This year, Apple held its first-ever completely online World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), kicking off with a software announcement keynote on June 22, 2020, at 10 a.m. PDT. Major changes were announced to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and especially macOS and the transition to ARM-based Macs. Here are some of the major features announced.
iOS 14
The next update to iPhones redesigns the home screen and includes many new app updates. A developer beta is now available, and a public beta will be available in July, according to Apple, with the full, final release coming in fall for the general public.
Redesigned Call UI: At long last, Apple has finally updated the incoming call UI to be nonobtrusive, small, and compact.
Simply tap the buttons to pick up or answer calls, or swipe away the notification to for the call to keep ringing. No longer will your workflow be interrupted by incoming calls!
App Library: A new feature called the App Library will exist to the rightmost of your app pages, to allow you to hide away some less-frequently used apps and create a cleaner, more polished look.
The feature automatically organizes apps by category and recommends them to you based on usage frequency and workflow routine.
Widgets on the Home Screen: Widgets will no longer be hidden in a page to the left of the home screen. Instead, they will now live on the same page as the apps, which provides more useful information at a glance.
These widgets can include weather information, photos, mail, messages, and so on.
Picture-in-Picture: Videos will now be able to be played picture-in-picture (PiP), allowing you to watch a video while you are working on other tasks by minimizing the video player to a small corner of the screen. This feature already exists on iPadOS.
It is even possible to swipe away the video to just have the audio play in the background.
Siri Updates: According to Apple, Siri is now smarter and will now return “I found this on the web” for fewer requests. In addition, the Siri interface will no longer take up the entire screen.
This will make it significantly easier to access Siri and refer to what you are doing as it is no longer so obtrusive.
CarKey: The iPhone (and Apple Watch) will now be able to function as a car key, using the NFC and Express Transit technology already on the phone, allowing you to unlock your car easily and drive away with it. It can also be disabled remotely and shared with friends and family easily for security. The feature will also be available on iOS 13.6. However, the feature requires iPhone XS, XS Max, XR, 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max, or Apple Watch Series 5 in order to function. The feature will first be available on many BMW cars (manufactured after July 1, 2020) and will be available with next year’s 5 Series at launch.
App Clips: A new feature called App Clips will allow access to a small part of an app without needing to download the entire app.
These can be accessed through NFC, scanning an App Clip code, a QR Code, shared via Messages or other apps, Safari, and so on. This will make things that require a dedicated app, like paying for a parking meter, much easier as there will no longer be a need to download the entire app just to pay for parking once.
Messages App Updates: A number of features brought to the Messages app makes it more on-par with other messaging platforms like WhatsApp, with features like mention, pinned chats, replying to a specific message, group photos (surprisingly, that still isn’t a thing in Messages), more Memoji, and so on.
Third-Party App as Defaults: Although not explicitly mentioned on stage, iOS 14 will allow users to set other apps as the default. For example, it is now possible to set a default browser or mail app.
In addition to these changes, a slew of other new features was also brought to iOS, like major changes to Apple Maps, Music, and Mail, which you can check out from Apple’s website here.
iPadOS 14
The next update to iPads brings a slew of new features. A developer beta is now available and a public beta will be available in July according to Apple, with the full, final release coming in fall for the general public. All the above iOS features (except CarKey) All of the new iOS features like the home screen redesign and the numerous app redesigns are all coming to iPad as well.
Redesigned Photos App: Viewing photos on the iPad is now much better and more fluid.
Features like a new sidebar, drag and drop support, and so on make it more similar to the Mac Photos app. Similar changes have also come to the Files app and most of Apple’s other apps.
Redesigned Search: Search on the iPad has been made less obtrusive (seems to be the theme here), made smarter, and takes up way less space. It has been made similar to Spotlight Search on the Mac.
Major Apple Pencil Updates: There is now full handwriting support for the Apple Pencil on iPad, and it can automatically detect handwriting on the iPad, even when numerous languages are used inline. You can cut, copy, and paste handwriting as text, and all text fields can be “written” in by using the Apple Pencil.
Many of these features are similar to what already exists on notetaking apps like Notability and Good Notes, such as shape detection, circling text to move it, scratching over text to delete it, and so on.
Again, check out all other features here.
watchOS 7
The next update to Apple Watches includes more customization and health features. A developer beta is now available and a public beta will be available in July according to Apple, with the full, final release coming in fall for the general public.
Face Customizations and Sharing There can now be numerous complications from each app, greatly improving customizability. A new watch face that includes a tachymeter has also been added, and there is now a share button within the Apple Watch app on iPhone that allows easy sharing of watch faces.
Sleep Tracking: Built-in, native sleep tracking is now also available on the Apple Watch.
The features will help you sleep on time, get enough sleep, and look at your sleep cycles and schedules, similar to what many other third-party apps currently do.
Handwashing Features: There is now a built-in feature to help you wash your hands for 20 seconds in wake of the coronavirus global health crisis, making use of the gyroscope to detect handwashing movements and the speaker to listen for water noises.
New Fitness Features: Other new features include new workouts, health features, a rebuilt Activity app now known as Fitness, and so on.
Check out all the other new features here.
AirPods Updates
The AirPods have received some love from Apple. Surround Sound Support AirPods Pro now have surround sound support, using various high-tech features to create the effect that surround sound is being used. It will also use the gyroscope to detect head movements and keep the audio in sync with device movements so the surround sound effect is never lost.
Handoff Support: AirPods (Second Generation and Pro, Powerbeats headphones, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro) now gains the functionality to handoff between devices, without needing to do it manually. For example, if you were using your iPhone and switched over to the iPad, the AirPods would detect that and switch the input device to the iPad automatically. This works with all Apple devices.
macOS Big Sur (Version 11.0)
The next update to the Mac includes new interface designs, Catalyst features, and so on. A developer beta is now available and a public beta will be available in July according to Apple, with the full, final release coming in fall for the general public.
Redesigned Elements: A new dock, new menu bar, new app designs, all-new control center, redesigned notification center, and so on are some of the new interface changes coming to macOS. macOS has now been made more “iOS-tified.”
Mac Catalyst: With the transition to Apple Silicon (discussed below), it will now be very easy for developers to port iOS and iPadOS apps to macOS. The Mac can also run iOS apps with Apple Silicon technology, and a large number of Apple’s apps have been redesigned for the Mac with Catalyst technology. Some of these can be seen in the photo above.
Major Safari Improvements: Safari is also getting some love, with new privacy features, extension support, built-in translation, been made significantly faster, customizable start pages, and so on.
Again, check out all the changes here.
Mac Transition to Apple Silicon
By far the biggest announcement at WWDC is the announcement of ARM-based, Apple in-house designed and built processors coming to the Mac, away from Intel-made chips.
Since the inception of the Apple A-Series chipset on iPhones and iPads, it has been the industry-leading standard and outperformed all other competitors due to the software integration and optimization for their respective devices. It is expected that Apple’s own chips on the Mac will bring massive performance and power consumption improvements.
Apple has announced that the transition will be easy, the first Mac with these chips coming by the end of the year, and the transition period is expected to last two years.
There were also other announcements like tvOS updates and Apple TV+ updates that we didn’t have time to cover here. Check them out over at Apple’s website. What do you think about all these WWDC announcements? Let us know in the comments down below. Make sure to subscribe for more.
Images from MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Apple’s WWDC live stream, and apple.com.