Yesterday was the first day of Apple’s virtual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) where Apple announced all the new features available in iOS14, iPadOS14 and MacOS Big Sur. iOS 14 only for developers is releasing today and it will be available for a larger audience later this year. The public Beta will be available next month for all users.
However, what was interesting this time, are some India-specific features that the Cupertino giant announced. India is the worlds second-largest smartphone market and one where Apple isn’t really a significant player by a decent margin. This could be Apple’s way of cosying up to a market, it is looking to aggressively expand into soon.
The most interesting feature, which as of now is only available in India, is “Smart Downloads”. This feature can be used to download Indian Siri voices, software updates, and download and stream Apple TV shows over cellular networks.
On the messaging front, Apple has added different layers of filters to separate spam, promotional content, transaction notifications from texts sent by people in the contacts. Moreover, In iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Apple has added 20 new fonts and as upgraded 18 existing fonts with different styles like italics, tailored for Indian audiences and dialects.
Another interesting new feature is on the mail front. For all users in India, the E-mail app will support email addresses in Indian fonts and scripts. This could be game-changing in the email domain, since such a language-specific support lacks in even the biggest and most popular of email apps.
“iOS 14 transforms the most iconic elements of the iPhone experience, starting with the biggest update we’ve ever made to the Home Screen,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “With beautifully redesigned widgets on the Home Screen, the App Library that automatically organizes all of your apps, and App Clips that are fast and easy to discover, iPhone becomes even more powerful and easier to use.”
In addition to this, when users send greeting like ‘happy Diwali’ or ‘happy Holi’ full-screen effects related to the occasion will be seen. Also, messages can be sent in 23 Indian languages.
To make iOS more compatible for people with hearing disabilities, in group FaceTime calls, sign language will be detected by the software itself which will make it clearer.
Apple will also introduce a new “compact UI’ for Siri. In addition to this, Siri can now translate 65+ languages. Siri will also get a new ‘Indian Siri’ voice as already mentioned above.
