Recap of Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2019

By
George Kamau
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Apple’s WWDC 2019 just ended where we got both software and hardware announcements from iOS 13, macOS 10.15, the new Mac Pro plus other interesting unveilings including dark mode, iPadOS, macOS Catalina. As the conference began, Apple gave a preview of what its new Apple TV+ show, For All Mankind, Apple’s tvOS is getting multiuser support plus native support for Xbox One S  and Dual Shocker controller support. This will let users who already have game consoles in the house use their own controllers on the box.

watchOS 6

Apple is shipping its App store to the Apple Watch and you’ll now be able to browse, purchase and install apps right on the watch. The Apple watch got the Voice Memo, Books and Calculator app.

Health apps are also coming with it including a fitness and menstrual cycle tracking app. The Apple watch is getting new faces too Some purely visual updates such as gradient face, digital face, California Dial, and others with a few more smarts like the Solar face with a 24-hour sun path.

You also get taptic chimes – your watch will buzz when n hour has passed or you could choose to go with an audible birdsong.

Activity Tends is coming to the Activity app on your iPhone. It will show users how their recent activity habits compares with their previous year

iOS 13

Craig Federighi introduces iOS 13 saying that it’s so much faster with 30% faster FaceID unlock, 2x faster at launching apps, 60% smaller app updates and 50% smaller app downloads.

iOS 13 comes with system-wide dark mode.

The Notes, Mail and Safari apps got some updates. Mail app got ‘desktop-class formatting. Notes gots a new filing system while Reminders gots an almost total redesign: quick entry, links to people, and an advanced tracking system. Map git a rebuild from literally the ground up in California and will be across the US later this year and in other countries next year.

Other features announced include the Swipe-to-type feature that is coming to the iOS keyboard, Music that automatically syncs lyrics as you listen. Photos will also now automatically suggest people to share pictures with depending on who’s in the photo.

User Privacy

This is one of the most exciting features. Read more about it here.

iMessage

You can now choose to  share your name and Memoji with people when you first text other people

Camera and Photos

These got a revamped too with new features including simple video editing in Photos and a new depth-sensitive filter in the Camera plus a new way of browsing photos and Apple’s Machine Learning will hide duplicates and you can select new thumbnails that reflect a given day, month or year.

A roundup of other accessories updates

  • Shortcuts are getting an upgrade and now you’ll be able to automatically get suggested Siri shortcuts. The assistant is also getting an AI voice too.
  • Siri will read out your incoming messages via the AirPods

  • You can also hand off the music you were listening to or a call from your phone to the Homepod
  • For Carplay, Siri now becomes a popover so you can have music and maps visible simultaneously

iPadOS

Apple’s latest OS addition id off to a great start as it becomes more of a computer and now with more added features. Safari will get an update to force websites to serve the desktop version to iPads, a download manager, font switcher, keyboard shortcuts, new gestures(three finger pinch for copying text, three fingers spread for pasting and three finger swipe for undoing), iCloud file sharing, File Column View, Multiwindow capability, slide-overs  get their pwn multi-tasking and you can now pin widgets to the homescreen.

Apple Pencil latency will also drop from 20ms to 9ms plus 3rd party apps will now get to develop directly for the pencil.

Mac Pro

The Mac Pro packs a 28 core Intel Xeon, with 300 watts of power, supporting 1.5TB of Ram, and 8 internal PCIe slots. It comes with Ethernet, four Thunderbolt 3 slots, two USB-A slots, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Inside, it rocks a new built-in graphics module, the MPX. Afterburner is also a graphics card it packs that will come in handy to video editors as it speeds up their video rendering and playback.

It’s on wheels.

Apple Pro Display

This is a 33″ 6K HDR enabled display.

macOS Catalina

The new macOS will be called macOS Catalina.

iTunes finally got decommissioned

Definitely

Here’s a roundup

Project Catalyst

With Project Catalyst, developers will quickly and easily develop Mac apps from their iPad apps. This will ease with app development as developers can build one app that transcends from the iPhone, the iPad and to the Mac.

Conclusion

Apple will offer developer betas of tvOS 13, iOS 13, macOS 10.15 after the keynote. Public betas will wait till later in July except for watchOS. The new iOS 13 is slated to launch with the iPhone 11.

After the event ended, Apple’s stock was seen to slide as the US Department of Justice considered an investigation into the giant tech company on alleged anticompetitive practices.

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George Kamau
I brunch on consumer tech | first.last at techweez dot com

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