iOS 8 is being lauded as the biggest iOS release to date, with Apple putting a huge amount of faith into its new operating system to carry the weight of the upcoming iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Related: iPhone 6 and 6 Plus – Everything You Need To Know

It’s packed with a variety of new features, which Apple hopes will make it “utterly indispensable” following its release. With that being said, here’s everything you need to know about these new features.

Photos and Videos

The newly overhauled Photos app now helps you sort and edit your photos easier and with more proficiency than ever before.

Search

iOS 8 allows users to search through their photos by date, title, album name and location, meaning that you can now easily sift through your plethora of images. “Smart suggestions” have also been introduced, which gives users access to photos taken in nearby locations, photos taken at the same time the previous year and their favorite photos they’ve ever taken.

Edit

Editing photos has been drastically improved in iOS 8, with new composition tools providing Instagram-esque editing software such as light and color adjustments, along with a number of features to fine-tune facets of your images such as exposure, highlights and shadows. The new editing tools can also automatically straighten your images, cropping them to ensure that you won’t have to worry about them being off-center when you take them.

Time-lapse videos

With the recent success of Hyperlapse, Instagram’s time-lapse app, iOS 8 has jumped on the bandwagon and will now be providing users with the ability to create time-lapse videos without needing to visit the Apple Store. According to Apple, all you have to do to create time-lapse videos using iOS 8 is “et up your device to shoot what you want… Swipe to select Time-lapse mode, tap the Record button, and let Camera record as long as you choose.” Here’s what the new feature looks like in action:

Messaging

Apple seem to have taken a few cues from WhatsApp with its new messaging features, and the operating system looks to be all the better for it.

Voice

Similar to WhatsApp, iOS 8 users can send voice clips to their friends. However unlike WhatsApp, which requires you to loudly play the voice messages if you wish to hear them, you can discreetly listen to your friends’ audio recordings by holding the phone to your ear, listening to them as if you were listening in on a phone call. Simply hold down the record button, and swipe to send your voice message.

Video

iOS 8 users can also now quickly send a video to those they are messaging, which works in a similar “swipe ‘n’ send” fashion to voice recordings.

Group messaging

Another feature seemingly inspired by WhatsApp, in iOS 8 users can create group message chains with custom titles. You could have a group message chain for work, one for your family and one for your friends, and are free to leave the chain at any time you want.

Location sharing

If a friend wants to meet up with you, in iOS 8 you can now quickly send them details of your location, including a map on how to get there from their current location.

Functionality

There have been numerous changes and improvements made to Apple’s mobile operating system in iOS 8, making it a much more user-friendly experience.

Notifications

No longer do notifications force you to exit your current activity in order to address them. In iOS, messages, Facebook notifications and the like will all be available to respond to at the top of your screen, allowing you to continue with whatever you were doing after you hit send.

Keyboard

Apple is hailing the keyboard featured in iOS 8 as its “smartest keyboard ever,” with its predictive text options being customized to each user. iOS 8 now offers a greater deal of options with its predictions, and can also change the style of the messages and emails you send depending upon who you’re messaging – formal for the coworker, informal for the best friend.

Favorites

iOS 8 will now offer a shortcut to your “favorite” contacts (i.e. the ones you contact the most) once you access the multi-tasking screen, which you can by double-tapping the Home button. From there, you can then select to call, text and FaceTime these contacts, making it easier than ever before to stay in touch with those in your address book.

iCloud Drive

Despite Apple’s iCloud service recently coming under fire due to the infamous leaked photos of celebrities that were taken from the online storage system, the company is still pushing the power of the Cloud in iOS 8.

Universal edits

The iCloud Drive allows you to make changes to your documents, presentations and more on any Apple device, similar to Google Drive.

App sharing

In iOS 8 your apps can share files, meaning that you can edit files in one app before transferring it across to another. Two examples Apple gives of this new feature in action are that the user can “create a drawing in a sketching app, then open it in a painting app to color it in,” and “create a chart in one app and place it in a slideshow using a presentation app.”

Health

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the announcement of the Apple Watch, it’s that Apple wants its users to get fit. With its new health-focused features, iOS 8 is another example of this.

Data collection

The new Health app puts all of your fitness data in one place: heart rate, calories burned, blood sugar, cholesterol, the lot. This means that you no longer need to switch between apps to monitor your progress, with it now all being available to view in one place.

HealthKit

HealthKit will allow developers of apps to be able to access your health data (though you choose which data is shared) which can make third-party health apps much more useful to you. You can even allow the information gather by your device to be shared with your doctor.

Spotlight

Spotlight is now a major feature in iOS 8, helping you to find whatever you’re looking for with greater ease than ever before.

Search

Spotlight now allows you to easily access what you’re looking for, with it pointing you in the direction of nearby restaurants if you’re looking for something to eat (including opening hours), navigating you through iTunes, the App Store and the iBook Store, and bringing up short snippets of Wikipedia entries that you can browse, allowing you to search through the entries before clicking on the full article. It can also show you nearby theaters along with movie showtimes.