Apple kicked off this year’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) with yesterday’s keynote address. Some developers got the chance to attend the in-person watch event at Apple Park. This WWDC week is packed with events like Platforms State of The Union, Digital Lounges, and one-on-one lab appointments with Apple experts for developers. The keynote announcements comprised iOS 16, watchOS 9, the all-new redesigned MacBook Air with M2 chip, the MacBook Pro updated to M2 chip, macOS Ventura, and iPadOS 16.
iOS 16
Apple introduced a personalized lock screen experience to create a sense of depth and give more information to the users. The lock screen will now show upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery levels, alarms, time zones, Activity ring progress, etc. The Lock Screen would update users on real-time activities such as live sports and food delivery with live activities. The notifications will now roll up from the bottom to provide the personalized Lock Screen space.
Focus is now redesigned and makes it more personalized by attaching wallpapers and widgets to the focus modes. Users can easily switch between focus modes just by swiping their screens. iCloud Shared Photo Library enables the users to share their captured moments with their friends and family using shared photo libraries.
iMessage is getting new features like editing or recalling recently sent messages, recovering recently deleted messages, and marking conversations as unread. These were highly requested features from the users.
Apple Pay Later is now introduced to help users split their purchases into equal payments with zero interest or fees over six weeks. With Apple Pay Order Tracking, users can receive detailed receipts and order tracking information in Wallet for Apple Pay purchases with participating merchants.
watchOS 9
watchOS 9 introduces four new faces for Apple Watch: Lunar, Playtime, Metropolitan, and Astronomy. Users can now track metrics like Stride Length, Ground Contact Time, and Vertical Oscillation. Swimmers can now track their efficiency with a SWOLF score ”” a stroke count combined with the time to swim one pool length.
In Fitness+, users can get on-screen guidance like Intensity for HIIT, Cycling, Rowing, Treadmill; Strokes per Minute (SPM) for Rowing; Revolutions per Minute (RPM) for Cycling; and Incline for walkers and runners on Treadmill.
watchOS 9 users diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib) can turn on the FDA-cleared AFib History feature and vital access information. It includes an estimate of how frequently a user’s heart rhythm shows signs of AFib, providing more data and metrics on their condition.
The new Medications feature will now help Apple Watch and iPhone users manage and track their medications, vitamins, and supplements by allowing them to create a medications list, set up schedules and reminders, and view information on their medications in the Health app.
New MacBook Air with M2 chip
The new MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with 500 nits of brightness. It has now a notch like the 14-inch, and 16-inch MacBook Pro released last year. It includes a new 1080p FaceTime HD camera with a larger image sensor and more efficient pixels that deliver 2x the resolution and low-light performance of the previous generation.
MacBook Air also features a four-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio for music and Dolby Atmos for movies, even while using built-in speakers. It is 40 percent faster while editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro and 20 percent faster while applying filters and effects in apps like Adobe Photoshop than the M1 MacBook Air. MacBook Air now supports fast charging with up to 50 percent charge in 30 minutes while using a 67W USB-C power adapter.
MacBook Pro with M2 chip
The MacBook Pro now comes with the new M2 chip, while the design remains the same as the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro. Working with RAW images in Affinity Photo is nearly 40 percent faster, games like Baldur’s Gate 3 are also almost 40 percent faster than the previous generation. It now supports up to 24GB of unified memory. It can handle playback of up to 11 streams of 4K and two streams of 8K ProRes video.
macOS Ventura
The new macOS introduces Stage Manager, which automatically organizes open apps and windows so users can concentrate on their work and view everything in a single glance. Apple also introduced the Continuity Camera, which gives Mac customers the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam. The Continuity Camera features Center Stage, Portrait mode, and the new Studio Light using an iPhone.
A new update to Safari introduces shared Tab Groups through which users can share their favorite sites in Safari and see what tabs others are looking at. Apple is planning to replace passwords with passkeys, next-generation credentials that are more secure and easy to use. Passkeys make it simple to sign-in securely, use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, and iCloud Keychain sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption.
Spotlight now includes an updated design that makes navigation easier, new features that provide a more consistent experience across Apple devices, and Quick Look for quickly previewing files. Metal, the software that powers the gaming experience across Apple platforms, introduces new features with the launch of Metal 3 that make the gaming experience on Mac to new heights and unleash the full potential of Apple silicon for years to come.
iPadOS 16
Apple is now announcing Freeform, a powerful new collaboration app with a flexible canvas, that gives users the ability to see, share and collaborate. Users will be able to view others’ contributions as they add content or make edits in real-time.
The Weather App is now finally coming to iPads with iPadOS 16. This was highly awaited by many users across the globe. Although, we still don’t have a native Calculator app from Apple for iPads. The new Reference Mode (only available on 12.9-inch iPad Pro) which will use Liquid Retina XDR display to match the colour requirements like review and approve, colour grading, and compositing, where accurate colours and consistent image quality are critical.
It appears to be a touch better than the 4.4”²”² Macbook Pro, which is just one of the things that immediately stood out to me. The process of upgrading from a Mac Pro is more difficult. I adore the concept of an iPhone replacement phone that is both more durable foodle and powerful.