This year, with the unfortunate events of covid-19, Apple’s WWDC was pre-recorded. The production value of course did not fall short to say the least, it almost felt as if it was a super high quality car commercial, but in a good way. Apple has always set the gold standard on how presentations should be produced. They’re clear, concise, and feel very warm and inviting with tons of information and visuals. If you aren’t one to sit through about two hours of video here is a quick run down of what the Apple keynote had to offer this year.
Apple will invest $100 million towards Apple’s Racial, Equity, and Justice Initiative
A new developer entrepreneur camp for Black developers
iOS 14
-New app organization with App Library
-Widgets are now movable to the phone’s home screen and viewable in a “Smart Stack” form which changes itself throughout the day
-Picture in Picture, so you can now watch videos while you do other things in the background
-Siri is redesigned to be smaller and more informative
-Translate- A new app that will translate on the phone itself up to 11 different languages
-Messages- You’re now able to Pin messages, and it’s been updated with Memoji’s and better group chat options
-App Clip- Allows the iPhone to use Visual Code and NFC to tap or scan with your camera to make use of different app clips
-Maps:
-Update to guides for local attractions
-Dedicated cycling directions in NY, LA, SF, Shanghai, and Beijing
-Electric Vehicle Routing to give E.V. cars the best planned route to have recharging stations for long road trips
-Digital Car Keys- Will support locking and unlocking your car and even starting your car with your iPhone. Your digital car key can be transferred digitally by iMessage. The first car to support this will be the new BMW 2021 5 Series. If your phone is lost, the digital key may be turned off through iCloud.
iPad
-Updated side bar usage and menu panels
-Scribble will give you the ability to write in any text field and it will automatically convert it to text
AirPods Software update
-Automatic Switching- AirPods will switch between your Apple devices without needing to manually switch them
-Spacial Audio for AirPods Pro
WatchOS 7
-Updated calibrations and fresh watch faces
-Face Sharing- Able to download and discover different type of watch faces through third party, the App Store, websites, or even through friends and family
-Sleep Tracking
Security Features
-Apps will now have the option of giving approximate locations versus specific locations
-Apps will also let you know when the camera is activated and when it is recording and will show you in the status bar
-App store policy will now ask for your permission when tracking you or needs more information
MacOS: BigSur
-Finder is redesigned to look better, and have a compact menu design
-Apps also have a redesign and a new look while menus are translucent and spaced out
-Control Center has been added in from the iPad
-Notifications Center have grouped everything together to have a cleaner look to have all your information in one place
-Apple will now use it’s own Apple Silicon, so no more Intel chips in their own devices in two years from now. Expect the first Apple Silicon Mac by the end of the year
