!
• iOS 9 help
• iOS 9 help and discussion forums

iOS 9.0

With this update your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch become more intelligent and proactive with powerful search and improved Siri features. New multitasking features for iPad allow you to work with two apps simultaneously, side-by-side or with the new Picture-in-Picture feature. And, built-in apps become more powerful with detailed transit information in Maps, a redesigned Notes app, and an all-new News app. And improvements at the foundation of the operating system enhance performance, improve security and give you up to an hour of extra battery life.

Intelligence

• Proactive assistance
  • Presents relevant information even before you start typing
  • Notifies you when you need to leave for appointments using traffic conditions
  • Learns what you listen to in a certain location or at a particular time of day and can automatically display playback controls for your preferred music and audio apps 
  • Suggested events and contact details are added to apps based on information found in Mail
• Siri improvements
  • Search your personal photos and videos based on dates, locations and album names
  • Ask Siri to remind you about things you're looking at in your apps, including Safari, Mail, Notes and Messages
  • Request directions via public transit
• Spotlight search improvements
  • Get sports scores, weather conditions and stock prices
  • Simple math calculations and conversions
  • Initiate messages, phone calls and FaceTime calls from contact search results

New iPad Features

• Slide Over
  • Quickly use a second app without leaving the one you're in
  • Easily switch between Slide Over apps
  • Support for Apple apps and enabled third party apps
• Split View
  • View and interact with two apps at once
  • Ability to resize your view to give equal attention to both apps or prioritize one app over another
  • Support for Apple apps and enabled third party apps
• Picture in picture
  • Continue watching a video while using your favorite apps
  • Support for Safari video, FaceTime, Videos and Podcasts and enabled third party apps
• QuickType improvements
  • Multi-Touch gestures for easier text selection on iPad
  • Quick access to text editing tools with Shortcut Bar on iPad
  • Support for hardware keyboard shortcuts
  • Support for all Unicode emoji flags

Built-in Apps

• Map improvements
  • Support for public transit lines, station details with exits and entrances, schedules and directions in select major cities
  • Browse for places around you by category, including Food, Drinks, Shopping, Fun and more 
  • Apple Pay support is indicated on place cards at participating retail locations
  • Place cards include Wikipedia information for landmarks and cities
• Redesigned Notes app
  • Add photos to your notes with the built-in camera or from your Photo Library
  • Create useful checklists and check off completed items with a tap
  • Sketch a quick thought using just your finger
  • Save interesting items directly from other apps using the Share menu
• All-new News app
  • Read your favorite newspapers, magazines, and blogs, or choose from over a million topics
  • Beautiful typography and layouts, photo galleries, videos, animations, and more
  • Browse articles that are chosen based on your interests in For You. Find channel and topic recommendations in Explore. News gets more personalized the more you read
  • Easily share articles with friends or save them to read later — even when you're offline
• Mail improvements
  • Search improvements help you quickly find what you're looking for by filtering results based on sender, recipient, subject or a combination of options
  • Support for Markup lets you annotate an image or PDF attachment with text, shapes and even your signature, then send it back — without leaving Mail
  • Easily save the attachments you receive or add files from iCloud Drive or other document providers while composing a new message
• Apple Pay and Wallet improvements
  • Support for Discover cards
  • Support for rewards cards and store credit and debit cards
  • To check out even faster, you can prepare an upcoming payment by double-clicking the Home button from the Lock Screen and keeping your finger on Touch ID
• New iCloud Drive app
  • Easily search for a file or browse in the new iCloud Drive app by date, name, or tags you added on your Mac
  • Open files in any compatible app or share with those you choose
  • Organize folders and files
  • Get the iCloud Drive app in Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive and select Show on Home Screen
• CarPlay improvements 
  • Plays back audio messages, letting you hear from people in their own voices
  • Full support for car knob controls, so you can tilt and spin to scroll through lists or pan around in Maps 
  • Support for CarPlay apps from auto manufacturers

Foundation

• Longer battery life
  • Up to one hour of additional time before you need to charge your battery
  • Facedown detection for turning display off when not in use
  • Low power mode optimizes device performance to extend battery by up to an additional three hours
• Software updates require less space to download and offer an option to install later
• iOS apps and user interface now use Metal to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance
• Improved security with two-factor authentication support and a default 6 digit passcode support for Touch ID devices

Other improvements

• New San Francisco system font
• Leave a message option if recipient isn't available for a FaceTime call
• Share voicemails from the Phone app using the share sheet
• Flight and package tracking for data detectors
• Health app adds support for reproductive health, UV exposure, water intake and sedentary state data types
• HomeKit adds support for motorized windows and shades, motion sensors and home security system accessories
• Podcasts has an all-new design, makes it easy to find the latest episodes of your favorite shows and notifies you when new episodes become available for you
• Support for Wi-Fi calling on iPad, iPod touch and Mac, without iPhone in proximity on participating carriers
• Wi-Fi Assist to automatically use cellular data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor
• Transfer content from an Android device with the Move to iOS app, visit http://www.apple.com/move-to-ios for more details

Expanded language support

• New PingFang Chinese system font
• Improved predictions, learning and autocorrection for Chinese in QuickType
• Redesigned punctuation input on 10-key Chinese keyboard
• Redesigned User Interface for right-to-left languages
• Added Siri support for Austria, Belgium (French and Dutch), and Norway
• Added Spotlight search support for Mexico
• New keyboards for French (Belgium), German (Austria), Gujarati, Hindi (Transliteration), Hinglish, Punjabi, Spanish (Mexico), and Telugu
• Predictive input for French (Belgium), German (Austria), Korean, Russian, Spanish (Mexico), and Turkish
• Dictation support for Dutch (Belgium), English (Ireland, Philippines, South Africa), French (Belgium), German (Austria), and Spanish (Chile, Colombia)
• Spell check for Finnish and Korean
• Definition dictionary for Hindi, Norwegian and Swedish
• Bilingual dictionary for French-English and German-English
• New Japanese autocorrection and improved predictions and learning in QuickType
• Option to switch between number systems for Arabic and Hindi

Enterprise & Education

• Assign apps directly to iOS devices without needing to have an iTunes Store account configured
• Improved calendar reliability for customers using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync v16
• Expanded Per App VPN support for the built-in IPSec and IKEv2 VPN clients
• New networking controls for managed apps to help limit international data roaming costs
• New restrictions to prevent changes to passcodes, device names and wallpapers, or to disable AirDrop on managed devices
• Third party app extension support for VPN, advanced content filtering, and captive Wi-Fi networks 

Accessibility

• Touch Accommodations provides additional touch control for those with physical motor limitations
• Switch Control Recipes to customize features or create your own
• Support for Siri Voices for VoiceOver users
• Additional customization of AssistiveTouch
• Hardware keyboard support for Key Repeat, Slow Keys and Sticky Keys
• Improved MFi hearing aid audio routing to choose where audio is played

Some features may not be available for all countries or all areas, for more information visit: https://www.imore.com/e?link=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.sjv.io%2Fc%2F221109%2F473657%2F7613%3FsubId1%3DUUimUdUnU33928%26subId2%3Ddim%26u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.apple.com%252Fios%252Ffeature-availability%252F%26ourl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.apple.com%252Fios%252Ffeature-availability%253Fafid%253Dp239%25257C159229%2526cid%253Daos-us-aff-ir%2526subId1%253DUUimUdUnU33928%2526subId2%253Ddim&token=MdTDKxnv and https://www.imore.com/e?link=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.sjv.io%2Fc%2F221109%2F473657%2F7613%3FsubId1%3DUUimUdUnU33928%26subId2%3Ddim%26u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.apple.com%252Fios%252Fios-12%252F%26ourl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.apple.com%252Fios%252Fwhats-new%253Fafid%253Dp239%25257C159229%2526cid%253Daos-us-aff-ir%2526subId1%253DUUimUdUnU33928%2526subId2%253Ddim&token=xx5ghz9w

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

iOS 9 is almost here: It should arrive at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET on your iOS device of choice. If you've got questions before you upgrade, here's the place to come: We've got answers to everything you might want to know about the next version of iOS, right here in our iOS 9 FAQ!

• Read our iOS 9 review!

Overview | Siri & Search | Apple Pay & Wallet | Notes | Maps | News | Keyboard | Multitasking | Performance & Battery Life | Security & Privacy | Language | & More

Overview

iOS 9 is the next version of Apple's mobile operating system for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Just iOS 9. While Apple has always given its Mac operating system marketing names, it's iPhone and iPad operating system sticks to the numbers.

You'll be able to get it starting 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET.

Come release, you'll get a notification and it'll show up in Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You'll be able to download and install it from there over your Wi-Fi network.

If you're a traditionalist and prefer cables, you'll also be able to check for and install the update using iTunes on your Mac or Windows PC.

• How to update to iOS 9

iOS 9 supports the same hardware as iOS 8, so if you're already running iOS 8, you'll be able to run iOS 9. Here's the official list:

• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad 4
• iPad 3
• iPad 2
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2
• iPad mini

• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 5s
• iPhone 5c
• iPhone 5
• iPhone 4s
• iPod touch 5

Yes, Apple has! While iOS 8 was over 4.5 GB in size, iOS 9 will just 1.3 GB. So, you'll need much less available storage space to install it. Thanks to other services, like iCloud Photo Library, more people should have more space available anyway.

There will also be new options to update when you're asleep, or when you're not using your device, to make it as stress-free as possible.

In our tests, iOS 9 seems to work perfectly serviceably with older iOS devices. The Wall Street Journal did its own series of tests on older devices and confirmed that iOS 9 has little effect on slowing older hardware; in fact, certain actions in Photos appear to be faster than in iOS 8.

Right!

Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software at Apple, said the focus of iOS 9 included:

• Foundation: Elevating the foundations of the platform by extending battery life, improving performance, and enhancing security to protect customer data.
• Intelligence: Adding intelligence throughout the user experience in a way that enhances how you use with your device but without compromising your privacy.
• Apps: Improving the apps you use most.
• iPad: Taking the experience of the iPad to the next level.

You got 'em!

• Siri
• Search
• Apple Pay
• Notes
• Maps
• News
• QuickType
• Multitasking

Also, those foundations:

• Performance
• Battery life
• Security
• Updates

While Apple Music was announced as part of the same WWDC keynote as iOS 9, it isn't part of iOS 9—it shipped with iOS 8.4 back in June. The More button (•••) did get a nice visual update with iOS 9, however! It's a lot cleaner.

• Apple Music: Everything you need to know

Siri & Search

Not just you. As part of Apple's ongoing efforts—which in part involve the awesomely code-named JARVIS engine—the company claims Siri has become over 40 percent more accurate over the last year alone. Also, the error rate has been reduced to what they claim is an industry-leading 5 percent, and speed has been increased by 40 percent as well.

A bunch. First of all, Siri will be getting a new interface that looks—and buzzes—a lot like Siri on the Apple Watch.

Also, Spotlight is largely being subsumed by Siri.

Consistency. Whether you choose to search with voice or with text, you'll do it in the same way and get the kind of results.

That means natural language! Just like you could speak to Siri as if it was a person, you'll be able to type to Siri as though you were writing to a person.

So, "What's the weather in Cupertino tomorrow" will be similar whether you say it or type it.

Remember that old Spotlight screen that used to live left of the main home screen? The one that disappeared with iOS 7? Well, it's coming back. It'll have a microphone button, so you'll be able to use voice if you want to, but you'll also be able to just start typing right into the text box.

Nope, still there, and it will still let you do standard searches without having to swipe all the way over to the new Siri search page. If you want all the cool new features, though, you'll have to swipe for them.

Beneath the search box are Siri suggested Contacts, Apps, and Nearby locations. Beneath those are Siri suggested News items.

They will indeed! Tap one, however, and you'll get the same contact options as before: call, message, FaceTime, and info. Unlike the fast app switcher, though, the Suggested Contacts aren't divided into distinct Favorite and Recent groups. Instead, Siri suggests the contacts it thinks you'll want based on recency and typical behavior.

So, if you just messaged your friend, their icon will be there so you'll be able to message them again if you want to. If you typically call your significant other before you leave work every day at 5pm, your significant other's icon might be there, ready and waiting for you to make the call. If you have an appointment with someone in your calendar, their icon will be there in case you need to reach out to them.

No, Apple actually won't know what you're doing or when. The iPhone or iPad in your hand will, and at no time will that data leave the device and go anywhere near Apple or anyone else's cloud. Your personal data, including how you use your devices, will remain yours.

That does mean suggestions almost certainly won't sync between devices. That could be bad for those who prefer consistency, but good for those who want each device tailored expressly for the way it's used.

Apps will be suggested based on similar behavioral cues. If you typically check Twitter first thing every morning, Twitter could show up on the Siri search page in the Suggested Apps section. It could also show up at the bottom left of your Lock screen, in the suggested app position.

Also, if you downloaded a new app but haven't yet used it, Siri could remind you about it in the Suggested Apps section.

Nearby are suggested places you may want to check out. For those, Apple will be using location and time of day. For example, it will be able to show you local breakfast spots in the morning or coffee shops in the afternoon. If you typically drive to work, it could show you a gas station. If you use public transport, train stations.

News will be starting off with major stories, breaking news, and generally popular suggestions and then trying to curate based on what you've previously found interesting.

Also, no. You'll still be able to tell Siri to send a message or set an alarm, but you won't be able to type any commands like "send a tweet to @reneritchie". At least not yet.

It will be! In addition to natural language, text search will now include support for more data sources:

• Sports
• Stocks
• Weather
• Apple help
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• iCloud drive
• Health
• Holidays

Also some basic operations, including

• Conversions
• Basic math

Yup! Siri will find your photos based on dates, locations, and album titles. "Show me photos from San Francisco in June" or "show me dance night photos with Taylor".

If you see something in an app—including Messages, Mail, Safari, Notes, and conceivably more—you'll be able to say to Siri: "Remind me about this" and Siri will set a Reminder and link it to the content you were on at at the time.

For example, if your coworker messages you a picture of what they want for lunch, you'll be able to say "Remind me about this at noon". The Reminder will contain the picture as a reference, and a link back to the message.

Likewise, if a new podcast arrives but you don't have time to listen to it, you'll be able to tell Siri to "Remind me about this when I get in the car" so you'll be able to enjoy it during your trip.

Yes, if your car is equipped with Apple's automotive interface technology, CarPlay. When Siri connects to CarPlay, it'll realize the location and trigger any Reminder you've set for "in the car."

Indeed. Siri will try to provide assistance even before you ask for it. For example:

• Plug headphones in when you use jog and you'll get Now Playing with your usual playlist.
• Connect to your car and you'll get Now Playing with the podcast you were last listening to.
• Start a Calendar even with a common subject and you'll get suggestions for the people you usually invite.
• Start an email with a common subject and you'll get suggestions for typical recipients.
• Receive an event invite and have it automatically added to your Calendar.
• Give you a time to leave reminder, including current traffic conditions, with immediate access to directions
• Search your email and try to identify incoming callers who aren't in your Contacts.

Nope! There are likely still significant context collision and data privacy issues surrounding a Siri application programming interface (API).

What we'll be getting, though, is a Search API.

Ways for developers to expose the contents of their apps to the search system:

• Deep links, to specific screens on the app so people will be able to go directly there, or back link to get directly back to there. iOS 9 will create these for any app opted in.
• Content indexing, which uses Core Spotlight to surface relevant information from the app.
• Web markup, which transit links from a website to deep links inside apps.

So, if you search for a recipe for tasty, tasty Canadian poutine, you'll get a result from a recipe app and be "deep linked" straight to it.

