CNET is also available in Spanish.
Don’t show that anymore
iOS 14 brings a number of small and giant enhancements to iPhones, adding the ability to pin widgets to your home screen and have a video symbol on the picture.
At first glance, an iPhone 11 with iOS 14 doesn’t seem to be any different. All my apps are exactly where they were in iOS 13. But a swipe to the right shows a page called App Library, which organizes all my programs in one place.
It would be easy to compare the app library with the Android app drawer. But Apple has made its own difference by grouping apps into categories. Twitter, Instagram and apps are grouped into the Social category, for example.
The app library organizes all your iPhone apps into one space.
Groups look like giant application folders, but you don’t need to open one for an app. Just tap the app and let’s go. Groups with more than 4 programs have mini program groups. You can press it to expand the cluster and then tap the desired application.
When you open the app library search bar, an alphabetical list of all your apps appears. So between Siri, seek, your homepage and app library options, there are now many tactics to open your apps in iOS 14.
With the iOS 14 ad, Apple now gives 3 bureaucracy to apps: there are apps, widgets based on those apps, and app clips. The latter, of which I will communicate momentarily. In iOS 13, the widgets gave the impression of being on the Day View page to the left of the home screen. But now you can pin widgets directly to your home screen. Simply press the screen along, press the plus button and the widget gallery appears.
The widget gallery is a combination of recommended widgets, as well as a list of apps that have a widget that you can install. As this is the beta version, widgets are lately for Apple apps.
Each widget is available in 3 sizes: small, medium and large. Widgets have a constant width that aligns with the app’s columns on the home screen. Then you can’t put one in the middle of your screen. Integrating widgets of other sizes into my apps gives the iPhone home screen a fresh and attractive look. And let’s recognize that there’s definitely a Windows Phone tile environment, which is not a bad thing.
Perhaps one of the most attractive customizations on the home screen is a stack of widgets. You can create one by simply dragging a widget of the same size. To view widgets in a stack, drag your finger up or down to open one.
Who would have any idea that widgets can be so exciting in 2020? And before commenting, I know that Android made widgets a long time ago. But it’s lazy to dismiss iOS 14 widgets simply as a copied feature, especially since Apple has given widgets its own touch with what’s called Smart Stack.
You can stack it in the widget gallery and then attach it to your home screen as a widget.
iOS 14 creates an app-based smart widget stack that you use to the maximum and time you use them. So, if you regularly use the Maps app after paintings, that’s when this widget will be at its maximum of your Smart Stack. If you look at the weather in the morning, this is one of the productive highs when you wake up. Your iPhone organizes your Smart Stack for you. I’m delighted to see how it will work after spending more time with iOS 14.
I’m sure many other people will never touch a widget or smart stack in their lives and will never be wiser, so Apple’s implementation makes sense. Somehow, nothing has replaced on your home screen. But in another, everything is different.
iOS 14 gives you a whole new way to interact with an app. It’s called App Clips and it’s for apps found on your iPhone. Basically, an app clip is a mini application with limited functions that we decided through the app developer. The concept is that you don’t want to take time or space on your phone to download a complete app and instead you can have a quick experience.
During the WWDC master’s conference, Apple showed a visitor that they checked into a rewards club in a coffee app clip. QR and NFC codes can cause an application clip. But you can also send them a friend to order food or find one for a company on Maps.
If developers widely adopt app clips, this can help keep their iPhone away and replace their appointments with apps.
If you have apps that you rarely use but don’t need to delete, you can put them all on one page and hide them. You still have access to apps through search, Siri, or the app library, but they’re not visible.
In theory, you can hide all your apps, fill your home screen with tons of widgets and continue using your iPhone. I think I’ll have to check that at some point.
After being on iPad for several years, the video symbol serves as in the symbol that came to iPhone iOS 14. To be honest, it’s more like a video symbol on the home screen, or a video app symbol. This works not only for videos, but also for FaceTime calls.
You can reduce videos in a small player window and watch them while you have everything on your iPhone.
I love turning my FaceTime chat into a small window so I can access anything else on my iPhone. This allows me to continue the verbal exchange without this blank screen being shown to other people on the other side of the call. And you can move the mini FaceTime window anywhere you want.
Videos are painted the same way: if I watch a full-screen video in an app like Safari, I can swipe up to access the app picker view and then tap the home screen to decrease it. You can resize the video window and move it accordingly. If you push it to one side, the audio will continue to play without the image.
This was not discussed in the main note, but on the back of the iOS 14 preview page on Apple’s online page there is a small announcement of a feature that many of us aspire to: now you can decide on default third-party formula apps.
iOS 14 will allow you to set up a third-party app such as Internet browser or default messaging app. The problem here is that developers want to mark their app as a browser or messaging app to make it work. In theory, this can use Chrome or Firefox as the default cellular browser or Gmail as the default messaging app. I’m very happy to see this in action once the developers have activated their apps.
The new Translate app offers several modes. In a vertical position, you can have it translate words and words, as well as display the definition of words. When rotated in a landscape, it enters verbal exchange mode, allowing the speaker to have part of the screen with their translation shown. You can even ask the app to view the translation in full screen or speak it for you.
The translation app works in 11 other languages.
Google Maps has been offering Steerage for cycling routes for some time. But with iOS 14, Maps adds its own motorcycle routes. And there are well-thought-out features: you get elevations and warnings about the streets or places where you’ll have to ride a motorcycle. You can also transfer between functions to avoid, such as stairs, hills and high-traffic roads. Cycling routes in Maps involve places such as department stores repairing motorcycles and cafes on the way. At launch, cycling routes will only be available in a handful of cities.
Maps now supports routes.
A useful feature in iOS 14 is a soft one that we’ll let you know if an app is your camera or microphone in the background. When your phone’s microphone is activated, an orange dot appears on the most sensitive part to the right of the screen. The dot looks green when an app uses your camera, without leaving doubt about what’s going on.
There are a lot of new accessibility features, but the one that makes me aside is Back Tap. In the Touch Accessibility Settings section, you can turn on Back Tap, which should cause an action or shortcut via urgent twice or urgent on the back of your iPhone 3 times. For example, I can double-click to see the settings panel. And if I touch it twice again, the settings panel disappears.
You can perform between more than two dozen moves and shortcuts with Back Tap, such as taking screenshots or viewing the magnifying glass.
Another attractive accessibility feature is sound recognition. It can alert you if your iPhone detects quick sounds, such as a fireplace, smoke alarm, or animal. You are the sound that needs to be notified and when your iPhone detects one of those sounds, we will know it with an alert on the screen.
The popularity of sound is helping others with hearing loss know what’s going on around them.
If you like organization chats, iOS 14 makes them even more manageable. You can mention a fast user in a thread and alert only that user. You can also pin conversations to the most sensible of the app.
Sign of the times, now you can raise a face to your Memoji.
There are plenty of customizations, adding new hair styles and hats to Memoji, as well as the ability to load a face mask.
Instead of an incoming call occupying your entire screen before you, it will now appear as a notification banner at the top. Press or swipe.
Siri, who had the same bad habit of supporting the entire screen, now seems to have the form of an animated orb at the bottom.