It’s that time of year: Apple has unveiled their new mobile operating system iOS 8 to tell you what new features to expect later this year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and several higher ups unveiled what’s new in iOS 8 at their annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California.

Apple OS 10.10 Yosemite

The new Apple desktop operating system boasts a new design that looks similar to what you’ve seen in iOS 7, but with more translucency. Notification Center on the Mac now has the “Today” view just like iOS 7 but includes new features like a calculator and custom widgets. Search has also been vastly improved with a big new search bar and new search sources like Wikipedia and Google.

While lots of small features were announced within Yosemite, one in particular will be of interest to our readers: Safari now boasts a feature called “HTML5 Premium Video” which allows you to use services like Netflix without installing an extra plugin. This in turn allows for up to 2 hours of additional battery life while streaming 1080p HD video, Apple says.

Continunity

One of the most impressive new features announced Monday morning is one called Continuity. Now your Mac and iOS devices are aware of their proximity to one another, and will allow you to carry work between devices using a button on your lock screen. For example, if you begin an e-mail on your phone, you can open up your Mac and finish it seamlessly. This technology will work on numerous applications.

You can also now receive normal phone calls on your Mac and iPad no matter where your phone is in the home. Additionally, you can now receive normal text messages (the green ones) on your Mac like you can a normal iMessage.

Below is an example of taking a phone call on your Mac:

OS X Yosemite will be available as a free public beta this summer. Once it is out of beta, it will be free for all to download.

iCloud Drive

Users now have access to a cloud drive that can be accessed from all of your Macs, iOS, and Windows devices. It is similar to existing services like Dropbox. In related news, new subscription plans are coming for iCloud storage. An additional 20 GB can be purchased for .99 cents a month, or 200 GB can be purchased for $3.99/month.

Apple iOS 8

Billed as a “giant” release with “great end user features” and “incredible developer features,” Apple’s iOS 8 boasts many great improvements.

– Interactive notifications let you respond to things like text messages without leaving the app that you’re already in:

– Improvements to mail let you easily mark a message as unread with one swipe, delete a message with one swipe, and easily hide your compose window while you look at other mail messages.

– You now have easy access to your favorite and recent contacts in the multitasking window:

– Improvements to the keyboard have been made which predict what you may want to say. This particular example is pretty impressive and will surely come in handy:

– Lots of changes are being made to messages, including long overdue improvements to group messaging. You can now mute a group conversation, name a group conversation, or leave one.

You can also share your location, send audio, and send selfies (yes, Apple called them selfies). Interestingly, they self destruct after a few minutes just like they do on SnapChat, but Apple says that they did this so you save space on your device.

– A new app called Health provides a single place to keep all of your activity metrics. There is a new underlying technology called HealthKit built into the operating system which allows apps to share your health data securely with one another.

– Family sharing: You now have the ability to share songs, shows, and movies across family members who use the same credit card. You can also require your kids to ask permission before purchasing something from the iTunes store, and there is also a find-a-device feature which lets a parent track down a device if a child loses it.

– The Photos app has been improved with the ability to search based on location, time period, and album. There are also new editing features like the ability to straighten a photo and to enhance the color.

A more open operating system

Showing that they’re willing to adapt to a world outside of Apple, iOS now lets you install third-party keyboards like the popular Swype for Android. You can also use TouchID in apps outside of the Apple ones to login to accounts. With iOS 7, you could only use TouchID to unlock your phone and to sign into the iTunes store.

Again, iOS 8 will not be released until later this year.

Apple is not expected to unveil the iPhone 6, new iPad, or rumored iWatch today. WWDC tends to focus purely on software because the conference is geared towards iOS app developers. Device announcements are expected later this year at special events.