Currently, if you open an app through Siri or Spotlight, you go to the launch screen or last screen you accessed. With deep links in iOS 9, you'll go directly to the specific part of an app. For the poutine example, instead of just opening the app, you'll go directly to the poutine recipe.

There are also back links, so any time you leave search, or an app, to deep link into another app, there'll be a button at the top left of the navigation bar that'll send you right back to exact place you left. It's amazing.

Absolutely! If an app has a corresponding web site, and you tap a link that currently takes you to that web site, with deep links you'll go to the same content in the app instead.

So, if you tap a link to a tweet, instead of going to the mobile Twitter site, you'll launch the Twitter app and go to the tweet right inside the app.

Apple will only let official apps register for deep links. That makes them secure—no one should be able to intercept them or spoof them to steal data or try to trick you—but it also makes deep links locked to owner of the website.

So, if you prefer Twitterrific or Tweetbot, you'll have to keep on using them the old fashioned way.

Nope!

Apple seems to be taking steps to increase privacy around URL schemes, so companies like Twitter can't scan your device to see what other apps are installed.

Either way, URL schemes can't be used to transit web links to alternate apps. They can, and still will, be used to transit between specific apps.

Apple Pay and Wallet

Yup! Discover Card is coming to Apple Pay this fall.

Always. This time Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, highlighted:

• B&H Photo
• Baskin Robbins
• Best Buy
• BevMo!
• Big Lots!
• Dunkin Donuts
• El Pollo Loco
• Express
• Forever 21

• JCPenney
• Jonny Rockets
• Kohl's
• Lego
• Levi's
• Peet's Coffee
• Trader Joe's
• White Castle

Square is integrating with Apple Pay to provide a less expensive way for even small businesses to get started. We tried it out at Blue Bottle in San Francisco and it worked great.

• Reserve your free Square Apple Pay reader now

Pinterest! You'll be able to buy pins using Apple Pay.

If your country is the U.K, then July! If not, while rumors of Canada persist, we're all still waiting on international expansion.

There will be eight banks at launch:

• Ulster Bank
• Nat West
• American Express
• Santander Bank
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Nationwide
• HSBC
• first direct

More will come this fall:

• M&S Bank
• Bank of Scotland
• Halifax
• TSB
• mbna
• LLoyds Bank

Apple says there'll be 250,000 retail locations supporting Apple Pay in the U.K—more than the U.S. at launch—including:

• Boots
• BP
• Costa
• Dune
• JD
• KFC
• Liberty London
• Lidl
• M&S
• M&S Simpply Food
• McDonalds

• Nando's
• New Look
• Post Office
• PRET
• Spar
• Starbucks
• Subway
• Transport For London
• Wagamama
• Waitrose

Yes! How great is that?

It will. Passbook originally shipped as a way to collect all your passes: boarding passes, gift cards, coupons, tickets, etc. Now, with Apple Pay credit and debit cards, store cards, and loyalty cards, it'll become far more than that—It'll become your digital wallet.

Major credit cards and debit cards issued by stores. They typically provide some sort of bonus or benefit tied to that retailer when using them.

Apple has mentioned:

• Kohl's Charge
• JCPenney Credit Card
• BJ's Wholesale Club

With "many more to come".

Reward cards, also called loyalty cards, provide discounts or points or other incentives to encourage you to share more data and keep shopping at the same place.

Apple Pay will automatically present the proper loyalty card, if you have one, when you check out at that retailer.

Apple has mentioned:

• Dunkin' Donuts DD Perks
• Walgreens Balance Rewards
• MyPanera
• Kohl's Yes2You Reward
• Coca-Cola's mycokerewards
• Wegmans Food Markets

Likely with many more to come as well.

No, sadly. Hopefully we'll hear more this fall.

Notes

Apple says Notes is used regularly by around half their customers, which translates into hundreds of millions of people. Currently, though, Notes is barely more than a text pad.

With iOS 9, Notes will be a way to collect anything that's really important to you. Like a memory pad.

Notes will include richly formatted text, as well as:

• Sketches
• Photos
• PDFs
• Videos
• Audio
• Web links
• Map locations
• Pages documents
• Numbers spreadsheets
• Keynote presentations
• And more

You'll be able to either insert them from within the note, or send them from other apps.

Yup! From Safari, Maps, Photos, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. Just choose what you want to clip, go to the Share Sheet, and send it to Notes.

Sure, bold, italic, and underline. But also styles like:

• Title
• Heading
• Body
• Checklists
• Bulleted lists
• Numbered lists

Start typing, and Notes will be able to automatically format the first line as the title for you.

Not really. They're both drawings you make with your finger, but instead of a way to communicate with your friends, like on the Apple Watch, sketches in notes will be a way to record you ideas. Think an embedded white board or literal sketch pad.

There will also be a variety of tools, including pen, marker, pencil, eraser, and ruler, and a color picker.

The reverse chronological list view will get thumbnails, so you'll be able to recognize photos you've added to your notes. You'll be able to search, as always, and there'll also be a new attachment browser that lets you more easily, more visually, find what you've added.

A lot, and checklists in notes certainly isn't meant to replace, or be used like, lists in Reminders.

Reminders lets you set time- or location-based alerts for your checklist items and integrates with Calendar. Notes will let you make quick checklists, and in the context of additional text and clippings in the note.

You'll be able to share entire notes, but not in a collaborative way. If you want to share a checklist, you'll be better off sticking with Reminders lists as well.

Absolutely. Notes will stay synced via iCloud to your iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac.

And no, still no Notes—or Reminders—for Apple Watch.

Maps

Finally, right? And that includes bus, train, ferry, and subway directions.

Good! Transit gets its own map view that drops a lot of the noise for clean, color-coded transit lines. That makes it easy to find all the stops and stations, and get directions.

Tap on a stop or station and you'll get all the information about it, including all its routes.

Apple will be doing "multi-model routing", so if you need to walk between stops and stations, you'll get walking directions for those segments.

Fair question. Craig Federighi said Apple had carefully surveyed stations so Maps will be able to provide precise directions from where you are to exactly where you need to be, including the exact entrances to stations. That should save time and ensure you get where you need to go.

Absolutely. You'll be able to say you want to take a train, subway, or whatever mode you like, and Siri will provide you with transit directions to get there.

That... depends on where you live. Apple has announced transit for:

• London
• New York
• San Francisco Bay Area
• Toronto
• Baltimore
• Berlin
• Chicago
• Mexico City
• Philadelphia
• Washington, DC

And over 300 cities in China, including:

• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Guangzhou
• Shenzen

Transit data is typically owned by municipalities, which means there's no standard formats or organizations. They also sometimes don't play nicely with others. China is centralized and unified, so getting that data nation-wide was likely much, much easier for Apple.

One by one, which is what Apple will have to do as well.

Apple didn't say specifically for iOS, but if it's at all like the Mac, then an hour from now, later the same day or night, it's all good. You'll likely even be able to choose the time you want to arrive and see which routes will get you there.

It has. You'll be able to use Suggested Nearby to find points of interest by type, like food, drinks, shopping, etc. Tap into one, and you'll get results plus more granular filters.

On results cards, there are also directions for walking, transit, and driving, with easy to see time estimates, and an Apple Pay icon for merchants that accept it.

Maps are improving steadily, though that's likely to vary still based on where you live. Apple says the company is getting 5 billion Maps requests a week now, and that Maps on iOS is 3.5 times as popular as the next leading maps app (almost certainly Google Maps).

So, Apple has a lot of incentive—and pressure—to get it right.

It arrived a while ago! Apple added the company's own maps to iCloud.com months ago, and they also show up on Apple.com for retail stores now as well.

News

News will collect and present stories it thinks you'll find of interest, in a fluid, engaging format.

To start off with, News will ask you to choose some of your favorite sources, like Time, Wired, ESPN, and/or Vanity Fair. As you start choosing, more options will appear at the bottom. You'll also be able to choose by topic, like science, finance, and/or travel, if you prefer.

Once you've chosen all the ones that interest you, News will start a personalized feed, called "For You", based on those choices.

Exactly. Just like the front page of popular aggregator sites and apps, For You will present the stories it thinks you'll find the most interesting all nicely laid out on the screen. They'll include photos with headlines and sources.

Pick one, and you'll be able scroll down to read the story, or swipe sideways to move back and forth between stories.

Then you'll be able to tap on the Favorites tab and see all the sources you've currently chosen, and read through them without mingling them together.

You'll also be able to tap on the Explore or Search tabs to help you find other things that might interest you. Apple says News currently tracks over a million topics, so there should always be something there for you.

News will update every time you check it.

If you want to keep something handy, you'll be able to bookmark it and it'll show up in the Bookmarks tab so they'll be easy to find later.

See above.

No, not at all. Apple said they want everyone in News.

Publications will be able to sign up to provide content to News. And it also looks like you'll be able to add almost any site that provides a feed as well. (Though publications will have the ability to opt-out of News if they so choose.)

Apple vice president Susan Prescott said stories formatted for Apple News will look best, but any story will be able to be pulled into News.

It looks to be a WebKit—the same engine that drives Safari—based layout and display system that will allow for rich typography and fluid animation, so everything gets a jolt of liveliness.

Also what you'd expect:

• Text (including call-outs)
• Photos
• Photo galleries (and something Apple calls photo mosaics).
• Videos
• Infographics

It will. The Newsstand pseudo-folder will go away, and the apps that used to "live" inside it will become regular Home screen apps. That also means their special cover-art icons will likely go away as well.

Whether publications choose to keep their apps in the App Store, or fold them and go all-in on News, remains to be seen.

Yup!

News content will flow to make what Apple claims will be a rich, immersive experience on all iOS 9 devices.

It looks like News will sync between iPhone and iPad. No Mac version has been announced yet, but since iBooks eventually came to the Mac, it's worth holding out hope for News as well.

No Apple Watch version either.

Nope. News will be supported by advertising, including Apple's iAds.

Will Apple be tracking what I'm reading?

Apple says no individual information will be shared with third parties, and won't even be shared with Apple's other services.

It officially launches alongside iOS 9 in three countries:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Australia

Hopefully Apple will announce more soon. Typically putting together the content, and the advertising deals to support it, not only takes time, but specific effort on a region by region basis.

Yeah...!

QuickType keyboard for iPad

QuickType, the keyboard Apple introduced with iOS 8, will be expanding in iOS 9 for the iPad. The suggestion bar, which previously provided word completions, will become a shortcut bar designed to make text editing and formatting even easier.

The shortcut bar will provide quick access to:

• Cut
• Copy
• Paste
• Bold
• italic
• Underline
• Attach

It's there too! Place two fingers down on the keyboard, the keys will fade out, and you'll be able to use it like a trackpad to position and re-position the text entry point anywhere you like.

You'll also be able to use it to quickly select text for cutting or copying, making text editing much faster.

Nothing announced, but rumor has it the trackpad feature might make it onto the iPhones as well.

Bluetooth keyboards for the iPad will be getting better support as well. You'll be able to quickly display all the keyboard shortcuts available in an app, and even call up a Mac-style command-tab task switcher.

Multitasking for iPad

Well, like the iPhone, there's always been multitasking for Apple's own apps. Shortly after launch, the iPad gained limited background APIs for third party apps as well. Over the years, those were both expanded and refined until pretty much all App Store apps had access to multitasking in a smart, power-efficient, just-in-time way. Apple also added fast app switchers and gesture navigation to make getting around easier.

With iOS 9, though, Apple is adding multi-app multitasking to the iPad. Or, as Craig Federighi put it—taking the iPad to the next level.

• Slide Over and Split View multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained
• Picture-in-picture multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

The new fast app switcher should work on most iPads that run iOS 9.

Slide Over and Picture-in-Picture will work on the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, and iPad mini 3.

Split View will require an iPad Air 2.

Yup. The original, Safari-style straight on card switcher metaphor is gone and now there's a new stacked and staggered card metaphor to replace it.

Since frequent contacts has moved to the Siri search page, the new app switcher will be able to fill the screen and let you better see your content.

Absolutely.

Slide Over will let you quickly access a second app so you'll be able to respond to messages or mail, add to notes, see photos, or do some other, brief task while still keeping the original, primary app visible and available.

Think of it as a side bar that lets you briefly access a second app.

• Slide Over and Split View multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

Just like you swipe down from the top bezel to get Notification Center and up from the bottom bezel to get Control Center, you'll be able to swipe left from the right bezel to get Slide Over.

To dismiss it, you'll swipe from the left edge back towards the right bezel.

Yup! To change the app, you'll swipe down from the top. That'll show you icons, and sometimes thumbnails, of all the apps available for Slide Over. Tap one, and it'll fill the sidebar and be ready and available for you to use.

Probably most apps. Apple has shown or mentioned Messages, Safari, Notes, and other built-in apps, as well as Twitter. If an app already uses Auto Layout and Size Classes, it sounds like Slide Over will be relatively straight forward and quick to support.

Unfortunately, that means apps that can't use Auto Layout and Size Classes likely won't work with Slide Over. For example, many types of games.

No. When Slide Over is active, you won't be able use the primary app underneath it. Slide Over isn't meant for persistent activity though — just swipe in, do something quick, and swipe it away again.

If you want to use two apps at once, you need Split View.

Split View doesn't confine the second app to side bar or a brief interaction, and doesn't lock out the first app. It will let two apps run at the same time, persistently, and will give you full access to both of them for the duration.

• Slide Over and Split View multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

You'll swipe across to bring in a Slide Over and then tap the divider to to transform it into a Split View.

From there, you'll be able to adjust how narrow or wide you want each side of the Split View to be. iOS appears to nudge things towards common sizes, like 50/50. And, of course, you won't be able to make any app too narrow to fit it's minimum content width.

To get out of Split View, you'll grab the divider and pull it all the way across.

Yup! If you press the Home button, you'll go back to the Home screen, but when you launch a new app, it will replace only the primary (left) app, and the secondary (right) app will return to the Split View mode as though it had been pinned there.

Gesture navigation works similarly. A four-finger swipe will take the primary (left) app back to the previous or next app in sequence, but the secondary app (right) will still stay pinned where it is. Likewise, if you tap on links that go to another app, that app will take the primary (left) app's place.

Bingo.

Only two apps for now, and only on iPad Air 2.

iPad Air 2 has 2 GB of RAM and a massively powerful Apple A8X processor. Running two apps at once takes more than twice the memory and twice the power, and currently only the iPad Air 2 has those resources to spare.

If earlier iPads tried to run Split View, apps would drop frames, choke up, and get booted out of memory so frequently no one would be happy.

If you don't have an iPad Air 2 and don't want to upgrade, you'll still be able to enjoy Slide Over.

Yup! Any app that supports picture-in-picture (PiP) will be able to continue playing a video in its own breakout window, even if you go back to the Home screen, tap on a notification, or switch apps multiple times.

• Picture-in-picture multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

Absolutely. You'll be able to drag the PiP around to any corner of the screen and resize it with a pinch.

While you won't be able to hide the PiP completely, you will be able to tuck it away on the side. That way only a small part of the edge remains visible—so you'll be able to find it again later when you need to—but the audio will keep playing so you'll be able to keep listing.

Probably not. The same content providers that refuse to support things like AirPlay will probably refuse to support PiP as well. They'll either want to use some ad platform that doesn't play nicely with it, or they'll have licensing deals they feel precludes it.

That works! There's no PiP button but if you exit the FaceTime app while on a video call, it will automatically go into PiP mode.

YouTube will work if Google adds the code necessary to enable PiP to the app and the website. Likewise other video apps.

Skype and voice-over-IP apps are harder to predict. Apple is providing both video and audio frameworks for PiP using AVKit, AVFoundation, and WebKit, but VoIP frameworks would be required as well. If those aren't built into PiP, they'd be really hard to sync with the video.

