Apple Reported Working on New iMessage Features, Fitness App for iOS 14
Apple is reportedly planning some major new features for iOS 14, the next major version of iOS. The new update could introduce new features for Apple’s iMessage, as well as a new app for fitness.
MacRumors reports that Apple is working on a number of new features for iMessage. The new update will add the ability to mention other users in a group conversation, which would make the group chat experience much better on iMessage. Being able to mention someone in a group is a crucial feature that iMessage has been lacking for a long, long time.
The company is also working on adding typing indicators for group chats, the ability to mark a message as unread, and the ability to set personal status updates.
Apple will also add other features to iMessage that have been available on competing platforms like WhatsApp for a long time. That includes the ability to unsend messages after sending them. The report claims that iMessage will let users know when a message has been unsent.
iOS 14 could introduce a new fitness app called Fit or Fitness as well. The app, codenamed Seymour, will provide users with guided workout videos. These videos will apparently be available for free, and it will also be available on watchOS 7 and tvOS 14. The idea here is that users will be able to watch these guided workout videos while they are working out, with the Apple Watch tracking their workout at the same time.
And last but not least, Apple is reportedly planning to let developers provide custom voice synthesizers on iOS with their apps. The new framework, called VoiceProvider, will replace the default system speech and could be useful for when developers want to support languages that are not yet supported by Apple.
Apple’s plans for iOS 14 are yet to be finalised, so not all of these features may show up in the final release.