7:24am WWDC-time

After being able to make it to WWDC for two years in a row, it really feels strange getting ready for WWDC while sitting at home. At least I am on vacation from the day job for the week, so I am letting the excitement build, while social distancing. I am wearing my favorite shirt from last year’s WWDC, the mind blown dragon!

I am really looking forward to getting my mind blown again, with hopefully enhancements to SwiftUI, Catalyst, and Combine. These three big changes from last year’s WWDC have all be a bit rough around the edges, but exciting none the less. I will check in later to this post as we all get closer to the time!
=== 30 minutes later ===
So last year my Mac went belly up when I tried to install the latest macOS, so this year I created a new partition, installed the latest GA version of Catalina, and have put a giant background to worn me that this is the beta environment. The second thing I will do, is make sure I don’t turn on iCloud Drive. For the last three years, there have been synchronization issues with iCloud Drive with each version of macOS. So hopefully, this year, I will be safe.

Really enjoying the ambient music that is playing along with the keynote start video. If you look really closely you will see that all of the dots are actually Memoji from around the world. I wonder if they are doing a real-time query, or are they showing the last time people checked in. If they would zoom out, it would be easier to make out each country.
And my first streaming hiccup happened right at the beginning. But glad to see Tim Cook, start the keynote with #BlackLivesMatter and their commitment to racial justice. And a great shout out to Covid-19 heroes. They are also doing all the stream support coming out of Apple Park.
Over to Craig!
iOS – 14. Rethinking the iconic elements – starting with the home screen. Yup.. customized home screen right off the bat.
Start by auto sorting all the content into default folders, and notice seems like folders in folders. Jiggle mode – to tap and hide pages you no longer need. Search apps and listed from alphabetically. Most used apps are at the top level of the AppLibrary screen.
Next – Widgets – reimagined widgets on the screen with different sizes, and you can take them out of the widget view to the home screen. The widget gallery allows you to see the different sizes available
Picture in picture on the iPhone! This is really starting to be cool… I am sure that my Android friends will talk about how some of the features have been their before.
Siri updates now – so let’s focus on improving the UI. A compact design to allow you to keep seeing things you may be working on while you talk to Siri.
Siri has over 25 billion requests per month. Siri is being expanded to private conversation with translate for conversation, will work completely offline – keeping your data private. Supporting 11 languages.
Messages has 40% increase in the last year with 2x usage to groups. so updating groups conversations, and pinning your most important conversations. Memoji is being updated to add ever more styles, including face covering. Inline replies with threading. This will make it easier to keep track of the conversation… and only be notified when you are mentioned. Nice to see some of these updates, reflecting things I’ve been using in slack for years.
Maps are being updated, finished rolling out the new maps earlier this year. The new changes have gotten them praises from Fast Company about UI and privacy. Adding new countries this year. Along with the new feature called Guides, but now adding features for increased use of green options, beginning with cycling. Nice feature to show when you have to carry you bike or have a steep hill to climb up. If you have an electric car they are adding EV Routing to help remove range anxiety. Additional green features for China to track when the user can drive their cars within certain congested areas.
CarPlay is now available on 97% of all new cars in the US. They are adding a bunch of new types of app-types for the car. But the rumors are true – digital car keys in the iPhone. First car to support is the 2020 BMW. Place the phone in the qi charger to start your car. You can share your key (digitally) with specific driving profiles, also enabling this feature early in iOS 13. In order to expand usage, Apple is working with the CarKeyConsortium. New cars will support in 2021.
AppStore – extending support to enable to use “app clips” get the app right when you need it. Looks like it is using NFC to get the data, and then the app has to support it. Can use Apple Pay for payments so you don’t need to give them your credit card information, and if you use Sign-in with Apple, then you don’t need to provide other information either. Very cool private focus!
Next up – iPadOS!
Now that iPadOS is separate, they can focus on the features separately. New design elements for iPadOS. There are now over 1m apps on the App Store designed just for iPad. Of course, we have redesigned widgets.
Updating photos with a new sidebar, which makes it behave a bit more like photos on the Mac. And that is being added across many of the iPad Apps – Photos, Notes, Files, Music, etc.
Yay!! Finally sort order changes in Files. Fullscreen player in music.
Siri – all the small views make it better by allowing it to put a compact notification on top of other apps. This feature will be updated for iOS too. Of course search is also updated, and now matches the macOS search feature. This will now be universal across all of iPadOS.
Apple Pencil get’s its own section. Automatically translating writing into text. Scribble recognizes multiple languages in the same line. You can copy handwriting and paste as text.
And another new section on AirPods – automatic switching between devices. Between Mac, iPad, iPhone, etc. Also adding Spatial audio in the AirPods Pro. Also, tracking your head so that they don’t shift audio sound field, when you move your head. matching motion data between head, screen and AirPods Pros. That’s a hell of a lot of calculations.
WatchOS.
Now enabling multiple complications from the same app. And as usual, updated watch faces, including improved method for searching for complications. You can also share watch faces with – Face Sharing! (what a name – didn’t we see this in Agents of Shield this season). Developers can now also add pre-configured watch faces, or even share them across social media.
Adding cycling directions to maps on the watch.