Yes, you'll be able to have a primary app, secondary app, and picture-in-picture video all at the same time.

If anything goes wrong, and either the primary or secondary app runs out of memory, both close and you end up back on the home screen. (PiP seems to keep playing, though.) To help make sure this doesn't happen often if at all, developers are being encouraged to make their apps as memory-efficient as possible to make the experience as smooth and stable as possible.

The new app switcher is iPad and iPhone. Slide Over, Side View, and Picture-in-Picture are iPad only. At least for now.

Performance and battery life

Oh, so many ways.

First, Apple took Metal, the new graphics framework the company debuted in iOS 8, and made it not only work for graphics performance, but general computing performance as well. Basically, Metal now provides a faster way to do what both OpenGL and OpenCL did, and Apple has built Core Animation and Core Graphics on top of it, which should speed up any app already using those common frameworks.

1.6 times improvements in animation and scrolling. 50 percent reduction in CPU usage for drawing.

As did we all! Lets just say yesterday's frustrations are often forgotten while today's frustrations never cease to annoy. Regardless of how good or bad iOS 8 was for you, though, Apple seems to have paid attention and stability is a big focus in iOS 9.

A lot of very smart things. For example, if you put your iPhone face down on a table, iOS 9 won't show you lock screen notifications because it knows you can't see them. That prevents the display from lighting up and saves power.

Low power mode. Turn it on and iOS 9 will start aggressively preserving battery life.

Several things, all to minimize the main power draws of screen and radio:

• Disables mail fetch
• Disables background refresh
• Disables motion effects
• Disables animated wallpapers

You'll still get mail, tweets, and other messages, you'll just get them when you open the app instead of them pre-downloading and waiting for you.

Apple claims up to one additional hour for the optimizations and up to three additional hours when in low power mode.

Security & Privacy

Probably more than we've been told so far. For iOS 7 and iOS 8, Apple published security white papers that detailed an impressive implementation of platform-wide cryptography. Hopefully we'll get something like that for iOS 9 eventually as well. In the meantime, Apple did announce a few things.

Thanks to Touch ID, entering passcodes isn't something we have to do as frequently any more. So, for iOS 9 Apple will be increasing them to 6 digits. That's still not as strong as an alphanumeric password, but it's better than 4 digits.

Apple sure looks to be! 2-step authentication will be system-wide now for your Apple ID in iOS 9.

Yes, recovery keys are gone. You'll have to contact Apple if you need to recover.

No. Here's how Apple describes it in their Two-Factor Authentication support article on Apple.com:

App Transport Security is in iOS 9 as well, and it should force us all towards TLS 1.2, and hopefully better, connections. That keeps our data safe between apps and web back ends.

System Integrity Protection is for the Mac, but it's similar to the type of root security iOS has had from the start.

Well, Apple is making privacy a major focus from CEO Tim Cook down to the software. The way that manifests on iOS 9 is, for things like Siri, an architectural difference.

Instead of taking your data up to the cloud and operating on it there, the way an Internet company like Google or Facebook might, Apple operates on Internet data in the cloud, then brings it down to your device, and operates on your data there.

That way, you don't have to worry about your personal data persisting on Apple's servers.

Apple has also said they won't share data from one service to another, so if you use Apple for only a few things, you don't have to worry about your data being available to other things.

Whether or not that matters to you will depend on how you feel about online privacy to begin with. No matter what, though, it's good for everyone to have options and alternatives.

System font & language

Yup! After years of Helvetic and a brief flirtation with Helvetica Neue, Apple has made its own in-house system font. It's called San Francisco in general, and SF in specific for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitain.

Close. iOS and OS X use SF, the Apple Watch uses SF Compact. SF is better optimized for larger displays like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

There are two optical sizes for SF: Text and Display. Text is for anything under 20 pt, Display for anything over 20 pt.

Most times you won't have to worry about this, as the system handles it automatically. If you're doing work in an image editor, however, and want to absolutely match the way SF looks on the screen, you'll need to manually change from Text to Display when you go above 20 pt.

SF has six weights for Text, both regular and italic:

• Light
• Regular
• Medium
• Semibold
• Bold
• Heavy

SF has nine weights for Display, both regular and italic. The additional weights are:

• Ultralight
• Thin
• Black

Yes, system-wide! So great!

As long as developers are using Apple's UIKit and frameworks like Auto Layout, apps should "just work" for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew as well. That includes all navigation.

It's seriously amazing stuff.

And more

Yes, yes, new wallpapers! A bunch!

There will be a new scrubber bar that'll let you swipe through photos faster. It should be especially convenient when you're in the single photo view since you'll be able to see several photos both before and after without having to jump back to the moments or album view.

Right! Selfies and screenshots both get their own folders.

Yes! Praise, Gelphman, we do! There's a Save PDF to iBooks function in the Share Sheet that will generate a PDF file and, as the name implies, send it to iBooks for you. This one's been on the books for a while, so it's great to see it make it to release!

Yes, but your car is going to have to support wireless connections to the iPhone.

Good guess. Apple said wireless CarPlay is coming later, and for future cars.

Whether or not third-party infotainment systems will be able to bridge that gap or not, we'll have to wait and see.

Sure!

• Better support for knob control, so you'll be able to tilt, spin, and scroll through apps.
• Manufacturer apps for CarPlay that will let you better control the features in your vehicle.
• Support for audio message.
• Support for different aspect ratio and HiDPI displays.

So many!

In addition to the Metal improvements, Apple has added GamePlayKit for rules and behavior, a state machine, and a randomness generator. ReplyKit will let people record and share gameplay footage. And Model I/O, which will provide models, lighting, and materials for SpriteKit and SceneKit.

Yeah, maybe. (Flee while you can!)

Every chance. HealthKit not only got reproductive health tracking, but UV exposure, water intake, and sedentary state.

Yup! Apple has added new accessory types:

• Window coverings
• Doors
• Alarm systems
• Sensors
• Switches.

There are also standard scenes any accessory can tie into:

• Getting up
• Leaving home
• Returning home
• Going to bed

And custom triggers?

And custom triggers! So, for example, you'll be able to set up a series of events to occur when you open a lock and motion detectors note you're entering your home.

Absolutely. Use Siri to control HomeKit right from your Apple Watch.

Not any more. HomeKit will work with iCloud on iOS 9 so everything will be able to be done directly.

Nope. There will be a HomeKit section in Settings, however, so there is a place you'll be able to go to do basic management.

There'll be a new Safari View Controller, so apps will be able embed that instead of the traditional Web View. That means you'll get all the Safari features you want in the apps you want to use, including Reader mode, Auto Fill, existing login states, and more.

Like content blocker extensions, which could be used to prevent parts of websites from loading. (The most obvious being ads, but also heavy javascript loads on social media sites.)

CloudKit will offer CloudKit JS, so developers will be able to create web apps using iCloud logins to complement their native apps.

That'll be the end result. Basically, app thinning will allow the App Store to only deliver the parts of an app that are needed to run on the device you're downloading it too, and in the optimal form possible.

So, if it's not an iPhone 6 Plus, app slicing means you won't get the @3x graphic resources, for example. If it's a new game, on-demand resources means you'll only get the early levels at first, not all of them. Apple will also be delivering bitcode, which means it will be able to make minor optimizations to best suit the chipsets you're running, now and into the future.

How could I? Swift 2 adds even more for developers to test and even start to deploy. Check the slide above.

iOS, OS X, and Linux. Boom.

Lots. We'll be posting a lot of awesome how-tos for all things iOS 9 in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you have any other questions you want answered, leave them in the comments below. So, get to asking!

Updated September 16 with new information about iOS 9 and its release date.

iOS has a lot of great features but in order to enjoy them you need to update. If your iPhone or iPad won't finish downloading, gets stuck while installing, or won't turn back on after it's turned off, don't worry. There are several things you can try to get it going again!

1. Hard reset

Resetting is a cliche because it works. Sometimes bits get stuck and there's nothing like hitting reset to get them going again.

1. Press and hold down both the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time.
2. Keep them held down until you see an Apple logo.
3. Let go.

Once your iPhone or iPad has rebooted, wait and see. If it finishes updating, you're good. If not, or if it won't reboot, go on to the next step.

2. Plug into a wall outlet

This sounds silly but it's worked for some people: plug in. It's possible that, during the install process, your iPhone or iPad dipped below a critical power level and that's why it's gotten finicky. Find an outlet or USB port, plug in, and wait 10-15 minutes. Then, see if it resumes and try a hard reset to make sure.

If it goes back to working, great. If not, keep reading!

3. Restore in iTunes

If you've been backing up the way you should, you can restore your iPhone or iPad in iTunes. First try doing it the normal way and, if that doesn't work, go for recovery or DFU mode.

• How to restore your iPhone or iPad in iTunes
• How to put your iPhone or iPad in recovery mode

You'll need to restore from an iTunes or iCloud backup to get all your content back onto your iPhone or iPad, but once done, you'll be good to go. If even that doesn't work, you have one more things to try...

4. Go to Apple

Sometimes hardware or software picks update time to fail. If that's the case and you live close to an Apple retail store. If you don't live close to an Apple Store, give 1-800-MY-APPLE a call instead.

Your tips?

If you've found another way to get your update working, let me know in the comments. If one of these methods worked, let me know that too!

Microsoft's surprise appearance at Apple's press event this week showed off how its Office apps will work with the upcoming iPad Pro tablet. Now the company has offered more information on how Office will work with the iPad on iOS 9. It has also revealed some new features that will be coming to its Outlook and Translator apps on the Apple Watch with the release of WatchOS 2.

The biggest feature on Office with the iPad with iOS 9 is the split-screen view, which will allow apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to run next to each other. In addition, Microsoft says those Office apps can run next to the Outlook email app:

Office apps for the iPad will also support inking via the Apple Pencil:

In addition, iOS 9 will allow Office users on both the iPhone and iPad to see OneNote notes and Outlook email messages in search results. Also, iPad users with a wireless keyboard can tap on the Command key to get an overview of all the Office keyboard shortcuts.

When WatchOS 2 is released for the Apple Watch, the Outlook app for the smartwatch will be updated with some new features;

The Microsoft Translator app will also receive some additional features:

• Free - Download Excel
• Free - Download PowerPoint
• Free - Download Word
• Free - Download Outlook

Source: Microsoft

Apple has announced that iOS 9 will join watchOS 2 by rolling out to users on September 16. Apple's latest mobile OS packs a whole slew of new stuff to look forward to, including a more intelligent Spotlight search, and predictive, proactive features for Siri.

Also coming along in iOS 9 is a brand new News app that pulls in stories from a ton of publishers, a new Notes app, and transit directions for Maps. CarPlay is also going wireless for the first time, while split-screen mode is coming to the iPad.

Again, iOS 9 will hit everyone on September 16. For much more on the iPhone event, keep following along with our liveblog.

Press release:

iOS 9 Available as a Free Update for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch Users September 16

SAN FRANCISCO — September 9, 2015 — Apple® today announced iOS 9, the world's most advanced mobile operating system, will be available on Wednesday, September 16 as a free update for iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® users. iOS 9 makes iOS devices more intelligent and proactive with powerful search and improved Siri® features, all while protecting users' privacy.

The way you interact with iPad gets even better with iOS 9, thanks to new multitasking features that let users view and interact with two apps at once, side by side. With Picture-in-Picture, users can play video while browsing the web, composing email or using other apps. Built-in apps become more powerful with a redesigned Notes app offering new ways to capture ideas, detailed transit information in Maps, and an all-new News app for the best news reading experience on any mobile device.

"iOS 9 is packed with intelligence that makes every experience with iPhone and iPad even more powerful — Siri can do more than ever and new proactive assistance helps you get more done before you ask, all while protecting users' privacy," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "With iOS 9 we focused on strengthening the foundation of iOS with a deep focus on quality, and with the help of more than one million users who participated in our first ever public beta program, we're excited to release the best version of iOS yet."

Intelligence

In iOS 9, every experience with iPhone gets even better, with new intelligence that works behind the scenes to present the right information at the right time. Proactive assistance presents the most relevant information at a given time of day and suggests actions at that particular moment based on the apps you use frequently and the time of day you use them. Siri features an all-new design, contextual reminders based on time and location, and new ways to search photos and videos. Search queries deliver more relevant results from more categories, including sports scores and schedules, simple math calculations, weather conditions and stock prices.

iPad Experience

iOS 9 delivers new multitasking features designed specifically for iPad that allow you to do even more:

• Slide Over lets you simultaneously work in a second app without leaving the one you're in and easily switch between your apps.
• Split View allows you to view and interact with two apps at the same time, side by side, and resize your view to prioritize one app over another.
• Picture-in-Picture lets you continue a video or FaceTime® call while using your favorite apps.
• Typing is faster and easier with an all-new Shortcut Bar that displays convenient editing tools, and new Multi-Touch™ gestures make it even easier to select, edit and move text.

Built-In Apps

The powerful built-in apps on iPhone and iPad are designed for all your essential, everyday tasks. In iOS 9, we're delivering a completely redesigned Notes app, support for transit in Maps, an all-new News app and new capabilities in Apple Pay™.

The completely redesigned Notes app includes the ability to draw a quick sketch using your finger, easily create checklists to keep track of your to-dos or snap a photo directly in a note. Important items can be saved directly to the Notes app from other apps and are kept in sync across all your enabled devices with iCloud®.

Maps adds support for metropolitan transit systems and schedules, and subway station entrances and exits are precisely mapped. When you plan your trip, Maps can offer a combination of trains, subways, buses and walking, and presents you with what's nearby, delivering options for local food, drinks, shopping and more.*

News delivers a reading experience that combines the rich, immersive design of a print magazine with the interactivity of digital media. News can learn your interests and suggest relevant content that's easily shareable or saved for later, and delivers the best articles from more than 50 publishers, representing hundreds of titles from the world's most influential news, sports, business and magazine brands, covering over one million topics.**

Apple Pay adds support for Discover, merchant rewards programs and participating store-issued credit and debit cards. Shoppers will be able to manage their cards in the new Wallet app.

Foundation

This latest release makes the foundation of iOS even stronger with refinements including battery optimization that provides a typical user with an additional hour of battery life, and a low-power mode to further extend battery life.*** Software updates require less space to install and the Install Later feature can perform updates to your device when it's not in use. Enhanced security features in iOS 9 keep your devices and Apple ID secure by strengthening the passcode that protects your devices and improving two-factor authentication by building it directly into iOS, making it harder for others to gain unauthorized access to your Apple ID. iOS 9 apps and the user interface now take advantage of Metal™ to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation and better overall performance.

Availability

iOS 9 will be available beginning Wednesday, September 16 as a free software update for iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch 5th generation and later, iPad 2 and later and iPad mini™ and later. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages. For more information visit www.apple.com/ios.

*Transit information in Maps is available in select major cities, including Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto and Washington D.C., as well as over 300 cities in China, including Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. Nearby information is available in the US and China.

**News app availability varies by country.

***Battery life depends on usage and settings.

Source: Apple

Safari content blocking extensions don't automagically identify ads and prevent them from loading. Instead, they identify elements and resources on a web page and can, optionally, hide those elements and prevent those resources from loading. The goal is to show how fast the modern web—read: Safari—really is when you remove all the extraneous code that's been dumped on top of it. And they're coming as part of iOS 9.

The vast majority of the time the elements and resources blocked will be those used to serve ads. Other times they'll be things like social networking buttons, performance and audience analytics, article comments, navigation headers, inline frames, "hamburger and basement" sidebars, and more.

