wwdc2017
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Apple's iOS 11 upgrades for the iPad are all about productivity
With Apple's new iOS 11, the company not only introduced a brand-new mobile OS for iPhones but also completely revamped the experience for iPads as well. Indeed, Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said this is the "largest iOS release for iPad" yet.
Apple unveils HomePod, its Siri smart speaker
Just as we expected, Apple unveiled its Siri speaker, HomePod, today during its WWDC keynote. It's yet another category where Apple is a bit late to the party: Amazon's Echo and Alexa ecosystem has grown steadily over the past few years, and Google has also gotten a start with its Home speaker and Assistant. Even Microsoft has a leg up with the Cortana-powered Harman Kardon Invoke speaker. Apple's pitch, as usual, is that it's delivering a more premium audio experience than the competition.
'Monument Valley 2' is now available on iOS
Monument Valley is one of the greatest mobile games ever released, a brilliant puzzle jaunt through an MC Escher landscape punctuated with lovely chimes and audio accents. Nobody expected a sequel to come around any time soon, so Apple nonchalantly announcing the game at WWDC today is a delightful surprise. Monument Valley 2 is officially live on the App Store for $5.
ARKit is Apple's new reality-bending developer platform
Apple is diving into the world of augmented reality. ARKit is Apple's new developer platform, allowing programmers to build apps that blend the real world with digital objects. It's due out later this year in iOS 11. ARKit supports Unity, Unreal and SceneKit -- opening up the worlds of AR game development and moviemaking -- and it offers motion tracking, plus plane, lighting and scale estimations. Since ARKit will be available on iPads and iPhones, Apple CEO Tim Cook claims it will represent the world's largest AR platform. Compare it to Google Tango, for example: Google doesn't automatically include Tango on every Android device; instead, manufacturers must choose to include it.
Apple's 10.5-inch iPad Pro replaces the older 9.7-inch model
Apple's original 12.9-inch iPad Pro hit the scene in Nov. 2015. Its sheer size and high-end specs made it a standout of the tablet scene, while the Apple Pencil created to work with it made it a hit with designers and other creatives. Now, just a year after Apple introduced a smaller, still capable 9.7-inch iPad Pro with a more typical form factor, the company has replaced it with a new larger model with a 10.5-inch screen.
Apple brings multiroom speaker support to HomeKit with AirPlay 2
Apple's HomeKit has provided iPhone and iPad users with a simple platform to connect multiple smart home devices, but it's shied away from one of the most important gadgets: speakers. Before revealing the rumored Siri speaker, the company announced today that it's expanding its smart home hub to support a large number of third-party audio hardware.
iOS 11 brings a series of car safety features
Using your phone while driving is incredibly dangerous. But for a lot of us, it's tough to ignore all those notifications when we should be paying attention to the road. So Apple has created a new feature for the upcoming iOS 11, aptly titled "Do Not Disturb While Driving."
Apple Music will keep tabs on your friends' listening habits
Thanks to a Bloomberg interview with Apple Music head Jimmy Iovine back in April, we thought WWDC updates for the app could focus on video. During today's keynote, the company gave us a brief rundown of a couple changes we can expect for the service. The big update wasn't video-focused, though; instead, the main news here is the ability to see what your friends are listening to inside Apple Music.
Apple is redesigning the App Store
Every year, more developers flood onto the App Store in the hope of finding an audience and some lucrative revenue. The sheer volume of apps means it's hard to get noticed, however, and on the flip side it's difficult for users to find genuinely useful software. So Apple is finally redesigning the App Store. It has a similar look to Apple Music and News, with large, bubble-like cards displayed in a visual feed. You'll start on the Today tab, which has a curated and personalized selection of apps to browse. Swipe across and you'll hit Games, followed by (your) Apps, Updates and Search.
iOS 11's Photos app uses AI to make your shots better
Apple's iOS 11 promises to be a big upgrade for shutterbugs. It's improving both the Camera and Photos apps to take some of the headaches out of snapshots and photos. For instance, the Photos app's Memories section can make use of machine learning to automatically reorient images when you change your phone's orientation -- it knows what to focus on. Live Photos also make use of this AI-like technology for effects. And Live Photos should be decidedly lively with new visual tricks, including a long exposure blur effect, the ability to pick a key photo, video looping and a Boomerang-style "bounce" effect.
