Dropbox, SoundHound, WhatsApp: Apple aims to kill popular apps with iOS 8 update

When Apple announces a new version of its OS, there’s always some criticism for how the company kills third-party apps with new native features. This year too, iOS 8 sees its fair share of features that hope to replace some popular third-party apps in the App Store. So which popular apps are affected?   Apple’s new feature: iCloud Drive Targets: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Onedrive   With iCloud Drive, Apple has a ready to ship competitor to the likes of Dropbox, Box, Google Drive etc. iCloud Drive will also be compatible with Windows PCs, so Apple is making it a slightly more open than it would normally be. However, it must be noted that iCloud Drive’s competitors have a presence on major mobile and PC platforms, including Linux distros. This is the biggest advantage for a user who has a foot in all platforms and not necessarily only tied to Apple. However, for those who have completely immersed themselves in Apple’s ecosystem, will find iCloud Drive more than handy. It’s expected to work much better on OS X and iOS devices since it has been written natively for those platforms.   Apple’s new feature: Enhanced iMessage Targets: WhatsApp, Snapchat   Apple introduced voice, video messaging and location sharing on iMessage. You can send a voice or video message, and also share location with friends for a pre-determined amount of time. What’s more users can set voice and video messages to self-delete, which is basically Snapchat’s USP. Voice and video messaging is already a part of WhatsApp, with voice calling also coming soon. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum already slammed Apple for this brazen copying of the app’s features. But once again, the competition has presence on all platforms, which is a handy advantage that iMessage cannot boast of.

Apple’s new feature: Markup Targets – Skitch   Apple takes aim at Evernote-owned Skitch annotation app with Markup. It’s been incorporated into the Mail app and lets you write, draw or sketch on documents, which are then stylised according to your needs. You can also add fun effects like text bubbles to pictures or annotate on PDFs and text documents. Markup’s key USP is that you can draw on the Mac touchpad, which is obviously a huge bonus over using a mouse.   Apple’s new feature: MailDrop Targets: YouSendIt, WeTransfer etc.   Apple introduced MailDrop for sending large attachments easily. The service stores large attachments in the cloud, behind encryption, so that only recipients can open the attachment. The service works automatically and lets users upload files as large as 5GB, Apple claims this will eliminate bounced emails as attachments are delivered even if the recipient has less space in their inbox. Obviously, with a native solution such as this, there’s little need to use third-party attachment managers. [caption id=“attachment_225016” align=“alignnone” width=“639”] New Siri[/caption]   Apple’s new feature: Song recognition in Siri Targets: Shazam, SoundHound   Despite being powered by Shazam, Siri’s song-recognition features will make the app a little redundant. It’s also bad news for those who might have subscribed to the premium service run by Shazam and SoundHound, a similar app. While each user might have a different preference for the app, with Siri now being able to do their job, new users will likely not have any use for such apps.