Apple disclosed its new product details, including new MacBook Air notebooks, OS X Mountain Lion, and MacBook Pro with Retina display at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference since Monday. And one of the key spotlights at the event on the opening day as Apple’s next generation mobile operating system, iOS 6, to run on certain models of iPhone, iPad, and iPod.
Starting Monday, iOS 6 beta is available for iOS Developer Program members in iOS Dev Center. The new operating system for mobile has more than 200 new features, including new Maps app, complete integration of Facebook, and enhanced Siri and iCloud.
Apple’s high-profile brand new Map application with 3-D imaging and turn-by-turn direction uses data from TomTom and Apple’s own sources. Compared to its now key competitor, Google Maps, Apple’s new Maps integrated Siri and real-time traffic incident reports. Although it has no street view and public transport information at this point in the game, an initial version with such functionality showed that Apple has taken a serious effort to get away from Google’s service.
Beyond Maps, Apple presented a plenty of enhancements to its wild card, Siri. As the digital assistant, the improved Siri now supports sports information and scores, list of restaurants and ability to reserve a time, movie ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, launching apps, and even posting on Facebook and Twitter just by voice. What’s exciting to know is that future Siri may even be able to drive for you as Apple has been talking with auto manufacturers to extend steering wheel voice activation buttons. Siri will also be available for the new iPad.
As an important component in the operating system, iCloud has also been improved, offering faster photo sharing with comments.
Another expected feature is the extension of FaceTime to support cellular connections in addition of Wi-Fi. Cell phone number and Apple ID are unified now so that users can FaceTime call across all Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Apple officially introduced its pass store that centralizes details of boarding passes, loyalty cards, movie tickets and coupons for quick access.
Currently available for developers only, people expect the iOS 6 to be available this September. And perhaps this may hint that the new iPhone 5 may be available at that time as well.