They can't block Hulu commercials or YouTube pre-rolls or arbitrary or every mention of "prequel" on a page, but there's a lot they can do.

Note: iOS 9 is currently in beta and governed by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that doesn't allow for screenshots or video. All the material contained in our iOS 9: Explained series is from previous, now public versions of iOS, from iOS 9 features shown off during the WWDC 2015 keynote, and from our coverage of the event, including our iOS 9 first look.

Content blocker compatibility

Content blocking extensions require Safari or an app using the new Safari View Controller in iOS 9 to work. They also require 64-bit processors to handle the work. That means content blocking extensions are compatible with iOS devices released in 2013 or later—the ones that include a 64-bit Apple A7 processor or later. In addition to any iPhones and iPads Apple announces this fall, that list currently includes:

• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone 5s
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad mini 2
• iPad mini 3
• iPod touch 6

While older chipsets could run content blockers, they won't run them fast enough for Apple, and content blockers are all about speed. So, that means content blockers won't work with iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad mini, iPod touch 5, or with apps that use the old UIWebView or WKWebView controllers.

Content blocking basics

Blocking content, especially ads, has been possible on desktop browsers for a while, including OS X and Safari . With content blocking extensions, however, Apple is improving them for OS X and, for the first time, making them available on the iPhone and iPad. Apple is also fundamentally changing the way content blockers work.

In the past, content blockers were services that Safari consulted at load time. That meant the act of blocking content itself could reduce performance, and information about the page being visited could be shared with the service doing the blocking. In some cases, that meant the blockers themselves could theoretically be worse than the content or even malicious.

Apple doesn't want to replace heavy CSS and JavaScript with just-as-heavy plug-ins, and they don't want to replace ad trackers with blocker trackers. They want something that's genuinely fast, light, and performance-focused. And they want something that's private and secure.

That's also the biggest difference between content blockers and content cleaners, like Safari Reader. With Reader, which debuted in iOS 5, the content is loaded first, including ads, scripts, and everything else, and then its re-rendered for maximum legibility. So, ads still get displayed, no matter how briefly, and hits still get tracked.

With blockers, the content is never loaded.

A brief history of Extensibility

Extensibility, introduced in iOS 8, is one of the most important advances in the recent history of mobile computing. They unbundle apps so features are no longer trapped in a single binary but can present remote interface and functionality in the system, in other apps, and even on other devices.

With Extensibility, apps can project widgets into Notification Center's today view; provide custom upload and update functionality, and custom actions in Share Sheets; hook filters into the Photos app; provide custom keyboards system-wide; access your files anywhere via iCloud Drive or third-party document providers like Dropbox or Google Drive; fill in passwords or translate text right inside the Safari browser; and process data on your iPhone and display it on your Apple Watch.

And they can do all this while maintaining the high level of security built into iOS. That's because the app that's receiving the interface has no visibility into the data that interface is showing. It's just the host, not the container.

• Extensibility: Explained

How content blocking extensions work

With content blocking extensions in iOS 9 (and now OS X as well), what's being blocked needs to be declared ahead of time. That way nothing gets consulted at load time and nothing about the page itself gets shared with anyone.

Content blockers, like other extensions, are hosted inside an app that gets downloaded from the App Store. Also, like any other extension, content blockers aren't enabled by default. You have to go to Settings > Safari > Content Blockers and switch them on.

Unlike other extensions, once enabled you don't have to tap a Share button to invoke content blockers or cycle through a set of options to use them. Content blockers are on all the time and applied automatically.

Here's a simulation of what iMore would look like with ads blocked (red) and with navigation and non-essential text fields (orange) hidden.

Developers can add action extensions as well, to make it easier to add or remove specific sites or content types, for example, but otherwise content blockers really are "set it and forget it".

Content blockers for developers

To create a content blocker, developers add a Content Blocker Extension template in Xcode and create a list of rules in a JSON file. The rules define what gets blocked. The rules contain triggers and actions. Triggers determine when the rules get run and actions determine what happens when they do.

For page elements like divisions (div), the trigger can be as simple as coming across a CSS class and the action, setting its display property to "none". For example, if "#about-the-author" is encountered it can be made to go away. Developers can choose to target all domains, or to include or exclude specific domains. They can also choose to target all resources or to include or exclude specific resources.

For scripts, it can be as simple as blocking them from loading. Again, developers can choose all scripts or to include or exclude specific scripts, and to exclude first party (same scheme, domain, and port as the page itself) or third party scripts.

Filtering is handled by regular expression (regex). Developers can even create rules that, if the proper conditions are met, negate other rules. So, to prevent anything about "special editions" from showing or loading, you could hide or block "special" except when it's part of "despecialized".

Or, developers could make a content blocking extension for travelers or data roamers that weighs every element, lets "light" content through, but blocks anything "heavy" to help save on bandwidth.

Once the content blocking extension is downloaded and enabled, Safari will compile the extension's rules into bytecode and apply them whenever it loads a website. If an app uses the new Safari View Controller, then the same will happen in the in-app browser as well.

That makes the extensions incredibly efficient and, because the extension has no idea what page is being loaded, incredibly private.

Since developers can provide ways to change rules in the app that contains the extension, in action extensions, and in Settings, developers can notify Safari about updates and have the rules recompiled. That includes when white lists or black lists are imported or re-imported, sites are added or removed, different elements or resources are enabled or disabled, etc.

The ethics of content blocking

There's no denying content blockers are well thought out and well executed. And when they're running, Safari flies. If Apple succeeds at nothing else, they'll succeed in making it wickedly obvious who's really to blame for poor mobile performance.

The speed difference, especially on large media sites, is ludicrous. It's like unhitching a trailer filled with lead and watching a truck, no longer burdened, take off like a rocket.

Unfortunately, there's also no denying that it's ethically questionable, at least in the case of ads.

Free web sites aren't free. Even if there's no pay wall, there's still a value exchange: You "pay" with attention and data, just like you do Google Search and Gmail. Blocking the elements and resources that collect the attention and data is effectively withholding payment. Some might call that a protest. Others, stealing.

Whether or not it's analogous to commercial skipping on a DVR, torrenting TV shows, or cracking and pirating apps, or whether it's closer to pop-up blocking, do not track, or even the push-back against Adobe Flash, is beyond the scope of this explainer.

When you add malvertising to the mix, who broke what social contract first might well be a moot point anyway.

Indisputably, an ethical form of content blocking would prevent an entire site from loading. If someone determines that a site is abusing advertising, tracking, malware, or anything else, they can add it to the list and, if they ever click a link or type in a URL that tries to take them back to that site, the browser or web view prevents it and reminds them they've blocked it. Site blocking would also protect artistic integrity in cases where, for example, a creator considers a web font integral to their design.

Beyond that, what's acceptable is something everyone will have to decide for themselves.

A brave new web

Optimists will hope that providers like Google Ad Exchange will clean up their act or sites like iMore will be able to make a go of ethical native advertising and sponsorship models. Pessimists, that advertorials and supercookies from providers like Verizon will expand to fill the void and sites like iMore will give way to sites like Buzzfeed.

There's also entire realms of non-advertising based content blocking developers could explore. That includes security-related extensions for preventing malware scripts embedded in iframes from known bad actors, and privacy-related extensions that prevent any kind of online tracking regardless of intended purpose. Like with any new technology, we won't really know what developers can do until they show us.

I'll save my personal opinions on content blockers for my iOS 9 review, coming this fall when Apple ships, so for now I'll leave it at this—mobile ads served both publishers and readers poorly long before content blockers. Little could change or everything could change. The future is tough to predict even when, later, it's obvious in hindsight.

Two distinct but distinctly important problems are solved by deep links and back links in iOS 9. Deep links further blur the boundaries between native and online by enabling web links to be opened by associated apps. Back links allow you to return from where you came. With deep links and back links, if you're messaged a tweet and tap on it, instead of going to m.twitter.com you can go to the Twitter app. And with backlinks, you could return to messages with a single tap.

Note: iOS 9 is currently in beta and governed by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that doesn't allow for screenshots or video. All the material contained in our iOS 9: Explained series is from previous, now public versions of iOS, from iOS 9 features shown off during the WWDC 2015 keynote, and from our coverage of the event, including our iOS 9 first look.

A brief history of linking and app switching

When Apple the launched the iPhone in 2007 you could move between apps arbitrarily by clicking the Home button, returning to the Home screen, and then tapping on another app. You could also tap on a link, for example a web link to go to Safari or a telephone number to go to Phone. Didn't matter if the link was in an app or a notification. Tap it and you were on your way.

To handle links to apps like Phone, iOS used URL schemes, which Apple registered for their own apps. When one of those URLs was tapped, iOS knew not only to go to an app, but which app to go to. With multiple URL schemes, links could even be directed to specific parts of an app.

Apple did allow developers to register Custom URL schemes, but multiple developers could register the same Custom URL, which could cause confusion and collisions. Because they needed to know if an app is installed to be useful, they could sniff out other apps on a device, they raised privacy concerns. Because they could be used to transport information without encryption, they also raised security concerns.

There was no way for Custom URL's to translate web links into app links either. If you tapped on a facebook.com link, you'd go to facebook.com in Safari, not Facebook.app on your iPhone or iPad.

Also, going back to where you were before, was a manual task: Tap link, switch apps, click Home button, find icon for previous app, tap icon, navigate back to where you'd been.

That began to change in 2010 with iOS 4 and the fast app switcher. From that point on you could avoid going back to the Home screen by double clicking the Home button to access an array of recently used apps in chronological order. Originally the app array was presented as a Dock-beneath-the-Dock. An under-Dock. In 2013, with iOS 7, it was redesigned as a card view, similar to the original version of Mobile Safari or webOS cards.

This year, with iOS 9, it's been redesigned again and the cards are now stacked.

Functionally, not much has changed. The card view did allow you to see the last state of an app, and the stacked card view made them even bigger and easier to see. Still, you click twice, swipe, and tap to switch apps. Which is fine if you want to switch to an app you haven't used in a while but it's not very convenient if all you want to do is go back.

Developers came up with some smart workarounds, namely Greg Pierce's x-callback-url starting in January of 2011, which allowed not only for inter-app navigation, but communication.

But we still didn't have anything iOS-wide to handle the simply task of going back to where we came from. Not until now.

How universal linking works

With iOS 9 and universal linking, Apple is establishing a better way to handle inter-app communications. Not the kind of inter-app communications already offered by Extensibility, which debuted in iOS 8 and let one app open a view controller and offer features to the system or another app, but something else.

The goals for seamless linking were:

• To let apps connect to each other as easily as links let websites and pages.
• To enabled a trusted relationship between a website and its associated app.
• To link to apps, if and when installed, but otherwise fall back gracefully to Safari.
• To protect privacy and security.

To accomplish this, Apple starts with standard web links. Apple has to in order to maintain backwards compatibility with Safari. With that link, they start to break it down.

• The scheme has to begin with http or https, again for backwards compatibility with Safari.
• The domain name, which has to be securely associated with a companion app. That's done by using an SSL certificate that's used to sign a file that's then stored on the developers' web server.
• The path or path prefix, which can be translated to specific content in the app, or exclude content that doesn't (or doesn't yet) exit in the app.

If iOS doesn't find an app on your device that can handle a URL, it simply sends it to Safari. If it does find an app that's associated with the URL, it sends it to the app.

Back links are different in kind. With iOS 9, when you tap on something in one app that takes you to another, when you get to the new app, a very small back arrow appears at the very top left of the screen. Along with the arrow is text reading "Back to" and the name of the app you came from. Tap on the arrow or the text and you're sent right back not only to previous app, but to exact screen you left.

It's not the same as the back button or gesture inside an app. Those both still exist but remain exclusive to intra-app navigation. This is for inter-app communication. It's more complex and more cluttered but it's also clearer and doesn't cause the kind of confusion or collision a combined button might. (The iPad's four-finger swipe back gesture still exists but remains a power shortcut with nothing in the way of the discoverability or affordance the arrow and text provide.)

So, for example:

1. You're exchanging iMessages when you receive a link to a tweet.
2. You tap on the link, bracing yourself for m.twitter.com but instead the Twitter app opens and takes you right to the tweet.
3. You read it, laugh or cry, and then start reaching for the Home button to double-click into the fast app switcher to look for the Messages app, when the "Back to Messages" link at the top of the page catches your eye.
4. You tap it and you're right back in iMessage, sharing your laughter and tears.

Developers and deep links

For developers, adding support for app links in iOS 9 is similar to adding support for Continuity's handoff between app and web, or shared web credentials, from iOS 8. A JSON app-site association file has to live on your HTTPS server that includes details like application identifiers and which sections and/or pages of the website the app supports, for all domains that it supports.

When a universal link is sent to an app, developers can make sure it matches the type of activity they're expecting, and then begin to parse it. If the link is outdated or just plain wrong, the developer needs to figure out how to handle it as gracefully as possible, whether it be via notification, redirect back to Safari, or some other mechanic. If the link is good, the developer needs to translate it to a location in the app and take the user there.

Developers also need to add associated website domains to their app's entitlements in Xcode.

Apple stressed that, for reasons of security and privacy, developers should make sure they transport data between the web and apps using HTTPS. (Apple is adding App Transport Security as a forward looking safeguard for these types of data exchanges.)

Back links, by contrast, are handled by the system and every app gets support for it simply by running on iOS 9.

Owners only

Because of how deep links are implemented, including the need to link apps and web sites together, only a developer that owns both the app and the websites can create the link. That means twitter.com can deep link to Twitter.app, but Tweetbot or Twitterrific would have no way to offer themselves as alternatives—they don't own the website.

This is for security reasons. You don't want random apps or websites trying to hijack you when you click a Facebook link or open the Pinterest app.

Getting deep

Deep links come with numerous advantages. They create a better more seamless experience for iPhone and iPad users, moving them cleanly from app to app with now awkward Safari interception or redirections in between. They maintain compatibility with Safari and other browsers, however, if the app isn't installed or if the link isn't being opened on iOS. Best of all, they do it securely and while maintaining privacy.

Back links come with one advantage, but it's a major one. They move you back to where you came from, and they do it in a way that's not only consistent but, thanks to labeling, always completely predictable.

I'll save the details and assessments for my iOS 9 review, coming this fall when Apple ships, so for now I'll leave it at this—Instead of being "just a big iPhone", the iPad has become "two or three big iPhones", and that makes it exponentially more useful.

We've done massive previews of iPad Multitasking in iOS 9 but if you want to make double-dagnabit sure whether or not Slide Over, Split View, and Picture-in-Picture can work on your iPad, here's the complete list!

• Slide Over and Split View multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained
• Picture-in-picture multitasking for iPad in iOS 9: Explained

Slide Over

• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2

Split View

• iPad Air 2

Picture-in-Picture

• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2

In short, iPads with Apple A7 processors and 1GB of memory can handle Slide Over and Picture-in-Picture, but you need at least an Apple A8 and 2GB of memory to handle Split View.

After the radical redesign of iOS 7, which gave us a cleaner, more physical experience, and the functional revolution of iOS 8, which extended and continued that experience beyond apps and devices, iOS 9 promises us just two simple, profound things—to polish everything that's come before, and to take the first steps towards what comes next.

Apple's grand plan for iOS 9 breaks down as follows: To add intelligence throughout the system, to improve popular apps, to take iPad productivity to the next level, and to elevate the foundations of the platform.

More specifically, Apple is making Siri and Search broader and more proactive, expanding Apple Pay, significantly improving Notes, adding transit to Maps, launching an all-new News app and service, enhancing the Quicktype keyboard, bringing multi-app multitasking to the iPad, amping up performance, extending battery life, tightening up security and privacy, and making the update process much more efficient.

