iPad and iPhone features revealed

Any updates to iOS 9, the software that powers the iPhone and the iPad, will affect millions of users worldwide.

At WWDC, Apple announced a range of new features that are coming to both of these devices. On the iPhone, Apple Pay, the firm’s mobile payments service, will arrive next month in the UK.

Meanwhile, on the iPad, the biggest headline is the introduction of multi-tasking that will allow users to use two apps simultaneously side-by-side.

Digital assistant Siri is also receiving a major polish in the shape of something Apple is calling “Intelligence”, and sees the assistant become more proactive in how it works on a device.

Siri will now offer contextual answers based on what a user is doing, and will suggest apps, contacts and other frequently used features when you enter a search.

It will also not only start playing music when you plug in headphones, but based on listening habits and time of day will supply the correct music for the occasion.

As well as the confirmation of Apple Pay’s expansion to the UK, the service is also adding to ability to work with rewards cards and schemes, and will now be housed in Wallet, Apple’s re-branding of their Passbook app.

Some of the built-in apps of iOS 9 have also been given a features boost, with the Maps app adding public transport routes for the first time in several major cities around the world, including London.

The new detail will also include exits and entrances to stations, so Apple says directions will now be more accurate than ever before.

The firm also unveiled the News app, a digital magazine that can be curated to the user. The app looks and works similarly to the existing Flipboard service, and like Flipboard uses the items you favourite to base new content on.

Multi-tasking was the keyword for the iPad, with the ability to see and use two apps by-by-side for the first time being announced.

This is in two parts; the Slide Over feature allows users to pull up a second app without leaving the first, while Split View cuts the screen down the middle. Both apps can be used at once.

iOS 9 will become available to users with an iPhone 4s or newer in the autumn, as well as the iPad 2 and later generations.