Apple yesterday kicked off its annual Worldwide Developer's Conference
(WWDC) with the traditional keynote presentation.
WWDC is when the world gets a preview of the software coming out of
Cupertino in the Fall. We traditionally see the next iterations of Apple's
operating systems for all of its main platforms and maybe a new service or
cloud-based offering. This year was no exception: iOS 13, macOS Catalina,
watchOS 6, & tvOS 13 were all showcased on stage.
Amongst the highlights were a new accessibility feature that lets you
control iOS & macOS with your voice; a system-wide dark mode for iOS; the
iPad getting its own version of iOS; Apple making it easier for developers
to transition existing iPad apps to the Mac; & Taptic chimes coming to Apple
Watch.
Below we bring you a summary of today's announcements.
tvOS 13
Apple kicked off proceedings with a preview of "For All Mankind", one of its
upcoming TV shows. It's a sci-fi show that explores what would have happened
had the space race never ended.
This led in to a very brief look at tvOS 13, which brings multi-user support
to Apple TV. This will allow everyone in the home to have their own Up Next
list and personalized recommendations and music listening thanks to the
addition of profiles.
Other changes coming in tvOS 13 include:
* New under the sea screen savers.
* Addition of lyrics for Apple Music.
* Support for Xbox One S& PlayStation Dualshock 4 controllers.
watchOS 6
Next up was watchOS 6. Although not given a significant amount of stage
time, this update brings a number of notable new features and changes to the
Apple Watch. One that's sure to be of particular interest to our community
is Taptic Chimes, a new feature for the Apple Watch which will give you a
discreet tap on the wrist on the hour, and an audible chime if the audio is
turned on.
New apps are also coming to the Apple Watch.
These include a Noise app, which uses the Apple Watch microphone to measure
the ambient sound around you and alert you if something is loud enough to
impact your hearing. Apple stressed that audio is not recorded or saved, so
you should have no concerns over privacy.
For women, there's a new Cycle Tracking app for tracking menstrual cycles.
It offers a simple, discreet way to visualize your cycle and can give you a
notification when a period is about to begin.
There are additional new health and fitness capabilities coming in watchOS
6. For instance, the Activity app is getting a new Activity Trends feature
so you can see your progress over time. It will compare trends over the last
90 days to the last 365 days so you can see if you're keeping on track.
Elsewhere, there's a new Summary view for health-related info that uses
machine learning to identify and display highlights and the specific areas
of data that you like to monitor.
Before we mention some more new apps coming to the Apple Watch, there's the
big news that watchOS 6 will introduce an App Store to Apple Watch so you
can download watch-only apps without the need for an iPhone. You will be
able to read reviews, search for apps, get Apple editor recommendations, and
download apps right on your wrist. Apple Watch apps will also no longer need
to have a companion iPhone app, making them completely standalone.
Other new apps coming to the Apple Watch include Audiobooks, Voice Memos,
and Calculator.
There are new Wind and Rain complications for Apple Watch faces, along with
one for the Voice Memos app and a complication for the new Noise app which
will display a decibel level meter.
And as no watchOS announcement is complete without the mention of new watch
faces, we will be getting some of these too. In fact, Apple says that
watchOS 6 will bring more new watch faces this year than since the first
Apple Watch. New watch faces include a Gradient face that, animates with the
time; Numerals face, Digital face, California dial, and the Solar face which
visualizes the sun's 24 hour path around the dial.
watchOS 6 includes the streaming audio API, so you can stream podcasts, live
sports games, and more all with just your watch.
The final piece of news for Apple Watch owners, was that Apple is adding an
all new pride edition watch band and new Apple Watch bands in summer colors.
iOS 13
Top of the list for many in our community might be the news that Siri is
getting a new voice in iOS 13.
Neural Text to Speech is a new voice that's entirely generated by software
with a more natural cadence. In its on stage demonstration of the new voice,
Siri sounded much more natural, especially with longer sentences.
iOS 13 introduces a system-wide dark mode. There's a dark appearance for
notifications, widgets, calendar, photos, notes, and the keyboard.
During the demonstration of dark mode, there was a very brief mention of a
new swipe-based keyboard called the "QuickPath Keyboard". Unfortunately, it
was unclear from the demo how this works, so we are left to speculate for
now over how this might work with VoiceOver.