I've spent the last month testing the iOS 9 developer beta, and the last few days trying out the public beta. So, how does it look?

Siri & Search

Siri is Apple's virtual personal assistant. It launched as a beta in 2011 and has been improved and expanded upon every year as part of iOS feature releases, and continuously as part of server-side updates. Most recently that's included new Apple Music commands, and a new engine that Apple says has made Siri 40% faster and more accurate. But then, when you're handling a billion requests a day, you can never be too fast or too reliable.

With iOS 9, Siri is getting a new interface that looks like Siri on the Apple Watch, including a side-to-side pulse like something out of Knight Rider or Battlestar Galactica. It's dynamic but it's also colorful and fun.

In an effort to make voice and text better integrated and more consistent, Siri is largely subsuming Spotlight. Now referred to simply as Search, it lets you type when you can't talk.

That means natural language input—asking questions the way a human would—is now available with the keyboard as well as the microphone, and Search now has access to sports, stocks, weather, Apple help, YouTube, Vimeo, iCloud drive, Health, holidays, calculations and conversions, and more. There's even a way for developers to index their own content for Search in iOS 9, so we'll even be able to find things in App Store apps.

Including, apparently, a tasty recipe for Canadian poutine...

Currently, most apps are opaque to the rest of iOS. URL schemes allow some links to some specific parts of some App Store apps, but there's nothing approaching consistency or ubiquity. Worse, once you leave an app, there's no easy way to go back to where you came from. At best you can double-click the Home button and use the fast app switcher.

Deep links and back links in iOS 9 change that by making apps more transparent to the system in general and Search in specific, and by making getting back as easy as getting there.

For example, with that tasty recipe for Canadian poutine, instead of a result or link launching the cooking app, it takes you to the exact screen that has the recipe. Then, at the top left of that screen, an arrow and label makes it incredibly easy to go right back.

If developers use web markup, they can even tie their apps and websites together. That means our days of tapping a Twitter link and going to the mobile version of twiiter.com—yes, like animals—are almost behind us. Soon, we'll tap that link and open the same exact tweet in Twitter.app instead.

Apple will only let official apps register for deep web links, and there's still no way to re-set default apps. That makes them secure—no one should be able to intercept them or spoof them to steal data or try to trick you—but it also makes them locked to the owner of the website or service. So, if you prefer Twitterrific or Tweetbot for your Twitter links, you're out of luck.

But thanks in part to those limitations, it's lightning fast. Screens slide in and out like the automatic doors on Star Trek, and apps seem as though they're embedded inside each other.

Overall, it's an incredible navigational improvement.

Back before iOS 7, when Apple made Spotlight accessible from any Home screen simply by swiping down, there was a dedicated search screen available by swiping to the left of Home. iOS 9 brings it back, but with significant improvements.

There's still a search box top and center, now with a microphone button so you can still use voice to access Search, even absent Siri. More importantly, instead of the rest of the screen being empty, iOS 9 is filling it up with Siri Suggestions.

Siri Suggestions are based on things you've recently done, things you typically do, and things the system thinks you might want to do, as well as time, location, and related activities.

The first row is Contacts. So, for example, if you just messaged your friend, their icon will be there so you'll be able to message them again if you want to. If you typically call your significant other before you leave work every day at 5pm, your significant other's icon might be there as well, ready and waiting for you to make the call. If you have an appointment with someone in your calendar, their icon will be there in case you need to reach out to them.

This replaces the Favorite and Recent Contacts from the iOS 8 fast app switcher screen, and while they're no longer separated into those categories, they offer the same functionality. Tap one and you get options to call, message, FaceTime, or to go to the Contact card for even more options.

The second row is Apps. So, if you typically check Facebook first thing every morning, Facebook could show up there as a convenience. If you recently downloaded Letterpress but haven't tried it yet, Letterpress could show up there as a reminder. If your getting close to the airport, your airline app could show up in case you need it.

This doesn't replace suggested apps on the Lock screen but rather enhances them. Now, when continuity or location-based suggestions aren't populating the bottom left corner, you might get suggested app there instead.

The third row is Nearby. These are places of interested populated based on time of day and location. For example, in the morning you might see breakfast spots or coffee shops. When you typically drive home from work, you might see a gas station or, if you use public transportation, a train station.

The last row is News. It starts off with major stories, breaking news, and popular articles in your region, and then starts curating based on what you've shown an interest in.

You can choose to show more in any section, which effectively doubles the number of suggestions. There's no way, however, to turn off any sections that don't interest to you, or to like or dislike suggestions to bias the recommendations. Also, while Search can provide results more like Siri, it can't execute commands like Siri. So no typing "message Georgia I'll be late" or "shuffle Nine Inch Nails".

You can, however, access a wealth of on-device and online content with just a few keystrokes, and that makes Search significantly more powerful and useful.

Siri can now search for and find photos on the iPhone and iPad. You can ask for photos based on dates, locations, and albums. If you've set up Faces in Photos for OS X, Siri can also find pictures of the people you know (if not, you'll get an image search pulled from Bing).

So, for example, you can tell Siri to "Show me photos from San Francisco in June" or "show me concert night photos with Dalrymple". It's a terrific way to quickly and easily find photos, and far beyond what's possible without Siri.

Siri's contextual awareness now goes beyond sequential inference, which remembered your previous request so it could use it as a filter for your next one. Now, Siri is also aware of what you're doing when you ask a question. That means, if you see something in an app like Messages, Mail, Safari, Notes, etc, you'll be able to say "Remind me about this" and Siri will set a Reminder and link it to the content you were referencing at the time.

So, for example, if you get sent a picture of an iPhone case and want to remember to look it up later, you can say "remind me about this a 3pm", and a reminder will be set with the picture attached and a link back to the message. Likewise, if a new podcast episode drops while you're busy, you can say "Remind me about this when I leave home", so you'll be able to enjoy it during your next commute.

With iOS 9, Siri is becoming more "proactive". What Apple means by that is something akin to prescience—when a virtual assistant provides information before you even ask for it. It's a controversial feature because, as typically implemented, it requires you to upload significant amounts of personal, private information to the cloud.

Apple's doing it differently, however. Apple isn't bringing your data up to the cloud, they're bringing the service down to your iPhone or iPad. That way your data stays yours, and it's not shared with Apple or anyone else. It doesn't allow for everything every competing service offers, but it does balance functionality with privacy.

With proactive, for example, when you plug in your headphones Siri can anticipate you're going to go jogging and bring up Now Playing with your usual playlist. When you get into your car, Siri can anticipate you want to continue listening to your audiobook. When you create a calendar event or mail message with a common subject, Siri can anticipate the usual people you invite or copy. When you receive an invitation, Siri can automatically add it to your calendar. If traffic changes, Siri can alert you to leave earlier and provide up-to-date driving directions. When an unknown call comes in, Siri can check your email for occurrences of that number and suggest who it might be.

It's a first step, and a cautious one, but also a valuable alternative.

Apple Pay + Wallet

Passbook on the iPhone began humbly enough, as a way to collect together all your boarding passes, gift cards, coupons, and tickets, all in one place. You could scan codes, but not much more. Last year Apple added personal credit and debit cards in the U.S., and support for near-field communications (NFC). Apple Pay was born.

This year Apple is adding store and loyalty cards and, in recognition of its expanded role and functionality, renaming Passbook to Wallet. It's not as distinct a name but it is more appropriate.

Store cards are like credit or debit cards but issued through large retailers. They typically offer you store-specific rewards and benefits when you use them. Apple has mentioned Kohl's Charge, JCPenney Credit Card, and BJ's Wholesale Club as launch partners, with more to come.

Reward cards, often called loyalty cards, don't offer credit or debit, but instead discounts or points or other incentives to encourage you to share more data and keep shopping. Apple Pay will automatically present the proper reward card, if you have one, when you check out. Supported at launch will be Dunkin' Donuts DD Perks, Walgreens Balance Rewards, MyPanera, Kohl's Yes2You Reward, Coca-Cola's mycokerewards, and Wegmans Food Markets. Again, with more to come.

Store cards are interesting, but reward cards specifically should go a long way towards encouraging any remaining retail holdouts to support Apple Pay. Apple gets to keep transactional information private, and retails get opted-in loyalty data. Close to a win-win.

Notes

iOS 9, like OS X El Capitan, sports a whole new Notes app. It takes what was once barely more than a text pad and makes it fuller-featured memory pad. Since Apple says Notes is regularly used by more than half of the company's hundreds of millions of customers, it's a welcome update.

In addition to formatting options like bold, italics, and underline, Notes now has styling. That includes title, heading, body, checklists, bulleted lists, and numbered lists.

Checklists in Notes might sound like Reminders, but are different and are meant to be used differently. Reminders lets you set time- or location-based alerts for your list items and integrates with Calendar. It's best for tasks like "pick up the dry cleaning when you leave the office" or "order theater tickets at 5pm".

Notes lets you make quick checklists within the context of your note, but with no functionality beyond the note. It's best for things like a packing lists alongside places you want to go on your trip, or a party list alongside theme ideas.

In other words, if you want to be alerted about something, use Reminders. If you want to jot down a list, use a Notes.

The biggest advancement in the new Notes app is all the new content types that can be embedded in a note. Previously, if you could find the option in the popup menu, you could add a picture. Now, you can add sketches, photos, PDF files, videos, audio clips, web links, map locations, Pages documents, Keynote presentations, Numbers spreadsheets, and more.

Sketches, not to be confused with the Apple Watch communications system of the same name, are quick illustrations you can scribble out with your finger right on your iPhone or iPad. They, like photos and videos, are displayed inline in the note. Map locations, iWork files, and the like show up as embeds and, if tapped, open the appropriate app so you can view and interact with them.

Since there's no drag-and-drop on iOS like there is on OS X, Share Sheets is where all the Notes action takes place. From Safari, Maps, Photos, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. choose what you want to clip, go to the Share Sheet, and send it straight to Notes. You can add text to your note right from the Share Sheet, and even choose to create a new note around the clip, or to add it to an existing note.

Because Notes is still tied to your iCloud account, anything you jot down on your iPhone will be available on your iPad or Mac, and vice versa. The new versions are different enough that you can only sync iOS 9 with OS X El Capitan, and not with the older version on iOS or Yosemite. So, if you want to use Notes, you'll need to go all in when it comes time to update.

Notes still isn't EverNote or OneNote, but it's far more than ever beofre, and it'll be enough for anyone who doesn't want or need to bother with yet-another app.

Since there is a level of added complexity, however, Apple has bolstered the built-in search with an attachment browser. If you remember adding something to a note, even if you don't remember the exact note, you can still scroll though and pick it out visually.

I'll say here what I said in my El Capitan first look—I typically use Notes as a live, iCloud-synced clipboard to move text-based content between my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I don't see myself switching from BBEdit or Editorial for text, but I do see myself using Notes for even more than I did before: As a way to collect things I want to remember, and have them available everywhere.

Maps

Maps gets several small improvements in iOS 9. For example, Suggested Nearby now sorts points of interest by type, like food, drinks, shopping, etc. Tap into one, and you'll not only get results, but more granular filters.

On the results cards, there are also directions for walking, transit, and driving, each with easy to see time estimates, and an Apple Pay icon for merchants that accept it.

Yes, I listed transit.

Lost in the transition to Apple Maps, transit makes its triumphant return in iOS 9, and it includes bus, train, ferry, and subway directions. It also includes a new, clean, color-coded set of maps expressly for transit, which makes it easy to find all the stops and stations along your route. Tap on one, and you get all the information you need about that station, including all the other routes it connects with.

Since not all stops and stations are connected by transit, Maps will also include walking directions, where needed, to get you where you need to go. Since not all trips are imminent, you'll also be able to see schedules for later in the day.

If you're worried about accuracy, don't be. Apple claims they've carefully surveyed stations so Maps will be able to provide precise directions from where you are to exactly where you need to be, including the exact entrances to stations.

iOS 9 will be launching with support for London, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto, Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, Mexico City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen, and around 300 cities total in China.

That's not a lot for North America or Europe, and that's because transit data is typically controlled by municipal fiefdoms. There's no standard format or organization, and no incentives for local authorities to play nicely with others. China is centralized and unified, so getting that data nation-wide was likely much, much simpler for Apple. Competitors started earlier, so they're further ahead. Apple will need to catch up.

My city, Montreal, didn't make the short list, but I tried out transit in San Francisco while I was there in June. While I don't know the routes like a local, and so can't judge how well Maps navigated them, the routes were clearly marked and easy to understand, and worked well enough that I didn't feel stressed just looking at them.

News

Newsstand is no more; it's folder is now gone and its apps are now strewn across the home screen. In its place is News, which doesn't collect apps—it collects articles. Unlike Apple Music, there's no subscription or cost for News, though. Instead, it's free for iPhone and iPad customers, and ad supported for publishers.

Apple announced almost fifty publications when the company introduced News, and has since registered countless others. News, according to Apple, also tracks over a million topics, so there should always be something to read.

Publications can sign up for News, but they can also opt-out if they think it will adversely affect their brand or revenue.

News is currently only available to people in the U.S., but the U.K. and Australia will also be supported at launch. Other countries should come online over time.

To kickstart News, you choose some of your favorite sources, like Time, Wired, ESPN, and/or Vanity Fair. As you choose, more options will appear at the bottom. You can also choose by topic, like science, finance, and/or travel, if you prefer.

News will use your choices to start a personalized feed called "For You". It's a lot like For You in Music, and the consistency is appreciated. Instead of a song list, however, it's more of a front page—A personalized front page, presented much like previous news aggregator apps, with a focus on photos and headlines.

If, instead of the aggregated For You front page, you want to read something from a specific news source you've added, you can do that in the Favorites tab. You can also browse channels (publications) and topics, like sports, entertainment, business, and more in the Explore tab, and search for them in the Search tab. Any article you bookmark will show up in the Saved tab so you can read or re-read it later.

Articles in News can contain text, callouts, photos, mosaics (galleries), videos, and infographics. It's a WebKit-based system, and it'll display articles from almost any standard source. Apple is providing a way to format specifically for News, though. That'll allow for more fluid and dynamic animations and a better presentation.

Ultimately, whether it's a good deal for publishers or a great experience for readers remains to be seen, but at the very least it looks far more consistent and convenient than Newsstand.

Quicktype

Quicktype is the name of the new keyboard Apple introduced last year for iPhone and iPad. The most profound change to it in iOS 9 is the adoption of lowercase key labels on the board itself. It ends, once and for all, any confusion about what the shift-state is on the keyboard. It does add a small amount of overhead, however, as your eye has to reacquire a different glyph every time it changes that state.

The keyboard is also no longer popping up the characters as you type by default, which was a way to visually reassure yourself you'd hit the right one. You can reenable it in Settings, but the default typing experience is now much less old school typewriter and much more digital native.

There are several new features as well, currently all targeted at the iPad.

In addition to the predictive suggestions introduced last year, the row above the iPad keyboard now also contains shortcuts. Because the iPad has a bigger display, and hence more room on that row, Apple has added easy access to cut, copy, and paste to the left side, and bold, italic, underline, and attach to the right.

Apps can override and customize the defaults, so no matter what you're doing it should take you fewer taps to do it.

It took Apple until iOS 3 to add text selection and editing to iOS and the magnifier and handle method remains one of the best implemented in mobile. With iOS 9, however, Apple has also added a "trackpad mode" to the iPad.

Place two fingers down on the keyboard and it transforms into a trackpad. Move those fingers and the cursor point moves with you. The result is text selection that's even better than best.

While currently iPad-only, it's so useful I hope it comes to the iPhone as well.

