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iOS 11 What’s new?

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Apple Maps

Do you mostly use Apple Maps? Maps is introducing 3D maps to help you navigate your local shopping centres, starting in American major cities first, with others to follow, similar to the train info rollout. The same goes for airports, with indoor maps now available in iOS 11 for major hubs around the world, and more to follow later on.

If you use Apple Maps while driving, iOS 11 will finally introduce speed limits and lane guidance warnings for easier navigation while on the road.

Redesigned Control Center and Notification Center

iOS 11 will streamline Control Center, putting all of the options in a single screen, including playback and Airpley controls. It will also include an improved vertical slider design for the brightness and volume controls.

Siri Upgrades

In addition to visual improvements and more expressive male and female voice options, in iOS 11 Siri is getting improved translation skills, including English to Chinese, Italian, German, French and Spanish, with more languages due to come.

Messages and Peer-to-Peer Apple Pay Payments

iMessage remains one of the best mobile messaging platforms out there (assuming your friends and family all have iPhones). Apple Pay via a new iMessage app, with TouchID fingerprint authentication, will quickly send payments (encrypted end-to-end) to someone you’re chatting with.

Using iCloud, iOS will now ensure your iMessages remain perfectly synced across all of your devices.

Apple Music

Apple set its sights on Spotify with Apple Music. Apple Music will have a Shared “Up Next” playlist so your friends can see what’s queued up at a party and make their own contributions to the mix.

Augmented Reality

While not immediately available to users when they upgrade to iOS 11, Apple is introducing a new backend tool for developers called ARKit, allowing them to take advantage of an iPhone or iPad’s camera, sensors, gyroscopes and other hardware to create and improve augmented reality experiences made popular by Pokemon GO.

Camera and Photos

iPhone and iPad’s camera apps will be getting new photography filters under iOS 11, including a long-exposure effect for Live Photos for capturing mages of things in motion, which should be perfect for action photography enthusiasts. Live Photos can also be trimmed, and users can specify which frame of the short video can be used as for the still image.

To help maximise the storage space on your iPhone or iPad which can’t be expanded, in iOS 11 is also introducing a new HEIF compression scheme, shrinking images better than JPEG can, with less compression. The same goes for video, with a new HEVC video codec.

Home Kit and Airplay 2

In addition to adding wireless speaker support to Apple’s Home app, HomeKit will introduce AirPlay 2 to control your audio hardware that supports multi-room playback, including the Apple TV.

Apple CarPlay Do Not Disturb

Taking advantage of clever Bluetooth and Wi-Fi doppler effects to detect when you’re in a moving vehicle, CarPlay will automatically lock down your phone, giving you nothing but a blank screen. An auto-reply option for Messages will also be available under iOS 11, letting others know you’re not ignoring them, but are busy driving.

Improved iPad Apple Pencil Support

Apple is now expanding what the Pencil can be used for on the iPad, in standard apps such as Mail, Safari, screenshots and Notes with markup that allows users to easily make hand-drawn annotations

In Notes, iOS 11 uses machine learning to translate and index hand-written notes so they can be searched, or copied and pasted as editable text.

Files App

Apple is finally giving iOS a dedicated File Manager app called Files — at least on the iPad. Filesis a central place to find or delete files for when your device runs out of storage space.

But Files also has access to stuff you’ve stored on iCloud, and other online storage options including Dropbox, Box and Google Drive, so you don’t need to hop from app to app to find a document you need, which is potentially the most useful feature of the new Files app.

How Apple’s ‘Shared iPad’ can benefit your classroom

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your data
If you are involved in the education sector, the ‘Shared iPad’ feature could be what you have been waiting to hear about for a long time…


Apple’s newly released iOS 9.3 software update is one of the best new advancements for the education sector as it changes the way iPads are used in the classroom.

As the name suggests, the ‘Shared iPad’ feature lets students share iPads. It is designed for schools where cost or policy concerns prevent the implementation of a one-iPad-per-student program. With the new update, students are able to login to an iPad, similar to logging onto their user account on a laptop or desktop. The result is that a student’s apps, content and progress through various tasks will be available, regardless of which iPad they actually use.

There is also a Photo ID feature that allows teachers to see which student most recently used a particular iPad, which should avoid delays related to downloading content and could help optimise on-device storage.
Students will have a four-digit login, similar to an iPhone passcode to login to their account, making it easier for younger students to remember.

As well as this, the iOS 9.3 update also features a new Classroom App that allows teachers to see what students are doing on iPads in the classroom. Teachers can also remotely launch and lock apps, and share student work on a classroom display connected to an Apple TV.

This is the first time Apple have shown an interest in allowing iOS devices to be shared and could be a big step in the right direction for them.

This new update is a breakthrough for digital learning and we look forward to putting it into practice.

If you would like to know more about this, or want to having it implemented in your classroom, please contact the eStorm office today.

Digital Learning at Redlands College

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The team at eStorm Australia would like to extend our congratulations to our friends at Redlands College!

We have worked with Redlands College for over 2 years, and in that time have been continuously impressed with their level of commitment to high quality, meaningful technology in the classroom. This resolute purpose has earned them Apple Distinguished School status.

In the very competitive Education Market, Redlands College is leading the way with the use of excellent technology, used practically, to ensure excellent outcomes for students. Last night’s 7 News story gave a small insight into Redlands College’s digital learning strategy, using technology for teaching and learning.

Well done to Dale, Adam and the very committed team at Redlands College!