These are my top 10 features for the first beta of iOS 8.
Messages – The messages app now gives you the ability to send voice & video messages to other iOS devices. Both audio and video messages will play inline when played back on other iOS 8 devices. There is also a new details button that shows all of the attachments sent throughout the conversation, do not disturb, the ability to share location and more. There is also predictive text for iOS now.
Quick Reply – This new feature allows you to send messages from the home and lock screens without opening the messages app.
Battery Usage – You can now see a breakdown of which apps are killing your battery.
Spotlight – Much more advanced spotlight – giving you the ability to search for content that isn’t on your device & quickly look things up on Google or Wikipedia.
Health Kit – This is the highly talked about Health app that Apple has been talking about for some time. There isn’t much you can do with it yet but it can be huge. We’ll update you when more apps tie in with it.
Siri – Ability to activate Siri by simply saying “Hey Siri” (must be plugged into power), a lot smarter, automatically Shazam’s music.
Safari – New “Request Desktop” feature, quick web search, pre-load top hit.
Notification Center – Swipe to delete notifications, reply to messages, widgets (coming soon).
Camera – Time lapse feature, manual exposure, timer
Weather – Now shows 24 hours instead of 12, shows 9-day forecast, uses Weather.com descriptions of the weather.