The lines between digital, mobile, technology and apps are blurring in today’s world. We at Robosoft are keen followers of developments in this arena. At the end of every week, we will share with you highlights of news items which caught our eye in this space.
Apple Event: give us a hint
The rumour of an Apple event scheduled for September started in August and was confirmed last week. Apple sent out invites for media event on Wednesday, September 9 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. As always, the event’s theme as suggested in the invite became a subject of even more speculation. ‘Hey Siri, give us a hint’ is now being analysed by the myriad tech & Apple blogs. Meanwhile, it is widely believed that the following will be announced at the event:
– launch date for iOS 9 and WatchOS 2
– announcement of new iPhone upgrades – 6S and 6S Plus
– a new version of Apple TV
– hardware upgrades to iPad
– HomeKit
This time around, the Apple event will be live streamed to Windows users, albeit only on version 10. As always, we are excited about the event in general and specifically about app development possibilities in iOS 9 and WatchOS 2.
Some users probed Siri on the event and got some witty responses:
Dial M for Facebook Messenger
Facebook too got into the virtual assistant game – though not through a stand alone app. Residing within Facebook Messenger, M is a personal assistant which you can use for restaurant suggestions, gift ideas and more. The Next Web has some interesting screenshots of what it can do, including telling jokes.
Virtual assistants enhance the user experience in mobile devices by going beyond merely providing information from another source. They are able to analyse a user’s needs and moods and offer customised solution beyond traditional ‘search’ results. Interesting challenge to Google Search as we know it.
Apple Watch: No.2 in wearables
Research firm IDC said that Apple shipped a total of 3.6 million units in the second quarter of 2015, just 0.8 million units behind Fitbit’s 4.4 million units. Though Apple has not revealed its figures officially, the IDC-quoted numbers are impressive given the time frame. We’ve only seen version 1.0 of the hardware and software thus far. Exciting times ahead in the wearables market from an app development perspective.
