iOS 8, n;

Apple’s newest operating system, which features a variety of competitive new features. The upgrade was unveiled after much speculation at Monday’s keynote presentation during the Worldwide Developers Conference, an annual event that Apple sponsors to showcase developer technologies. At last year’s conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook and team unveiled iOS 7, which was an extreme design upheaval. iOS 8 is less about design changes and more about competitive functionality updates.

We wrote about 5 of our favorite features just after the keynote yesterday, but there are a ton of cool things on the way. Along with new apps and app bundles like Home Kit (which gathers all of your smart-controlled gadget apps) and HealthKit (which measures all of your health and fitness stats across apps), iOS 8 is introducing a lot of interconnectivity. Apps will be able to communicate with one another better for seamless movement between them using extensions. So, when you take a picture, you can then open up an editing app in your camera roll and edit the photo there.

Apple is also introducing widgets (easily accessible apps within your notification center) and third-party keyboard integrations, meaning iOS users can now indulge in Swype and other gesture-based keyboards. Many of the iOS 8 updates have opened up the system to more customization and personalization, taking a big jab at the Android systems that are known for that flexibility.

iOS 8 is now working in beta, and will be released to the public in the fall. Are you excited to upgrade?

Read more about the new features in iOS 8 and all that was announced at yesterday’s keynote at The Verge’s live blog.