Apple is using AI to make Siri smarter
Apple may have started the digital assistant craze with Siri, but it's largely been playing catch-up lately, specifically to Google and Mountain View's own Assistant. Now Apple's helper has more-expressive voices (both male and female, English and British) and in-app translation features. More than that, Siri can act as a task manager of sorts, offering access to banking in the Citi Mobile app or, for whatever reason, a QR code in WeChat.
macOS finally supports VR
Until now the only way to run a high-end VR system on a Mac was by booting into Windows, but that didn't solve the fact that Apple had yet to offer a GPU option that was actually good enough for VR. The next best thing was to plug in your desired NVIDIA card via an external enclosure like the Razer Core, but you'd still be stuck with Windows. Thankfully, Apple has finally decided to take matters into its own hands by adding VR graphics support to the upcoming macOS High Sierra due this fall, and it's also offering a Thunderbolt 3 external GPU dev kit as of today at WWDC.
Apple's Venmo competitor is built into iMessage
Apple was rumored to be building its own competitor to services like Venmo and Paypal, and today at WWDC the company confirmed it's expanding the Apple Pay empire. Senior VP of Software Craig Federighi announced that Apple Pay would come to iMessage with iOS 11. You can send money to anyone in the default messages app who is also running iOS 11. As you might expect, you use your thumbprint to authenticate the transaction.
Apple unveils iOS 11 with translation and a better camera
Apple has announced iOS 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system, which boasts a variety of small yet important improvements. Messages, for instance, now syncs across all of your devices through iCloud and gains a redesigned app drawer for better discovery. Apple Pay is now capable of letting you send cash to other people via iMessage, with the payments authenticated with Touch ID. Siri, meanwhile, gets automatic translation native to its voice interface, a feature that's been sorely lacking in previous versions.
Apple boosts the MacBook line's performance with Kaby Lake processors
Apple's 2017 laptop lineup will be a bit speedier than last year's offerings, the company announced at WWDC 2017 on Monday. The MacBook will receive the seventh-generation "Kaby Lake" processors from Intel. Specifically, they'll come equipped with a new i7 chip ranging in speed from 1.3GHz up to 3.6GHz. Its new SSD will be both twice as fast as the current model and support double the memory.
Apple’s iMac Pro is its most powerful computer ever
Apple has another iMac to reveal. The iMac Pro is a powerful, familiar-looking all-in-one, decked in Space Gray -- and the company says it's the most powerful Mac ever. Period. The pro-level computer will ship with up to 18-core Xeon processors as well as Radeon Pro Vega graphics (a new GPU and high-bandwidth memory). That's apparently enough for up to 11 Teraflops of single precision (or 22 Teraflops at "half precision") processing power. You can also cram in up to 4TB of SSD storage, with a row of USB ports lining up with four Thunderbolt ports. These (and all the rest of the connections) can be found behind a 27-inch Retina 5K display, with all-flash memory architecture and an all-new thermal design, adding 80 percent more cooling capacity to match all that processing power.
The new Mac file system is all about speed and security
At its WWDC developer conference today, Apple revealed that its latest (not very creatively named) macOS system, High Sierra, will run Apple File System (APFS). Apple claims that High Sierra is its fastest operating system ever, and Apple File is part of that, offering much better performance and security than before. It was first unveiled at WWDC last year, and Apple said it would arrive to all of its products, from Apple TV to watchOS to iOS. As such, many folks were expecting it to come to MacOS today at WWDC 2017.
Apple brings more pro-level power to its consumer iMac lineup
A refreshed line of iMacs -- and the possible introduction of an iMac Pro -- were some of the most teased announcements prior to WWDC. Earlier this year, Phil Schiller, Apple's SVP of Worldwide Marketing, promised that the company would produce iMacs specifically for the professional customer. The new iMacs Apple announced today at WWDC aren't quite that, but they do represent a significant upgrade over the older models. Overall, we're looking at faster machines with better displays in the same enclosure. Those screens feature 500 nits (43 percent brighter than the previous generation) with 1 billion colors. Discrete graphics are now standard on the 4K 21.5-inch. The line is also going to use Intel's Kaby Lake processors and now allow up to 32GB of RAM on the 21.5-inch and up to 64GB on the 27-inch.
Apple's macOS High Sierra: faster Safari and a new file system
Another WWDC, another update to macOS, the software powering Apple's traditional desktop and laptop computers. As usual, senior VP of software engineering Craig Federighi is onstage at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, this time detailing the latest features that Apple will bring to macOS High Sierra when it launches later this year. (We swear that's the real name.)
Apple's watchOS improvements focus on fitness and Siri
Apple definitely isn't slowing down with watchOS updates now that the Apple Watch is relatively established. It's introducing watchOS 4, a big update that overhauls both the look and several key features -- including the watch face itself. To start, there's a new Siri-powered watch face that automatically displays updates based on context. You'll get traffic alerts if you're about to head out to work, for example. There are also kaleidoscope and Toy Story faces if you're feeling particularly trippy or youthful.
