A steady stream of iOS 8 tidbits are starting to leak out ahead of developer's summer pilgrimage to San Francisco where the company traditionally shows off its next mobile OS. Here's the latest.
While all eyes are on iOS 7.1, which was released to the public on March 10, 2014, Apple's been hard at work at the next whole number version of its mobile operating system – iOS 8 – which is expected to debut this June at WWDC. Since Apple hasn't officially announced anything yet the leaks fall squarely into the rumor category and should be taken with a grain of salt.
New apps
New apps are coming in iOS 8 for Preview, Text Edit, Tips and Healthbook. An image posted to Chinese microblogging website Weibo (since removed) appears to show a first look at some of Apple's new iOS 8 apps. Healthbook is the biggest deal which is believed to integrate with Apple's forthcoming wearable health and fitness "iWatch" hardware. The Healthbook app borrows heavily from the design of Apple's Passbook app and believed to indicate support for monitoring blood pressure (red), heart rate (green) and calories burned (orange).
According to 9to5Mac the new Preview and Text Edit apps will not edit documents like their counterparts in OS X but instead will access documents stored on iCloud. Apple added iCloud synchronization for Preview and TextEdit in OS X Mountain Lion, but hasn't made the documents available to iOS. Those Preview and TextEdit apps are most likely placeholders taken from their OS X equivalents, as Apple has moved to much more flat, two-color icons, like the FaceTime and Tips icons in the screenshot. Tips is believed to be an online help system for iOS which could pull content from existing sources like http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/tips/.
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