Workout app is one of the most used app on the watch. Adding Dance as a new workout. They are using adding sensor fusion to figure out the differences between arms only, arms and legs, and full body workout dancing. Changed the name of the App on the iPhone to “fitness”.
A few new features in the watch – Sleep: Adding wind down to help you get to bed on time. By adding small shortcuts and reminders to get you ready to go to bed. Screen is off when you sleep and tap for a very simple watch face. Sleep is also available on the iPhone.
Hand washing to have automatically detect when you are washing your hands. Adds features to help you wash long enough.
A whole new section in the keynote on Privacy!
- Data minimization
- On-device intelligence
- Security protections
- Transparency and control
These are the principles that Apple uses in developing their devices, services and software. There are over 200 million users for sign-in with Apple. Wish to be able to cover your accounts to Sign in with Apple. Developers can now do this.
Can change location to be approximate, rather than precise. Also adding indictors to let you know if an app is using microphone or camera. Apps must ask if they will be tracking you. Apps privacy practices will be exposed as a Nutritional label. Information will be included in all of the app stores. Really happy to see this.
In the home, all of the new features have the following requirements
- Ease of use
- Privacy
- Better together.
HomeKit – partnered with Amazon, Google and others to expand ecosystem. Adding automations to quickly setup new HomeKit equipment. The home app is expanded to give you a quick view of what is going on. Light app is adding adaptive lighting. HomeKit security video will now enable activity zones, so you don’t get notification when people walk by, but do when they come to your door. You can also add face recognition of who is at your door.
AppleTV – Expanding multi-user support for games, so that you can swap out players. in TVOS14 will add picture in picture across all of your services, so that you can watch the news while doing your workout. On AppleTV+ they are now working on Issac Asimov’s Foundation. I have to confess I have never read these books, but the trailer looks pretty cool.
MacOS – Big Sur
An entirely new design. This always worries me… but let’s see the video. First design elements have been cleaned up and made comparable to what you’ve seen on the iPad. Things appear and disappear so you only see them when you “need’ them. Of course the icons are different, but yet the same. Nice to see Craig is using MacPro. Looking at the design it really does look like the iPadOS look.
iWork has been updated. Funny haven’t heard that name in a long time. Many of the controls have been reworked to expose features. And Control center is now on the Mac. Notification is now exposed by clicking on the time. They are grouped like on the iPhone. Widgets are exposed in the control center. Developers can bring their own to the Mac too.
Messages on the Mac – added in search to help you find things. You can create Memoji on the Mac. Effects and Pin conversations. Looks like they have finally gotten messages current with the iPhone.
Apple Maps – another example of making it comparable to the iPhone, like: ETA, indoor mapping, and favorites.
Mac Catalyst updates – can fully utilize the native resolution of the full screen. Controls have been updated. Maps and Messages were created with Catalyst.
Safari is being updated to be 50% faster than Chrome on average. But the big thing is updates for Privacy. Adding a privacy report toolbar. Also monitoring passwords to make sure they are not compromised. Allowing for extension updates to make it easier for developers to support Safari. The privacy allows for you to restrict extensions to specific pages, and allow them to function for only one time, etc.
You can now build your own customized start page for Safari. Allowing for privacy on the web, you can see the intelligent tracking and improved information. This feature is something you can do with add ons like the EFF Privacy Badger.
Tab hovering allows you to see previews. And you have built in translation for websites on the fly. And that’s macOs!
And now we have the ARM transition. Using their own Apple Silicon. Too funny on the video to the “undisclosed location”.
Nice to see racks and racks of MacPro’s in the “undisclosed” lab. Each of their devices, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watch, are considered “Best in Class” because of Apple Silicon. A key thing to consider is power, if apple can get to the upper left corner the Apple Mac would truly be innovative.
By building a customer system on a chip – SoCs could be optimized to their major features.
And now we can enable developers to quickly develop across all of these platforms. Many of the foundations have been enabled already in Big Sur. All of Apple’s apps are enabled as “native” apps. When you recompile you can flag to be a “universal 2” app. Microsoft and Adobe have already started this work.
All the earlier Big Sur features were demoed on the Apple SoC demo system. Craig then showed MS office, Lightroom and Photoshop running on this machine. Photoshop was a 5GB image with many layers.
And then a 4k video on Final Cut Pro with realtime color correction, animated titles and lens flare all in real time. To show the A12Z processor they had three full-res Apple Pro Res videos playing back at the same time.
In order to transition, they will do a Rosetta like feature, called Rosetta2 that automatically translates all non-native apps. Will do it during install for most apps, but will also happen just in time for websites, etc.
Virtualization options will be enabled so that you can run Linux and other environments. Demoed Maya and Tomb Raider game to show how well a translated app can run. Also demoed Parallels to demo running a server. And the one more thing is, iPhone and iPadApps will run native on the new Macs.
Quick start program – allows for developers to access DTKs Developer Transition Kits, enable to get started with new hardware chips. You must apply and units will be shipped this week!
Timeline for the transition is – by the end of this year for the 1st customers, and will complete the transition in 2 years. BUT, will still support Intel Macs going forward for the foreseeable future. Developer betas will be available today, and public betas will be available in July.
Time to code!!!!