This year's keynote from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference(WWDC 2016) is a wrap – but if you missed it, here's a recap of the important announcements you need to know. Over the course of two hours, Apple execs gave us a rundown of all the enhancements coming to iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Mac OS X—which (big news) is now called macOS.
Kicking off the keynote, Apple CEO Tim Cook opens with a moment of silence to honor the victims of the shooting at a nightclub in Orlando on Sunday night.
And then, it all started.
- Apple unveiled iOS 10, the latest iteration of its mobile software, which includes a softer aesthetic, an interactive lock screen, and personalised home screen widgets
- The software update also includes a revamp of Music, News, Maps and HomeKit
- Siri launched on Mac, as it was given a massive makeover that includes voicemail transcription, image search and writing messages
- watchOS and tvOS have been redesigned too, with the Apple Watch becoming faster and more health-focused, and TV gaining enhanced search
- OS X was rebranded macOS, the next generation of which will be called Sierra and come complete with Siri, Apple Pay and auto-unlock. A host of new features also make it easier to work across Apple devices
watchOS 3
Apple announced a number of new and changed features for its WatchOS software. The new watchOS 3 gets several performance boosts and feature enhancements.
Your favorite apps now launching much faster. Apps that used to take several seconds to load now show up in less than a second. You get the dock by pressing the side button, which used to bring up that constellation of apps. And the app previews are live, so you can see and launch, say, Calendar, all from the same place.
Interactions within many apps have been simplified to a single gesture or a tap. To reply to a text, for example, you don't have to pick "Reply," you just tap on a thing or swipe down. The theme here is basically: everything used to take way too long, now it doesn't. There's a new way to write on the Watch called Scribble. It's like Graffiti on the Palm Pilots of old.Also, there's now an activity face for the watch, which puts those "wow, are you lazy" rings front and center. A new SOS feature, which you get to by pressing and holding the side button, puts you on a call to emergency services directly through your watch. It'll automatically send an emergency notification to your contacts, and show your medical information.
The fitness-tracking app, Activity, now has a sharing feature, so you can rub your accomplishments in the faces of friends and family. Apple has also written new algorithms into Activity for wheelchair users, so their workouts and physical activity can now be tracked with the Apple Watch. There's a new meditation app called "Breathe" that will remind you to spend between one and five minutes doing guided breathing.
Most importantly, Minnie Mouse is a watchface now! Isn't it cute!
These new features will come to all users in the fall as a free upgrade.
tvOS
Apple at the WWDC 16 wanted to say the the future for TV is apps. Well, that's what Eddy Cue, Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services said about Apple's tvOS at the last WWDC, when it introduced third party development on the device. The platform has since increased its video channels offerings from 80 to 1,300.
As expected, Siri will get some enhancements in the updated version of tvOS. The voice assistant can now search the system's database of 650,000 movies and shows using more complex topical queries, such as the "high-school comedies from the '80s" (an example Apple VP Eddy Cue used onstage at today's WWDC keynote).
Siri can also search YouTube if you ask it to, using spoken commands such as "search YouTube for Draymond Green repeatedly assaulting other players."
For streaming channels that include live programming, such as cable-company apps and Watch ESPN, Siri can now launch them immediately without having to waste time around in the menu screen. If you'd rather waste time around in the menu screen without having to wear sunglasses, rest assured there's now a new "Dark Mode" that turns the background black.
With this year's update, there will be a new remote app in case you misplace the physical remote or need more remotes for multi-player games.
If you hate syncing your cable account to access live TV or video on demand on the Apple TV, the new tvOS has a single sign on mode that lets you log in once to access all the channels available from your cable provider. Cool!
OSX= macOS, iOS 10 and Siri: Biggest announcement of WWDC 2016
Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi started the conversation about OS X out by changing the name to something simple: macOS.
The latest OS version will be called Sierra, with a focus on continuity. For example, if you're wearing an authenticated Apple Watch, you can automatically unlock your laptop just by having that watch nearby. It's a neat little feature… Well, only if you own all the right Apple gear.
There's also Universal Clipboard which lets you copy text from your iPhone and paste on your Macbook, and an iCloud Drive to help offload older files to make room for local documents.
OS X Sierra brings Apple Pay to desktop as well, with a new payment feature that lets you authenticate the payment through your Apple Watch or iPhone via continuity. Again, great for someone who has all the Apple gadgets.
A few more organizational updates bring tabs to any apps, picture-in-picture capacity, and yes, Siri on desktop. She'll be available right on the dock.
For iOS 10, Federighi moves right into demo, with a new lockscreen that has a "raise to wake" feature – comparable to Moto X's active display for glance-able notifications. In iOS 10, you can 3D Touch a notification to reply to messages or apps straight from the lockscreen. Swipe right and you can immediately access the camera.
To round off the updates, Federighi says Siri will be open for developers, allowing you to incorporate her into your apps. With rumors that Apple is working on its own home assistant, Alexa better watch out.
Photos, Maps, Music, News, Home, Phone: Some minor updates
For Photos, you’ll be able to see a map-view of where your photos were taken Instagram-style, and Apple will incorporate facial recognition to sort through who’s in your images, Google Photos-style. It’ll also start creating movies based on photos you took during a recent period of time, if you’re into that kind of thing.
With Maps, there are new recommendation shortcuts for you to find exactly what you want from Maps, such as cuisine types in a restaurant search mode. You can also search for nearby stops on a map route such as a gas station or restaurants and see how long it’ll take to detour over there.
Maps will be open to developers, too. For example, now you can book your dinner reservation from the map through a third party app like OpenTable, then book a ride to go there all via Maps.
For Music, Eddy Cue says it will get redesigned from the ground up with larger photos, and better tabs to find music you've recently added or music you've downloaded. There's a lyrics tab and a daily-curated playlist too, Spotify-style. Hmm, looks like there is an ongoing trend for this keynote.
News gets a redesign too, which shares the same aesthetic as the new Music look with the giant font to separate each sections. You can now subscribe to newspapers and magazines from the News app as well.
HomeKit gets a new Home app so you can control all your internet of things gear. You can even say good morning to Siri so she can set the house ready for you to get going. If someone rings a doorbell, you can get a notification, view a livestream of the front door, and unlock right from the homescreen.
And get this: If you're the kind of person who uses your smartphone to actually make phone calls, now you can get voicemail transcriptions! Third party providers can also help detect spam phone numbers to avoid picking up annoying calls. VoIP can be integrated into the lockscreen, too.
iMessage gets a fun update with invisible ink, letting users tap to unblur a new photo or text. There are new text stylizations that lets you add animations as well, such as “smash,” “gentle,” or “loud.”
Emoji get supersized too – three times bigger in fact – and iMessage can recommend emoji to use or turn all your words into an emoji. What a time to be alive.
As you may have anticipated by now, Messages are open to devs, too.
The developer preview for iOS 10 will be available today, and a public beta will come out in July. The public rollout will arrive in the fall.
Swift Playground
Apple introduced Swift Playground, a new iPad app to help kids learn how to code in Swift right from the iPad. The game-like app lets you learn different principles, like loops or turning specific features (such as gravity or gyroscoping) on and off.
Swift Playground will arrive with the developer preview today, and will arrive with the public beta and general public with the same timeline as iOS 10. The app will be free to download.
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