It’s a late post from us, yet if you have missed the live event then here’s everything Apple announced during the ongoing Worldwide Developer Conference aka WWDC 2020.
Did you know? It’s the first completely virtual event from Apple. As always, during the keynote, Apple has presented some of the cool new updates coming to iOS, macOS and other software’s it builds. There was also a BIG hardware (under the hood silicon) announcement. Let’s have a quick recap of everything.
iOS 14
It’s the next iteration to the Apple mobile/tablet operating system, the iOS 14. Preview builds for developers are already available for download, while the public beta would be released around in July-August.
- Widgets: Apple has embraced widgets which can now be placed anywhere in your home screen alongside with your app icons. It’s interactive, resizable and offers lots of customisations.
- App Library aka App Drawer: Gone are those days when all your installed apps lay around your home screen. Introducing, App Library which would automatically categorise your apps and group it together in folders. You could find it after you swipe past your final page of apps. On the way, you could now customise the number of home screens, hide them and remove the clutter.
- Picture-in-picture mode: It’s similar to the one found in the iPad. You could have a small picture-in-picture video box that could be dragged around, resized and continue playing the video while using other apps.
- App Clips: Those are lightweight apps, which you can use without actually downloading the full apps. Like, payments or booking service etc. This can be triggered by custom QR code, NFC or a link from a website (via Safari browser) or Messages.
- Siri: The apple assistant got trimmed down and now won’t take up the entire screen. Its capabilities have been improved and now offer real-time speech-to-text transcription.
- Messages: Apple Messages now allow pin conversations, in-line conversations in groups and better notifications while getting mentioned in groups.
- You can now grant apps your approximate location instead of your exact precise location (better for privacy).
- Privacy highlights: Apps now need to provide a highlight of all user data they track or share with third parties.
iOS 14 for iPad
- Better iPad search UI, which is no longer full screen. It can now search for relevant data in more apps like Messages, Mail, Files and Keynote.
- Apple Pencil update: which now understands handwritten notes and better computer-drawn shapes from your rough sketch.
Apple Watch
- Watch face sharing: you could now share your customised watch faces with friend and community. Apps can offer multiple different watch face complications, instead of the earlier limit on one per app.
- Sleep tracking: Apple Watch can automatically track your sleeping pattern.
- Handwashing mode: Apple Watch can now detect when you’re washing your hands and start a countdown timer to ensure you’ve done the full twenty seconds. It uses the inbuilt accelerometer to check the hand motion and the microphone to listen to the scrubbing sound.
macOS
There is a new version macOS in the horizon – the Big Sur. This time around there are drastic changes to the overall look and feel of OS, bit more like iOS.
- Apple is switching from Intel and bringing in it’s custom ARM-based Apple silicon. These new CPUs which are already inside the iPhone, iPad and Watch products would bring massive performance boost and better battery to Mac lineup including MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, MacMini, iMac and Mac Pro.
- Developers need to port their existing apps to run natively on the new chipset, so to take advantage of the performance boost. However, Rosetta 2 would automatically translate existing apps for compatibility in Big Sur.
- You could now able to run Linux and Docker on an ARM-based Mac.
- You could also run iOS and iPadOS apps on the Mac.
- Control centre: Just like the unified control centre in iOS, macOS would also get the clean control centre of its own. It offers one-click access to commonly used controls like display brightness, volume controls, colour modes, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controls etc.
- Notification Center gets iOS style widgets and the whole section has been cleaned up.
- Safari browser: Extension in Safari is getting an overhaul with more privacy limits. Also with Privacy Report, you could now check what all data is being tracked by the site you’re currently browsing.
Other announcements
- Spatial Audio on AirPods: It offers simulated surround sound that feels like the audio is fixed to the real world around you. It takes clues from the sensors in AirPod and would constantly check and sync your head position and device position. (It’s available only on AirPods Pro).
- Adaptive lighting on Homekit: this allows Homekit to automatically adjust the brightness and temperature of any connected smart bulbs depending upon the time. Like, say, the warmer temperature during the evening and cooler lights during day time.