So, I’ve had dinner, and am currently skipping the Loop party that I had gotten tickets to. I am tired, exhausted and really excited. So the following picture talks about the key things that the Apple team was going to talk about at the keynote for iOS:
Let’s break it down:
The first icon is their focus for iOS 12 – Performance. This was a great story for people with older devices. While 50% of people updated to iOS 11 within a week of it being available, and right now over 93% of active iOS devices are running iOS 11 (compared to 6-7% of active android devices running the current release), it is not necessarily a great experience. Apple is showing significant performance improvements for older devices which upgrade to iOS 12. And they will continue to support all the same devices as iOS 11. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that Apple is working on approving performance so that all their new Machine Learning services still function. I am really excited to see what this means in practice.
The second icon (going left to right top to bottom), is about AR. Apple announced a new file format that is supported by major AR vendors, Adobe and many others. The one that was interesting to see was PTC. Will have to learn more about what they are really doing. However the format is a much smaller file format, with all the data you need for high powered AR objects. Apple also used this to show case their new “measure” app, which allows for AR measuring of real world 3D objects. Given we are currently remodeling a bathroom, this app should come in handy.
The third icon is major updates to the photo app, most of this is driven by the upgrades in machine learning that Apple is introducing. You can now do much better image recognition and classifiers. I am hoping that the app updates my library soon, so I can search for Dragons.
The forth icon is Siri updates. Basically Siri is getting better, and not just better, I can now go back and build a “Siri shortcut” for my Wasted Time application. So we are going to see a lot more apps being able to use Siri.
The fifth icon is a new app (basically the Workflow team has been integrated into Siri) to allow you to build receipts, or workflows, that string together actions. This looks really powerful, the question that was not addressed on stage was, can you interrupt a workflow and have Siri ask for more information.. Will hope to learn more on this over the summer.
The sixth icon is updates to the voice memos app, 1) it will now be on the iPad and 2) it will sync up the data via iCloud. (Spoiler alert, it will also be on the Mac.
The seventh icon is the new Apple Books app, os as it used to be called, iBooks. A major UI re-write, improved store, and more.. didn’t really focus on this, since I tend to have all my books on Kindle.
The eighth icon (first one on the second row) is the news app. Again, UI fixes, and better split view support on iPad, (another spoiler – this will also be on the Mac). I have installed on both iPad and Mac, and so far it doesn’t seem to be sharing my settings, etc. but I am sure that is a timing issue.
The ninth icon (by now do you think we are singing the 12 days of Christmas?) is the stocks app… another UI fix and support for Mac.
The tenth icon is the Do Not Disturb icon, they are allowing for much better fine grain support, and more importantly when you look at your phone during the night it will only show you the time, not any other notifications that have popped up during the night.
The eleventh icon is notifications, you can have them grouped, you can disable them when they pop-up, and the people around me were really happy. I have already killed most of the notifications on my devices, so this is not a big deal; however, I may turn them back on and see how it works.
The twelfth icon is screen time, you can now address how you use apps, and control your usage time, as well as your kids.
The thirteenth icon is messages. You now have Memoji! This is all about creating your own Animoji’s and it looks loads of fun. Definitely, means that I expect all new phones to have Animoji support on front facing cameras.
The fourteenth and final iOS icon is Face time. Here’s where it gets great, multi-user FaceTime videos for up to 32 people! Sounds great to me.
The watch and MacOS updates were also great.. but I am focused on iOS for now. But we can say – Wakie Talkie and Dark Mode.. I bet you can figure out which is on what platform.
They also talked Apple TV.