If a hardware keyboard is your thing, iOS 9 is making those easier to use as well. Hold down a modifier key to see a list of available shortcuts for any app, and press Command + Tap to switch tasks as quickly as you do on the Mac.

It's yet another step forward for those who use the iPad as an ultralight laptop.

Multi-app multitasking

The iPad, like the iPhone, has always had phenomenal multitasking. iOS is built on the same foundation as OS X, after all. For reasons of security and power efficiency, however, Apple has tightly constrained the amount of multitasking surfaced to App Store apps and to customers.

Over the years we've gone from nothing to a few specific background task threads to just-in-time background refresh, extensibility, and more. Together, it provides many of the benefits of traditional computer multitasking, except for multiple apps sharing the screen at the same time.

That's where iOS 9 for the iPad comes in.

Slide Over works on the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, and iPad mini 3. With it, you can briefly access a second app without having to leave the primary app you're using. For example, if you're reading this first look in iMore and want to chat with a friend about it, you don't have to switch back and forth between Safari and Messages and experience massive displacement each time. All you have to do is swipe in from the right bezel and the Slide Over sidebar will appear. Type your message, swipe back—or tap outside—to get rid of it, and you're back to reading. If that sounds as easy as Notification Center or Control Center, that's because it is.

To change the app contained in the Slide Over, you can swipe down from the top of the sidebar, scroll through the options, and tap the icon for the app you want to switch to.

When Slide Over is active, the original (primary) app you were using becomes inactive, so you can't use both apps at once. That's what Split View is for. Slide Over is meant for quick interactions. The exception is media: audio and video will keep playing even while you're using Slide Over. Video will still dim slightly, and the right side will be covered over with the side bar, but that's why there's Picture-in-Picture as well.

Apple already has Slide Over working with Mail, Messages, Photos, iBooks, Videos, Game Center, Contacts, Calendar, Clock, QuickTime, Maps, Notes, Podcasts, and pretty much all the company's apps. They've also demonstrated Twitter working in Slide Over and said that any app that supports the Adaptive UI (Auto Layout and Size Classes) introduced over the last few years should be able to support Slide Over without much trouble. It's something like presenting a compact, iPhone-width version of the app inside the Slide Over sidebar on the iPad.

It's what makes Slide Over such a good use of the iPad display without compromising it—it never gets in your way, it's just there whenever you need it.

Split View is currently only available on the iPad Air 2. Unlike Slide Over, Split View doesn't freeze the primary app and confine the secondary app to a sidebar. Split View is full-on dual-app multitasking.

To get into Split View, you start with Slide Over and then tap the divider. That transforms it into Split View. From there, you can drag to adjust the width of each side. (Though you can't make any app too narrow to fit its own content and iOS will nudge things towards standard ratios, like 50/50).

To change the secondary app (the one on the right), you can use the same downward swipe as Slide Over to access the same app switcher. To change the primary app (the one on the left), you can use the typical iPad app-switching methods: Click the Home button to return to the Home screen and select another app, double-click the Home button to bring up the fast app switcher and select another app, use the four-finger gesture navigation to swipe back or forth between apps, or tap on a link that opens another app. To get out of Split View, you drag the divider all the way across: right to keep only the primary app, left to keep only the secondary app.

It requires an iPad Air 2 because that's currently the only device with the 2GB of RAM and monstrous Apple A8X processor capable of handling two apps at full speed at the same time. That's also why it's not multi-window, multi-app like OS X on the Mac where you can have interfaces stacked and strewn all over the place, and drag and drop between them. It's something that better suits iOS and the iPad.

It's obviously not the first system to do app-pinning or split-view multi-windowing. But the implementation is flexible and fluid, and appears to have been settled on with a lot of care and consideration. And so far, so functional.

Picture-in-Picture works on iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, and iPad mini 3. It recognizes that, for video, sometimes neither slid over nor view split are ideal. So, it lets the video float on top of whatever other app or apps you're using, and to keep on playing regardless of what else you're doing. (Except for watching another video: tap to play one and it'll pause the other.)

To enter Picture-in-Picture mode, you tap the new PiP button. It sits just to the left of the full-screen button on the standard video controller. Once it's floating, you can drag it to any corner of the screen, and resize it with a pinch. It's not a complete free-for-all, however: iOS will bounce the PiP to an exact position where it doesn't cover up important controls, and an exact size where it's not too small to see or so big it defeats the purpose of PiP.

You can also tuck the PiP away on the side of the screen so only a small part of the edge remains visible. That way the audio keeps playing while you do something else, but you can easily find and pull it back out later when you want to.

Like AirPlay, some apps may build their own video players and not include PiP functionality for licensing or ad-splicing reasons. I hope that doesn't happen, though. The functionality is so great it would be a silly to sacrifice any of it.

On the iPad Air 2, you can have Picture-in-Picture running on top of Slit View, for a total of three apps all live, all at the same time. For it to work, each app has to play nicely and share resources that used to be theirs and theirs alone. So, there'll likely be some growing pains at first, and some times when an especially resource intensive App Store app—we all know the usual social suspects—gets us jettisoned back to the Home screen.

Like any transition, it'll take time for developers to update. But sitting here, Safari on one side, Notes on the other, The Flash season finale playing on top, I can't imagine going back.

Performance + Battery life

Apple took a lot of hits when it came to software stability last year. That happens every year, of course, but iOS 7 and iOS 8 brought fundamental changes to the way the iPhone and iPad looked and worked, and more than a little pain along with them. iOS 9 aims to address a lot of that.

For performance, Apple is greatly increasing the scope of Metal, the graphics framework the company introduced last year as a thinner, faster alternative to OpenGL. This year, Apple is folding in OpenCL, its general computing framework, and moving the CoreGraphics and CoreAnimation frameworks to sit on top of it.

That means any app already using any of those frameworks should see an instant boost to performance; Apple claims 1.6x in animation and scrolling and 50% reduction in CPU usage for drawing.

For battery life, Apple is making iOS 9 smarter. For example, if iOS detects that your device is face down, it'll suppress lock screen notifications, which prevents the display from lighting up, which saves power. All told, Apple claims the new smarts alone add up to one hour of extra battery life.

For more, there's Low Power mode.

You can enter Low Power mode at any time through Settings. iOS will also prompt you to enter it when you get the standard 20% and 10% battery warnings. If and when you enabled Low Power, mail fetch will be turned off, as will background refresh, motion effects, and more. All told, Low Power mode will give you up to an additional three hours of battery life.

You don't have to worry about missing things like mail though. It'll still all download when you open the app, it just won't do it until then.

I tried Low Power extensively while roaming in the U.S.—always a tremendous battery drain due to cellular network performance—and it worked fantastically well.

Security + Privacy

We'll likely have to wait until Apple updates the company's always outstanding iOS Security White Paper to find out all the details about iOS 9 improvements, but a few things have already been announced.

With iOS 9, the old 4-digit passcode is becoming the new 6-digit passcode. That's still nowhere nearly as strong as the alphanumeric password option, but it's an improvement and, thanks to TouchID, one that won't significantly impact convenience for people who prefer the pin.

Apple is building full 2-factor authentication for iCloud accounts into both iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. It's separate from, and will eventually replace, the old 2-step authentication system Apple previously used for some iCloud services. Notably, it doesn't include a recovery key but a recovery process. That's rattled some information security people but will probably prove more practical for the mainstream customer base Apple is targeting. (Where data loss, not data compromise, is the more frequent and damaging concern.)

App transport security will hopefully force everyone towards TLS 1.2, and eventually better connections. That will help keep our data safe as it gets transferred between apps and the cloud.

As mentioned previously, Apple is taking a fundamentally different approach to data operations than many of its web-centric competitors. So, instead of taking your data up to the cloud and operating on it there, the way an Internet company like Google or Facebook might, Apple operates on Internet data in the cloud, then brings it down to your device, and operates on your data there.

That way, you don't have to worry about your personal data persisting on Apple's servers or anywhere else.

What's more, Apple has said they won't share data from one service to another, so Proactive doesn't touch News doesn't touch Music, and so on. That way, if you only use a few Apple services, you don't have to worry about your data being available to other services.

Whether or not that matters to you will depend on how you feel about online privacy to begin with. No matter what, though, it's good for everyone to have options and alternatives.

Updating

Last year a lot of people ran into problems updating to iOS 8. More specifically they ran out of storage space and couldn't download the update. Apple's been working hard ever since to reduce the amount of space necessary to update.

While iOS 8 was over 4.5 GB in size, iOS 9 will just 1.3 GB. That means you'll need less space to update. Apple has also introduced new services like iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Music Library, which should better optimize local storage and ensure more space for updates as well.

Apple will also offer to let you temporarily remove apps, and immediately restore them, if it makes the difference between having enough space to update or not. What's more, Apple has implemented "app thinning" so that apps take up less space on your device going forward. With app thinning, the App Store to only deliver the parts of an app that are needed to run on your specific device. So, if it's not an iPhone 6 Plus, app slicing means you won't get the @3x graphic resources, for example. If it's a new game, on-demand resources means you'll only get the early levels at first, not all of them. Apple will also be delivering bitcode, which means it will be able to make minor optimizations to best suit the chipsets you're running, now and into the future.

There will also be new options to update when you're asleep, or when you're not using your device. It's all designed to make the whole updating process as stress-free as possible.

Miscellany

There's a lot more to iOS 9 than just the tentpoles. Apple has made a lot of small but welcome changes throughout the system, and a few major changes to the system itself. Beyond the developer-specific features, many of them will make the iPhone and iPad more enjoyable and more accessible.

There's a new fast app switcher interface for iPhone and iPad that replaces the flat card view with a new stacked and staggered card view. You can still clearly see three sets of apps and icons—previous, current, and next—but now you also get the blurry hint of a fourth in the background.

The new layout may need some sort of reduced motion mode for those with vertigo and similar conditions, but it does provide for much bigger app thumbnails so you can more clearly see what's on a screen before tapping on it.

Continuity apps still appear here as well.

In addition to Siri access, Photos in iOS 9 is getting an everything-old-is-reinvented-again scrubber. It not only lets you swipe through photos faster, when you're in single photo view, it lets you see the photos before and after it in the sequence. That provides more context, but it also makes finding the right photo much more efficient—no swiping blindly or jumping back to moments or albums just to see what else is around.

It's also highly likely that anyone who ever wanted an automated screenshot folder will be happy, and that an automagic selfie photo might have just come along for the ride.

Apple's web browser gets a couple small yet significant new features for iOS 9. First, Safari can now be embedded in other apps. That means, if developers implement the Safari View Controller, when you tap on a link inside an app, all your logins, bookmarks, form data, and everything else is available to you, just as if you were in Safari proper. It's a huge improvement and leverages extensibility to make sure it's still private and secure.

Speaking of extensibility, there's also new content blocker extensions. Developers can use them to make apps that'll let you suppress bits of websites, most obviously ads, but also social plugins, heavy interactive elements, or pretty much anything at all.

It might simply mean more ads go native and social sites figure stick to tracking pixels, but it will hopefully move the web towards better, lighter performance.

After years of Helvetic and a brief flirtation with Helvetica Neue, Apple has released its own system font: San Francisco. Specifically for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan: SF. (Though there's at least one case of iOS 9 using the Apple Watch version, SF Compact, and to great effect.)

There are two optical sizes for SF: Text and Display. Text is for anything under 20 pt, Display for anything over 20 pt. Most time you won't have to worry about the difference—the system handles it automatically. If you're doing work in an image editor, however, and want to match the way SF looks on the screen, you'll need to manually change from Text to Display when you go above 20 pt.

There are six weights for Text, both regular and italic: Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, and Heavy. Display has nine weights total, adding: Ultralight, Thin, and Black.

It's gorgeous.

Impressively, Apple has also added full, system-wide support for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew. That includes every bit of every interface, from button placement to gesture direction, all working flawlessly for any app that's already using UIKit and Auto Layout.

It's a different kind of accessibility, but it's every bit as important. Kudos, once again.

In iOS 9 the Health app, and HeathKit service, adds reproductive health tracking—yes, finally!—along with UV exposure, water intake, and sedentary state.

HomeKit, Apple's standard for home automation, will now support window coverings, doors, alarm systems, sensors, and switches. There are also new, standard scenes that any device can access, including getting up and going to bed, and leaving and returning home.

Custom triggers will let you set up sequences of events, for example, if the door is unlocked and the motion sensor detects you moving towards the kitchen, it can turn on the lights and fire up the coffee maker.

Better still, HomeKit can now tie directly into iCloud, so you can control everything remotely even if you don't have an Apple TV to serve as the hub.

There's no Home.app, but there is a HomeKit section in Settings now, making basic management much more consistent and convenient.

Sure, it's called Save PDF to iBooks, but by Gelphman it's there. From any screen with a Share button, just tap to open the sheet, and tap again to generate the PDF.

With iOS 9, CarPlay gets better support for knob control, so you can tilt, spin, and scroll through apps. There's also support for manufacturer apps so that you can control the features specific to your vehicle, as well as support for audio messages and different aspect and HiDPI displays.

A CarPlay connection will also allow your iPhone to use your car as a geofence for Siri and Reminders. So, you can say, "Remind me to call the dealer and give them my mileage when I get in the car".

Also, CarPlay is going wireless. It'll only be available for new cars, and only when manufacturers start rolling out support, but if and when you get such a miracle vehicle, your days of needing a Lightning cable in the glove box will be behind you.

For more information on the the iOS 9 public beta, including how to download, downgrade, and provide feedback, see:

• How to download the iOS 9 public beta
• How to downgrade from iOS 9 back to iOS 8.4
• How to send iOS 9 public beta feedback

Coming this fall

iOS 9 is currently in both developer and public beta and is scheduled for general availability this fall. It's a free update, and it'll support all devices currently running iOS 8. That goes all the way back to the iPhone 4s, iPod touch 5, original iPad mini, and iPad 2. In other words, everything from 2011 on forward.

It's not the radical redesign of iOS 7 or the functional revolution of iOS 8, but iOS 9 has the performance and polish that makes everything that came before better, and sets the iPhone and iPad up for everything that comes next.

I've thoroughly enjoyed testing it in beta—especially on the iPad Air 2—and look forward to using it in its final, finished form this fall.

The idea behind two-factor authentication is exactly what the name implies: Your password alone is no longer enough to access your account, you need something else as well. In the case of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, that something else is a 6-digit verification code transmitted directly to a device you trust and have in your physical possession. So what happens if something goes wrong and you get locked out? What happens if someone tries to hack their way in?

What is two-factor authentication and how does it work?

There are several "factors" that can be used for authentication. A password is "something you know". A fingerprint is "something you are". And a verification code is "something you have". When a system requires only one thing, like a password, it's "one factor" (or "single factor"). When a system requires a second thing, like a password and verification code, it's "two factor" (or "multi factor"). The first is more convenient, the second more secure.

Right now, to access your Apple account (iTunes and/or iCloud) from a new device or web browser, or to do certain things like change your password, all you need to enter in your email address and current password. With two factor enabled, you'll need to enter in your email address and current password, and a 6-digit verification code.

The difference between to the 6-digit verification code and something like your iPhone or iPad passcode—which also changes to 6-digits in iOS 9—is that it can't be remembered. A new sequence of numbers has to be generated and sent to you each and every time you need to enter them.

The verification code can be sent to any device that is already logged into your Apple account (and is therefore "trusted"), and also via SMS or automated voice call to the phone number you register when you set it up.

Unlike your password, however, the 6-digit verification code isn't something you can remember. It's something that will be different each and every time you need to use it, and so it's something that needs to be generated and sent to you anew each and every time you need to use it.