With iOS 13, Apple builds on the performance improvements that were its
focus in iOS 12, saying that unlocking with Face ID is 30% faster, downloads
50% smaller, updates 60% smaller, and apps will launch twice as fast.
There are a number of new privacy features coming in iOS 13: you can share
your location to an app just once, and then require the app to ask you again
next time it wants it; apps will no longer be permitted to scan your WiFi or
Bluetooth to get your location; and Apple is going to add reports so you
know what apps are up to.
Also related to privacy, iOS 13 will introduce "Sign In With Apple", a new
service which Apple says will be an easy way to sign in to an app or website
without revealing personal information. Each app or website will be given a
unique and randomized email address which forwards to your main email
address and can be disabled at any time.
Sign In With Apple will be available across all Apple products and on the
web.
Other Miscellaneous iOS Changes
* Notes has a new gallery view and support for folders.
* Reminders has been entirely redesigned, is getting smart lists,
and tagging people will show a notification next time you open a Messages
thread with them.
* Safari can change text sizing on a per-website basis.
* Mail is getting Rich fonts.
* Maps with more details will roll out to entire US by end of 2019.
* Maps introduces "Collections", which will enable you to create
groups of destinations. You will also now be able to create favorites.
* Roads, beaches, parks, and buildings will all be shown in more
detail in the Maps app.
* The Maps app gains a 3D street view with a new "Look Around"
feature.
* Other new Maps features and improvements include Junction View for
China, real-time transit, Siri guidance, share ETA, and flight status.
* HomeKit is getting a new "HomeKit Secure Video" feature. It uses
your Apple devices to analyze videos and then an encrypted stream is sent to
iCloud where no one, not even Apple can see it. You'll be alerted to
activity and can review what's going on. 10 days worth of video is stored
and it doesn't count towards your iCloud storage space. It's going to work
with cameras from Logitech, Netatmo, and Eufy at launch.
* Apple is adding HomeKit support to routers from Eero, Linksys, and
internet service providers like charter spectrum to improve privacy.
* The Messages app is getting profiles where you can add a name and
a photo (including an animoji/memoji avatar). Your profile is only shared
when you message someone.
* Apple is adding new Memoji features like eyeshadow, lipstick
options, piercings, teeth options (braces, gap tooth), earrings, new hair
options, more hats, new glasses, and AirPods. Memoji stickers give you a new
way to use Memoji. A sticker pack will be added for each of the Memoji you
create. They're available in Messages, but also through the keyboard in all
apps. Memoji stickers will be supported on all devices with an A9 chip or
later.
* There's a number of new tools and a new interface for photo and
video editing.
* Advanced machine learning techniques in Photos will show your best
photos to create a diary of your life. There's a new Photos tab where you
can organize Photos by Years, Months, and Days. Days is the best way to get
a close-up view of a given day. Months picks out meaningful events in your
life by month.
* There's a new call spam filtering feature that' can send unknown
callers right to voice mail.
iPadOS
According to Apple, the time has come to recognize the iPad platform "in a
special way". The result is that iPads are now going to run iPadOS, a new
version of iOS designed specifically for the iPad.
In addition to all of the changes coming in iOS 13. the iPad Home screen has
been redesigned in iPadOS with a tighter grid, and you can pin widgets right
on your home screen.
There's a new multitasking feature that lets you switch between Slide Over
windows with just a swipe up and a tap, (no news yet on what the VoiceOver
gesture will be); and multi-window capabilities that will allow you to open
two instances of the same app side-by-side.
There's a new App Expose feature on iPad so you can see all of your open
apps and Split View interfaces for faster switching.
The Files app is getting a major overhaul in iPadOS that's going to
potentially make the iPad a more viable laptop alternative.
There's a new Column View for easier file navigation, file previews, iCloud
folder sharing, file services, and USB drive support. There's also built-in
support for SMB file sharing.
Safari on iPad will now display the desktop versions of websites and also
support downloads.
There are a number of new gestures coming to the iPad with iPadOS. These
include new gestures for cursor control, dragging, copying, pasting, and
undoing actions.
macOS Catalina
The new version of macOS is called macOS Catalina.
