iOS 14, Apple's latest update for their devices, came out on 16th September 2020. It has been a hit with Apple users due to the new features such as Widgets, Emoji Search and much, much more! Read on to find out the various new features and what they do. Technology is changing at a fast rate. Every couple of months it gets stronger and is capable of doing bigger and better things than it has ever done before. Did you know that a generic smartphone is millions of times more powerful than the computers used during the Apollo 11 mission to send astronauts to space! (Bearing in mind these computers were the size of cars!)

Apple usually releases new MAJOR updates every year around September and this year was bigger and better than any other! Here are the top five features available to iPhone, iPad and Mac users today:

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1. Widgets: Widgets aren't a brand new feature strictly speaking but they have been upgraded to a whole new level. You can now display widgets such as photos and battery life on your home screen and up to ten can be stacked on the screen. Widgets are rectangles displayed on your screen which can show different things including photos, clock, podcast run time and others. Third-party apps can also be used to display widgets such as WidgetSmith and banking apps. Smart Stack is a new widget feature which displays relevant widgets depending on your location. For example, Apple News may be shown in the morning. Simply tap and hold on your screen until your apps vibrate and press the "plus" icon in the top right corner of your screen to get creating!

2. App Library: The App Library is a brand new feature so if you swipe to the far right of your Home Screen it will come up with a bank and all your apps will be automatically sorted into categories! This was already a feature of android phones. It also allows you to hide certain apps so they don’t appear on your Home Screen but at the same time you can easily locate them in the App Library. It also shows suggestions for apps you might like based on your purchases/ downloads.

3. Memoji stickers: Now this may not seem the most important feature of the new iOS 14 update but it is the most fun! Our third feature is new Memoji stickers! Many of you Apple users out there will know that Memoji stickers were introduced and they are awesome! You can design an avatar of yourself and send it to people on iMessage and WhatsApp and it comes in many different expressions. There are eleven new hairstyles including man bun, top knot, simple side part and much, much more! This also includes hair fading so you can reflect your style and the shadow of the light makes it more realistic. There are 19 new types of headgear including bike helmet, nurse hat and swim hat. You can also get three new expressions: fist bump, hug and blush and there are age options so you can design a Memoji for people of any ages ranging from a baby all the way to the golden years and the design of the Memoji is hence more accurate with new face contours. And of course we have face coverings! Wearing a face mask doesn’t have to be all bad! You can express how you feel about it with your Memoji whether that is happy, sad or somewhere in between. Memoji is an awesome way of expressing yourself through stickers and it has just been upgraded!

4. iPadOS: Now this isn’t exactly about the new iOS update itself but it’s about its pal, iPadOS, and there has been a new iPadOS update to coincide with iOS 14! Can you guess what it is? Yes, that’s right, it’s the new iPadOS 14 update! I will give a brief summary of the new features. Firstly a brilliant new accurate feature is Scribble which allows a more accessible way of using your Apple Pencil. You can simply scribble a word onto any format e.g. Pages or Word and the advanced technology can learn your handwriting so can translate your handwriting into text. You can also scratch a word out just like you would cross a word out on paper and the Scribble gets erased. You circle a word to select it and Chinese is now supported in Scribble which is excellent and makes the feature accessible to more people. You can also draw shapes and they will be converted into perfect geometric figure. Shapes such as: line, curve, square, rectangle, circle, oval, heart, triangle, star, cloud, pentagon, thought bubble, outlines arrow, continuous line with 90 degree turns, line with arrow end point and curve with arrow endpoint will be supported by this excellent new feature. There are tonnes more features in iPadOS 14 so be sure to check them out!

5. Apple Maps: The final feature I will be reviewing in this article is updated Apple Maps! Whilst many users opt for Google Maps, a lot use Apple Maps in their daily lives and this has just got bigger and better in the new update. To make the app more cyclist friendly you can now plan a route and this app will try and make sure your route is along bike friendly roads and you can opt to avoid steep inclines. If you own an Apple Watch this enhances the experience further. Guides is another awesome thing coming to Maps. It recommends good places to visit and also trust worthy shops and restaurants are updated when new places are added and you can even save Guides. This makes the app even more useful. You can now add your electric car/ vehicle onto your iPhone and Maps will automatically plan you a route to your destination ensuring there are charging stations along the way and can tell you your ETA. The app will also show you congestion zones, speed camera zones and whether you have access to go through a city/ certain road once you register your number plate in Maps. Furthermore the app will be available for more countries in this update which again makes it more accessible to more and more people!

This isn’t the only exciting Apple news this year. With the release of the iPhone SE 2020, Apple Watch Series 6, Apple Watch SE, iPad 8th generation, new iPad Air and the release of four new iPhone 12 models in October, the world of technology is changing and fast. The new Apple Watch includes fall detection (previous feature) and can even measure blood oxygen levels. The iPad Air (newest) uses the brand new A14 bionic chip to make usage more fluent and generally the processor is amazing. Technology provides us with so many uses and it keeps improving and has kept us connected throughout these difficult times and I’m sure it is going to advance further with some benefits and some down sides. Welcome to the age of technology….