What happens if you can't get your verification code?

Most of the time you'll have an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or non-Apple phone you've signed into or registered with your account and you'll be able to get your verification code if and when you need it.

Also, since you only need it to add new devices (you buy a new iPad, for example), you log in from a new web browser (while on vacation and at an internet cafe, for example), if you wipe a device and need to set it back up from scratch, or if you want to change your password, you shouldn't need a verification number very often.

But if you do need it, and for some reason you can't access a trusted device or registered phone, Apple has a recovery procedure you can follow:

Can someone use the recovery process to socially-engineer their way into my account?

Whenever a account recovery process exists, some people—rightly—worry that it could be abused. For example, that a hacker could call up and con the person in charge of the process into giving them access by rattling off some names or numbers they found using search or social networks.

In this case, Apple specifically points out:

So, by eliminating humans from the communications chain, it looks like Apple has made it extremely difficult for a typical social engineering attack to work.

Where can I get more information on two-factor?

Apple has put up, and continues to update, a support document with all the basic information you need to know. We'll also be covering it in detail when iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan launch this fall. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions!

As Apple famously did with Snow Leopard on the Mac, this year's version of iOS primarily focuses on better stability and more polish. While there may be fewer "big" features in iOS 9, that doesn't mean that there are zero new things. If you're anything like me and Federico Viticci, champions of iPad productivity, then the tablet's new multitasking capability is headlining in itself. And, as I recently wrote for TechCrunch, Apple continues to push forward in its support for the accessibility community.

Touch Accommodations

Touch Accommodations lets people adjust the sensitivity of an iOS device's touch screen. This feature is largely targeted at people with motor delays, who may have problems tapping the screen. More specifically, Touch Accommodations is designed to help people limit the amount of spurious input from unintended (or unregistered) touches.

When Touch Accommodations is enabled, there are several options that can be used to customize the experience. One example of this is Hold Duration, which allows people to define a set amount of time the screen is to be held before a touch is registered. Again, this kind of feature is useful because it prevents accidental taps.

Keyboards

There's a new Keyboard pane under Accessibility in iOS 9, replete with options for hardware and software keyboards.

Hardware-wise, iOS 9 adds enhanced support for Bluetooth keyboards. There are new toggles for Key Repeat, Sticky Keys, and Slow Keys, all of which come to iOS from OS X. In a nutshell, these options are to hardware what Touch Accommodations is to software. Things like Key Repeat and Sticky Keys help people with motor impairments to better control the typing experience by preventing spurious input and unregistered keystrokes.

In terms of software, the addition here is an option to Show Lowercase Keys. Turning it on will change the casing on keyboards (both system and third-party) from uppercase to lowercase when the Shift key is pressed.

Xcode Accessibility Debugger

This feature is a developer-facing one, but I'm including it here because it's so cool. I first learned about it while listening to episode 124 of John Gruber's podcast, The Talk Show, during which Gruber and guest Guy English talk briefly about Apple's efforts in supporting accessibility.

With the new Accessibility Debugger in Xcode, developers are now able to debug, in real time, problems with their app's accessibility. For example, a developer using VoiceOver can now make sure that text labels and images in their app work properly with VoiceOver. If problems are found, developers can fix them right away. (A similar, but not new, feature is Xcode's Accessibility Inspector, which also helps in gauging app accessibility.)

While bugs are inevitable and beta testers valuable, the addition of the accessibility debugger is huge insofar that Apple is giving developers another tool with which to best support accessibility. In the grand scheme, such a tool only benefits users, as more apps will be open (read: accessible) to those with special needs.

Small but substantial

As I wrote at the outset, iOS 9 doesn't deliver as much in terms of quantity as its predecessors. Even so, the things that Apple is adding to the new operating system are substantial nonetheless.

Touch Accommodations is a good example. My cerebral palsy causes me to have bouts of involuntary movement, which oftentimes results in accidental touches on my iPhone or iPad. While I've yet to play with the iOS 9 betas, I can imagine that Touch Accommodations will be really handy in this context. No longer will I have to worry so much about tapping the wrong button and triggering an unwanted action because of spastic movement. I can simply use, say, the Hold Duration feature to define a time before a touch event is read.

While iOS 9 is effectively a "Snow Leopard" release, Apple still is striving to innovate and iterate in myriad ways. As iOS as a whole has matured, so too has its Accessibility feature set. There is a bevy of diverse, robust features, and Apple continues to invest in making them better and more inclusive. Touch Accommodations and especially the developer tools are shining examples of this.

The accessibility community has lots to look forward to this fall.

Thanks to a change that eliminates the need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to use Continuity, it looks like users will be able to make and receive calls and texts on their Mac or iPad over a cellular connection with iOS 9. This will require the support of carriers, and T-Mobile is confirming that the feature is currently working with its network in the iOS 9 beta. From The Verge:

With the ability to respond to calls and texts even if you leave your phone at home, one can't deny that this is a bit of a game-changer for Continuity's usefulness. While T-Mobile is the first to roll out support for the feature (while iOS 9 is in beta form, no less), it's hard to imagine that the other carriers are far behind. It's unclear if they may add support during the beta, or sometime after iOS 9 goes live.

Source: The Verge

](/wwdc-2015)

We're a month away from iOS 9's public beta and still a few months from any sort of release, but Apple's already teased a ton of information about the iPhone and iPad's next major operating system. And, like I do just about every year, I've compiled a collection of my favorite tiny features you may not have heard about yet, thanks to the onslaught of info.

Spoiler: There's a lot.

1. Settings gets a search option!

I can't remember how long I've wanted to search in the Settings app, but it's been a long, long time. And soon, all my wildest dreams will come true: I'll be able to type in "Bold Text" in the search field and immediately get the option in question.

2. Turn Siri into Jarvis

Siri has long been able to talk to you in multiple accents and dialects, but prior to iOS 9, choosing a British Siri meant that you were also telling your iPhone or iPad to listen for a British voice. No longer: Come iOS 9, your language and Siri's voice will be split into two distinct preferences. If a virtual English butler is what you desire, Siri will soon be able to make that happen. (British Siri not guaranteed to stop insane AI or build you an Iron Man suit.)

3. Siri won't talk if your ringer is silent

If you'd prefer that Siri not talk to you when you've silenced your phone, there will soon be an option to enable just that. Instead, Siri will use text responses only to chat with you — useful if you want to use voice communication in a crowded area.

4. The beauty of low power mode

Apple mentioned iOS 9's new Low Power Mode during the WWDC keynote, but didn't really get into detail about it; at the State of the Union, however, engineers talked a bit more about how the switch will work. Enable it, and you'll switch Mail from push to fetch; disable background app refresh; and turn off motion effects and animated wallpapers. The goal is to increase your battery life by a few extra hours — and anything that gives me more time on my iPhone is a good goal indeed.

5. Apple fixed the shift key... sorta

Our long national shift key nightmare is soon to be over... mostly. No, Apple hasn't really altered the graphic for the shift key in iOS 9, but it has introduced lowercase keys as an option whenever shift isn't enabled. It definitely fixes the "Is my shift key on?" problem, but if it's not your visual cup of tea, don't worry: You'll be able to disable it.

6. Do more with an iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard

When you're using your iPad with an external keyboard, that keyboard will soon have a lot more control over what you're doing. For one, you'll be able to use a version of OS X's popular Command-Tab switcher to quickly move between apps. In addition, developers will even be able to build custom keyboard shortcuts for their apps using the command, option, or control keys.

7. There's an iCloud Drive app

Longed for by many, prayed for by some, iCloud Drive will at long last get the option for a physical app — if you want it. By default, the app is hidden, but you'll be able to turn it on come iOS 9 in iCloud's settings screen.

8. Android switching just got easier with the Move to iOS app

Apple is building not just one Android app this year with the launch of Apple Music, but two — the company is also creating a Move to iOS app for potential Android switchers that expedites and cleans up data transfer between your old Android phone and new iPhone.

You'll be able to move contacts, message history, your camera roll, web bookmarks, mail accounts, calendars, wallpaper, and any DRM-free songs or books you've downloaded; in addition, it notes which free apps you downloaded on Android and offers them as a suggested download list on your iPhone. (Any paid apps you owned on Android that exist on the iPhone go into your iTunes wish list.)

9. Your passcodes are now six digits

As part of Apple's increasing emphasis on security, new devices will need a minimum six-digit passcode, not a four-digit one. (If you've already set up a four-digit passcode, it looks like you may be grandfathered in unless you change it at some point down the line.)

10. iPad-only: Quickly add attachments from the shortcut bar

One of the iPad's new productivity features in iOS 9 is a fancier software keyboard, including the new shortcut bar. The bar has universal shortcuts like cut, copy, and paste, but each app can also customize this bar. This leads to awesome quick shortcuts like having an attachment button when composing or replying to new email. Goodbye, tap-and-hold contextual menu!

11. Choose which of your devices get phone calls and texts

Don't want your phone calls to ring your iPad? Prefer your texts stay off your work Mac? In iOS 9, you'll have granular control about what rings where, and you'll be able to turn certain machines off entirely.

12. Double-press the Home button to activate Apple Pay

A particularly welcome change, Apple Pay will, in iOS 9, trigger on your iPhone when you double-press the Home button. This should prevent accidental credit card popups when you're walking by an NFC terminal or interacting with an NFC unit that isn't properly equipped with Apple Pay.

13. Reproductive health comes to the Health app

The last year has seen many people reach out to Apple about adding Health app entries for bodily functions like menstruation, ovulation, and more, and it looks like they're getting their wish: Health in iOS 9 will support a whole host of reproductive health features, including menstruation, spotting, ovulation, sexual activity, cervical mucus, and basal body temperature. These readings can be incredibly important for couples trying for children, and it's awesome to see Apple build in support for this area in Health.

14. Maps will report transit incidents and delays

iOS 9's new Transit feature for Maps not only offers bus and train directions — and shows you where the entrances to those depots and stations are — but it also will display any delays you might run into while traveling. Granted, data for these delays depends on the reliability of the city transit group supplying that data, but it's still a nice feature to have.

15. There's a ruler option for drawing straight lines in Notes

Wondering how Apple was able to make such nice-looking floor plans in the Notes app? It's not because they have impeccable touchscreen artists at their beck and call (although that's partially true): Come iOS 9, you too will be able to draw straight like an arrow with Notes's Ruler tool.

16. Use your CarPlay-equipped car as a geofence

This was mentioned in the keynote briefly, but with iOS 9, you'll be able to use any CarPlay-equipped car as a geofence location for your reminders. This means that if you tell Siri "Remind me to take my roller derby gear when I leave the car," it will trigger when I turn off my car — and CarPlay, with it.

17. Spotlight will search within apps

In iOS 9, if your third-party app supports it, Spotlight will be able to search not only app names, but within the apps themselves. So if you search for a recipe, for example, you may be able to get results from within your recipe app.

18. Back to the app

When you follow a link in iOS 9 that takes you into another app, you'll get a nice little arrow in the upper left corner that offers to take you back to the previous app after you're finished reading. It's a nice option in lieu of the double-press multitasking shortcut we all know and love.

... And so much more

There are a ton of other little cool things buried in iOS 9, too: Travel time recommendations for your Calendar events; the side-switch locking rotation or mute on both iPhone and iPad; Safari's find on page and desktop site commands moved to the Share menu; editing your HomeKit home from the Settings app, rather than a third-party HomeKit app; more touch accessibility options; grouping incoming notifications by app; and so much more.

And iOS 9 is still a few months away from its public release, so these features may change or disappear entirely, replaced by newer and shinier features.

What are you looking forward to about iOS 9? Let us know below.

](/wwdc-2015)

Apple News is a new application for iPhone and iPad coming in iOS 9, built around your favorite news content. It lays out your news in a grid, animating as you scroll. News allows publishers to create custom content, including typography and layouts, bringing their branding into the app.

In addition to custom typography, publishers can also insert inline photo galleries, videos, and more. Publishers include The New York Times, Quartz, and ESPN. The New York Times offers users 30 free articles every day.

When you first open News, it will ask for your favorite publications. While reading, you can scroll through articles, and swipe left and right to move to a new one. You can bookmark articles to read later, and save your favorite publications and topics. News will also suggest new things to read based on what you read.

News will roll out first in the U.S., U.K., and Australia.

Stay tuned to our WWDC liveblog for more.

Press Release:

Apple Announces News App for iPhone & iPad

Delivers News in a Beautiful & Uncluttered Format

SAN FRANCISCO — June 8, 2015 — Apple® today unveiled an all-new News app delivering the best news reading experience on any mobile device. Available with iOS 9 this fall for iPhone® and iPad®, News combines the visually rich layout of a magazine with the immediacy and customization of digital media. News follows over a million topics and pulls relevant stories based on your specific interests that can be easily shared or saved for later — without compromising your privacy. News is powered by the new custom-designed Apple News Format™, a digital publishing format that allows publishers to create beautiful layouts.

"News seamlessly delivers the articles you want to read in a beautiful and uncluttered format, while respecting your privacy, because Apple doesn't share your personal data," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We already have nearly 20 publishers representing more than 50 titles joining us, including Condé Nast, ESPN, The New York Times, Hearst, Time Inc., CNN and Bloomberg."

News conveniently collects all the stories you want to read in one place, in a customized newsfeed called For You. Readers can see the publisher channels and topics they're following in Favorites, and to discover new content, Explore makes great suggestions based on what you've already read. The more you read, the more personalized the News app becomes, refining the selection of stories delivered to your iPhone or iPad.

Apple News Format allows publishers to create stories that look beautiful and take advantage of the full power of iOS. Content can include photos and galleries, audio, video, maps and rich interactions such as parallax and animation. When publishers create their stories for News, content comes alive with custom fonts and intuitive Multi-Touch™ gestures. Apple News Format automatically customizes the layout for each screen size, so News content looks great on both iPhone and iPad.

"Condé Nast's premium content deserves a premium mobile experience and the News app delivers that," said Bob Sauerberg, President of Condé Nast. "News offers an environment that combines the rich, immersive design of our photography, artwork and editorial expertise with the interactivity and dynamism of digital media — it's stunning."

"ESPN fans are incredibly engaged in the way they consume our content, so the more vibrant experience we can offer, the happier they'll be," said John Skipper, President of ESPN Inc. and Co-Chairman of Disney Media Networks. "We've seen incredible success with our ESPN apps on iOS, and News is only going to make a richer, more personal experience for our readers so they can stay up-to-date on the sports news that matters to them."

Publishers interested in signing up can visit www.icloud.com/newspublisher with additional publishing tools available later this year. iOS 9 will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch® 5th generation, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini™ and later. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, the Mac and Apple Watch. Apple's three software platforms — iOS, OS X and watchOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple's 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

](/wwdc-2015)

Apple has announced iOS 9, the latest version of their mobile operating system. This latest version of iOS focuses on making your phone smarter, and helping it work more efficiently.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Siri gets a new look and more intelligence in iOS 9
• Add photos, create checklists, draw sketches, and more with notes in iOS 9
• Apple Pay now being used by 2,500 bank locations in the US, will launch in the UK in July
• Apple introduces News to keep you up to date with your favorite publications
• iPad keyboard gains new shortcut bar, can become trackpad, and more in iOS 9
• iOS 9's performance boosts focus on efficiency and battery life
• iOS 9 brings a variety of developer goodies including GamePlayKit, ReplayKit, and more
• New multitasking features are coming to the iPad as part of iOS 9
• iOS 9 will be a space-friendly update, two-factor authentication coming to iCloud
• iOS 9 beta goes to developers today; public beta coming in July
• More than 100 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store
• CarPlay will be going wireless in future cars
• Swift 2 programming language will become open source project by Apple
• Apple announces watchOS 2: native apps, more friends, smarter Siri
• Time Travel comes to watchOS, shows what you have coming up quickly
• HomeKit supports remote access via iCloud, wide variety of connected devices
• Apple Watch app creators will be able to put in more native features
• Apple watchOS 2 Developer Beta available today, public launch this fall
• Apple Music is official with on-demand streaming, a global radio station, more

Be sure to keep it locked to iMore for the latest from Apple's developer conference.