The most significant news for our community from this part of the keynote is
that Apple announced a new accessibility feature called Voice Control,
allowing users to control their Mac and iOS devices entirely using vocal
commands.
Full details of how Voice Control is implemented are still to be confirmed,
but it appears to support dictation and editing on both platforms, along
with comprehensive menu navigation.
We understand that on iOS, the feature utilizes attention awareness to know
when a user with physical motor limitations is interacting with their
device.
Apple says that none of the audio processed by Voice Control can be accessed
by anyone else, including Apple, thanks to built-in anonymity and
encryption.
Developers can now make use of "Project Catalyst" to create apps for Mac
based on their existing iPad apps. Simply checking a box in the existing app
project should do much of the 'heavy lifting' in regard to what's required
for transitioning the app to Mac.
Apple has already been working with a number of developers using Project
Catalyst, with Twitter reportedly saying it was super easy to create a Mac
app.
Elsewhere in macOS Catalina, iTunes is to be replaced with three apps -
Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and TV.
The new TV app supports 4K HDR playback and Dolby Atmos on the Mac.
Synchronizing your iOS devices will now be handled in a new section of
Finder.
There's a new app called Sidecar that lets you use your iPad as a second
display for your Mac.
Other new features & changes in macOS Catalina include:
* New "Find My" app combines Find my iPhone with Find my Friends and
now supports Mac. Can now locate Apple devices that are offline via
Bluetooth beacons that leverage other people's nearby devices.
* Activation Lock available on T2-equipped Macs to disable stolen
Macs.
* There's a new Screen Time app for the Mac.
* The Reminders app has been heavily redesigned and includes more
features.
* Updated Safari start page.
* Gallery view in Notes.
Other Miscellaneous Announcements
* HomePod will learn to recognize who in your family is talking and
personalize the response so you can play different playlists, favorites, and
more.
* Handoff is coming to HomePod. When you walk through the door, just
bring your iPhone close to HomePod to transfer podcasts, music, and more.
* Live radio is coming to Siri from iHeartRadio and TuneIn, with
over 100,000 stations available.
* When you're using AirPods, Siri will now read your messages to you
and you can instantly respond to them. If you're working out, for example,
and you get a message (from Messages or any third-party app), Siri will read
it to you and then send your response to the person messaging you.
* There's a new sharing feature for AirPods that's going to let you
share your audio with another AirPods user.
* CarPlay is getting overhauled with what Apple said is the biggest
update since its launch. There's a new Calendar app, Music is redesigned,
Siri now works with third-party apps like Pandora and Waze.
* Apple News+ Expanding to United Kingdom and Australia in iOS 13.
* ARKit is getting some major improvements. It has people occlusion,
can layer virtual content in front and behind them. Motion capture lets you
capture motion from users and feed it into the AR experience.
* New SwiftUI framework designed to help devs build apps with less
code. It offers immediate preview updates; drag and drop support; dark mode
support; and right to left language support.
Hardware News
Apple gave us a first look at the new modular Mac Pro and 32-inch 6K Retina
display coming later this year.
The new Mac Pro has a stainless steel frame that allows for modules to be
mounted. It uses Intel Xeon processors with up to 28 cores, supports 300W
power, up to 1.5TB of RAM, and has 8 internal PCI slots.
The base specification Mac Pro comes with 8-core XEON, 32GB memory, 256GB
SSD, costs $5999 and it's coming this fall. The Apple Display XDR is $4999
or $5999 - $999 for the Pro Stand.
In Closing
In many instances, we were given very little information on how new features
have been implemented and how they will work. Fortunately,, more details of
what to expect from this Fall's software releases will become available over
the next few days as WWDC continues and people get their hands on the first
betas. However, it's already clear that there's lots for us to look forward
to.
Resources
* Video of WWDC 2019 keynote
<https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2019/>
* Apple's preview of what's coming with iOS 13
<https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-13-preview/>
* Apple's preview of what's coming with iPadOS
<https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-preview/>
* Apple's preview of what's coming with watchOS 6
<https://www.apple.com/watchos/watchos-preview/>
* Apple's preview of what's coming with macOS Catalina
<https://www.apple.com/macos/catalina-preview/>
Submitted by AppleVis at:
www.applevis.com