Press Release:

Apple Previews iOS 9

SAN FRANCISCO — June 8, 2015 — Apple® today unveiled iOS 9, giving a preview of new iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® software that will be available this fall. In this upcoming release, iOS devices become more intelligent and proactive with powerful search and improved Siri® features — all without compromising users' privacy. New multitasking features designed specifically for iPad allow you to work with two apps simultaneously, side-by-side or with the new Picture-in-Picture feature, to keep watching a video while browsing the web, composing email or using any other app. Built-in apps become more powerful in iOS 9 with detailed transit information in Maps*, a redesigned Notes app with new ways to capture ideas, and an all-new News app for the best news reading experience on any mobile device.

"iOS 9 is packed with more intelligence throughout, and delivers big updates to the apps customers use most — Maps supports public transit, a redesigned Notes app provides great new ways to capture ideas, and a beautiful News app delivers content that's personalized to your interests," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "With our new iPad features, users can take advantage of the power of iPad, working in two apps at the same time with Split View, Slide Over or Picture-in-Picture."

Intelligence

Siri features an all-new design in iOS 9, contextual reminders and new ways to search photos and videos. Proactive assistance presents the most relevant information without compromising users' privacy and suggests actions at a particular moment — even before you start typing — automatically suggesting apps to launch or people to contact based on usage patterns, and notifying you when you need to leave for appointments, taking into account traffic conditions. iOS 9 can even learn what you typically listen to in a certain location or at a particular time of day, so when you plug in headphones at the gym or hop in the car before work, it can automatically display playback controls for your preferred app. Typed search queries deliver more relevant results from more categories, including sports scores and schedules, videos and simple math calculations.

New iPad Features

With a simple swipe, the new Slide Over feature lets you simultaneously work in a second app without leaving the first. And with a quick tap, you can access the new Split View feature so you can work in two apps at the same time, side-by-side. Picture-in-Picture lets you continue a FaceTime® call or video while using your favorite apps. These new multitasking features are supported by built-in Apple apps, and APIs make it easy for third-party developers to add support into their own apps. Typing is faster and easier with an all-new Shortcut Bar that displays actions tailored for the app you are in, and new Multi-Touch™ gestures make it even easier to select and edit text.

Built-In Apps

In iOS 9, Maps adds support for metropolitan transit systems and schedules, and subway station entrances and exits are precisely mapped, providing every step of your trip. When you plan your trip, Maps can offer a combination of trains, subways, buses and walking, and with the new Nearby feature, quickly see what's around by searching for food, drinks, shopping and more.

New features of the completely redesigned Notes app include the ability to draw a quick sketch using your finger, easily create checklists to keep track of your to-dos, or snap a photo directly in a note. Easily save important items to your notes directly from other apps, and keep them in sync across all your enabled devices with iCloud®.

The News app delivers a reading experience that combines the rich, immersive design of a print magazine with the interactivity of digital media. News can learn your interests and suggest relevant content that's easily shareable with friends or saved for later. News delivers the best articles from a variety of publishers and over one million topics to help you personalize your reading experience, all presented in an elegant, uncluttered design. News is powered by the new Apple News Format™, a digital publishing format supporting custom typography, galleries, audio, video and interactive animations, allowing publishers like Condé Nast, ESPN and The New York Times to create beautiful editorial layouts for iOS users.

With iOS 9, Apple Pay™ adds support for Discover, rewards programs from merchants such as Walgreens and Kohl's Department Stores, and participating store-issued credit and debit cards. Shoppers will be able to manage their cards in the new Wallet app. Apple Pay will also be available to users in the UK starting next month.

Foundation

iOS 9 makes the foundation of iOS even stronger with refinements including battery optimization that provides a typical user with an additional hour of battery life**, and a low-power mode to help further extend battery life. Software updates require less space to install and an Install Later feature can perform updates to your device when it's not in use. Enhanced security features in iOS 9 keep your devices and Apple ID secure by strengthening the passcode that protects your devices and improving two-factor authentication by building it directly into iOS, making it harder for others to gain unauthorized access to your Apple ID.

Developer APIs

iOS 9 APIs and tools for developers include: extensible search that deep links directly to content within third-party apps; GameplayKit and Model I/O for building better games and ReplayKit for recording gameplay; new HomeKit profiles for motorized windows and shades, motion sensors and home security systems; wireless CarPlay™ and support for auto manufacturers to develop apps within CarPlay; and new HealthKit data points for reproductive health, UV exposure, water intake and sedentary state.

Swift™ 2 brings powerful new features and performance improvements that produce faster apps. The Swift compiler and standard library will be made available as open source later this year, putting the language in the hands of even more developers.

Availability

The iOS 9 beta software and SDK are available immediately for iOS Developer Program members at developer.apple.com, and a public beta program will be available in July at beta.apple.com. iOS 9 will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 4s and later, iPod touch 5th generation, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini and later. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.

*Transit information in Maps will be available in select major cities this fall, including Baltimore, Berlin, Chicago, London, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto and Washington D.C., as well as over 300 cities in China, including Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. **Battery life depends on usage and settings.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, the Mac and Apple Watch. Apple's three software platforms — iOS, OS X and watchOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple's 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Update: The Apple Watch is here, which makes "Hey Siri!" even more convenient but can lead to even more collisions. Have your iPhone plugged in and your Apple Watch on, say the magic words, and how do you make sure the one that responds is the one you want?

The problem with "Hey Siri!" is everyone knows those words and every plugged-in iOS 8 device — and now Apple Watch —recognizes them. That leads to inopportune activations — mischievous and accidental alike. Google's "Okay Google Now" tries to learn your voice; if it hears someone else yell the activation phrase, it hopefully ignores it. That's an okay alternative if you're the only one who ever activates your device, you never get a stuffy nose or sore throat, or Kevin Spacey never manages to adequately imitate you. But if you do want your significant other, kids, or other friends or family members to be able to activate your iPhone or iPad, you'll still want magic words to work universally. You might just want different magic words.

If you've ever listened helplessly as an obnoxious podcast host yelled "Hey Siri"; yelled "Hey, seriously?!"; or even legitimately said "Hey Siri" only to have multiple iOS devices respond, you've probably wished for a way to customize Siri's magic words. "Okay Siri," "Yo Siri," "Open Siri Me," "My voice is my passport," "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot," — anything! The ability to set an alternative short phrase to activate Siri would make that feature much, much better.

Perhaps a "Customize 'Hey Siri!'" button could be added to Settings. Tap on it. Say your customized activation phrase. Have Siri show it to you as text and ask you to repeat it again for confirmation. Approve it. And you're good to "Go, go, Siri gadget go!"

If for some reason a purely customizable phrase isn't technologically viable — though given Siri's ability to call users by a custom nickname, it certainly seems in the realm of possibility — I'd settle for at least a half-dozen or so built-in options.

Whether or not Apple ever adds a Moto X-style always-listening coprocessor to the mix (allowing Siri to be voice-activated even when not plugged in), adding the ability to customize or change your activation phrase would help prevent obnoxious podcast hosts, mischief makers, accidental word collisions, and wrong device activations. It'll just work better.

Hopefully Apple can make it happen in iOS 9.

• Read more: Siri and the potential for 'Voice ID'

Now, in fairness, I don't do any really high-resolution scanning. For me scanning is pure utility: Needing to legibly digitize real-world documents. But it's an evolution. And so much of how we use our devices is about evolution.

Even a couple of years ago, having a scanner was a core requirement of whatever printer I was shopping for. I still have that printer — a multifunction device that scans, prints and faxes. But for the occasional page printed, it doesn't see a lot of action these days.

Now I use Scanner Pro from Readdle to scan documents. The iPhone 6's camera was so good, and Scanner Pro worked so well with my workflow, that the switch happened pretty seamlessly. All of a sudden, one day, I was scanning using Scanner Pro.

At this point I suspect my next printer — if I have to buy another printer — isn't going to need scanning in order to be worth my while. The iPhone and the App Store have filled that need differently, and more effectively.

It makes me wonder what else I won't be doing on my Mac in a few years. Not that I'm worried about it, mind you. But I am curious about the evolution of mobile and desktop operating systems, and the constantly shifting and changing landscape of features, functionality and workflow.

In just a couple of months Apple will give developers the first look at what's to come in OS X and iOS when the tribe gathers in San Francisco for WWDC. Many of us are banking on this being a rebuilding year: That Apple will take a step back from top-loading a lot of new features and interface changes in favor of tightening up the sometimes bulging seams of its current platforms.

I assume that no matter what happens, we will have to adapt somehow. That it won't be 100 percent smooth. But I'm confident that in the end, we'll be better off than where we are today, because we always are.

Rumors surfaced this week that production of the Apple Watch has been hampered by low production yields of the Taptic Engine, the force touch technology inside the Apple Watch. Apple's supplier is having trouble making parts that work in large enough quantities for Apple's needs. There's no indication that a large quantity of faulty Taptic Engines are in the hands of any actual Apple Watch customers: The low yield rates are affecting production, if anything.

I didn't get in an order in for my watch until the early hours of Friday morning. What's more, I want the same one as many others: a 42 mm space grey Sport model (to match my iPhone 6, of course). So it's no surprise that my order is backlogged until late May. I hope the Taptic Engine yield problems don't knock that further behind.

Though low production yields weren't the problem when the iPhone 6 debuted — high demand was — Apple soldiered through it and ended up underpromising to many customers and overdelivering: Getting iPhones into their hands weeks before they said they would, initially.

I had hoped that "underpromise and overdeliver" is still standard operating procedure. And indeed, the day my order was placed, it said June, but Apple's since revised it to between May 29th and June 11th. That gave me the faint hope that maybe I'll see mine sooner, rather than later. But if production of the Taptic Engine is indeed the problem, I may remain frustrated still.

Oh well. The Apple Watch is going to be a great device to help me manage health issues, but even then it's a want, not a need. Last time I checked Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs I didn't see "wearable tech" on there, though I guess there's a case to be made for Wi-Fi these days.

One thing I know for sure: Tim Cook's core competency is managing supply chain issues; it's what he did when he was chief operating officer of Apple, and one of the reasons why the company is the most profitable consumer electronics business in the world. Supply chain management is one of the things that has made him such a force within Apple. So I have no doubt that Apple can manage this problem, if there even is a problem.

iOS 7 was a complete interface and interactivity redesign and iOS 8, a complete functional upgrade. That led to some complaints that Apple was putting innovation ahead of platform stability. This followed years of complaints about iOS looking stale and missing features, of course, but fair enough. In the rush to get major changes out the door, especially when new products depend on them, there were some stumbles along the way.

iOS 9, anticipated for this fall, will focus more on stability. Recent updates like iOS 8.1.2 and iOS 8.1.3, however, and upcoming updates like the in-beta iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3, and the currently internal iOS 8.4, make it clear Apple isn't waiting on the next version of iOS to address issues. They're already addressing them.

Apple, like many companies, has a system for prioritizing its bugs. High priority bugs get fixed before lower priority bugs. Customers, however, rarely see high priority bugs (because they get fixed) and see a lot of low priority bugs (because they haven't gotten fixed). That's why all of us have a set of bugs that annoy us at any given time. The exact set of bugs vary from person to person, of course, because setups and behavior vary from person to person. What crashes for one doesn't crash for another. What seldom seems to work for one works flawlessly for another. Yet, regardless of their complexity or frequency, we all want all of them fixed. And now.

In an ideal world, one of limitless talent and time, they would be. Engineers wouldn't have to prioritize getting a new feature shipped over getting an existing feature polished, or fixing a bug that hurts performance over one that hurts pride of craft. Yet the reality is, no matter how big or rich a company, resources will always be constrained. There will always be a limit to how many people have the skills to do a particular job and the interest in doing it at that particular company.

It's what leads to tick-tock cycles, where something new is introduced, and then iterated over time. It's what also leads to cycles being alternated — so design changes while much of the internals remain the same, or vice-versa — because regardless of how much we say we want stability we buy based on features. (Which means that, if stability is more important to you, you'll need to be more vocal about demanding it and supporting it, especially when it comes at the expense of additional new features.)

iOS 8 smoothed out a lot of rough edges from iOS 7. iOS 9, regardless of its focus, will no doubt smooth out a lot of rough edges from iOS 8. Apple, whether responding to sentiment over design and functionality, or factoring it into future product plans, spent the last two years introducing major changes. Now, whether responding to sentiment over stability or still factoring in future product plans, it certainly seems reasonable that stability could be up front on the agenda. Based on recent releases, in fact, it feels like it already is.

iOS 8.1.2, for example, optimized and returned a lot of storage space, especially for iPad users. iOS 8.1.3 reduced the amount of free space needed to update software versions. Taken together, they helped fix one of the major complaints about iOS 8 — that it was simply too big for many people to install using the over-the-air Software Update.

Likewise, iOS 8.2 — which I've been using through it's beta cycle — felt more stable and solid still. iOS 8.3 — which I've just downloaded and installed — looks to be even more of the same. They'll introduce new features, including support for new products, but they'll also polish some things that came before. Likewise iOS 8.4, which has been in internal testing for a little while now.

iOS 9 will continue that trend. How much publicity goes to iteration versus innovation will ultimately be a marketing decision — even OS X Snow Leopard had significant new features like Grand Central, Exchange, and OpenCL, after all.

But the point is we don't have to wait. There's every indication Apple is already is aware of current sentiment, and iterating for stability now.

Sometimes I'm having a conversation on iMessage and the person — or one of the people in a group — I'm conversing with says something so funny, so profound, so touching, or so important I just want to favorite it so they'll know, and so that I'll be able to find it again in the future when I want or need to see it again. Right now, I can't. But maybe iOS 9 could change that?

It's become something of a joke in my regular conversations — we'll resign ourselves to sending a star emoji. It conveys the symbolism of a favorite, if very loudly, and the frustration that the feature doesn't yet exist, but it doesn't help us find the messages later. (Search in Messages isn't quite what it should be yet either...)

By adding a "favorite" feature to iOS 9, we could send those subtle, social signals Twitter favs and Facebook likes send, we could tell the people we're conversing with that we've not only "read" what they've sent us, but enjoyed or appreciated it. And we could go back and find their messages again.

Apple already has mechanisms for interacting with messages. A long tap brings up a contextual menu. Adding "Favorite" or "Like" to that menu could work. iOS 8 also added in-line controls. Tapping the small text below an image can override the 2 minute auto-delete. Perhaps a star or thumbs-up glyph could live there.

Either way, a list of favorited messages for each conversation could then live in that conversation's Details view, like location and attachments do now. A full list of all favorited messages could also live beside the compose button in the main Messages list view, likewise with a star or thumbs-up glyph.

Best of all, they could sync across devices, so you could quickly find them again, whether you're on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Just like Apple's done with favorites in the Photos app.

It may seem like a small thing. Even a silly thing. But messaging is important. Messages are important. And it's sometimes the small things, even the silly things, that make them all the more so.

Apple knows that. They just improved the group, instant, and ephemeral components of Messages in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. The Apple Watch will even let us send taps and sketches and heartbeats.

Here's hoping iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 let us favorite in Messages as well.

rdar://19096026