WWDC 2017 started with the Keynote, announcing all the latest from Apple.
Watch the Full Keynote Below:
The Recap
The keynote had 6 main parts to it that Apple wanted to focus on.
1. tvOS
Really simply, the main announcement was Amazon Prime coming to tvOS, with more apps coming later in the year.
2. Apple Watch
watchOS
Apple announced watchOS 4. It comes with new Faces, including – Siri, Kaleidoscope and Toy Story characters.
Updates were done to the Activities App, making it more intuitive and giving you monthly challenges.
Updates were also done to the Music App, making it easier to navigate the music you like to listen to.
3. Mac
macOS
Apple announced the new update to macOS – High Sierra.
It comes with updates to Safari that help block site trackers and auto-playing videos.
It adds new photo-editing tools, which is helpful for those who don’t have Adobe Photoshop. It also has better filtering tools to sort images by keywords or faces.
The update will bring the updated file management system – Apple File System (APFS), a new modern file system that’s optimized for solid state storage with native encryption, crash protection, and other features, and it uses the HEVC (H.265) compression standard that enables higher-quality video streaming and smaller file sizes.
On the graphics end, there’s a second version of “Metal”, supporting VR. Steam will be bringing its SDK to help support VR on Mac.
Metal 2 and Thunderbolt 3 will allow Apple’s top-of-the-line Macs to support VR and external graphics cards.
iMac
Apple’s introduced updated iMac desktops with improved Retina displays, graphics boosts, Kaby Lake processors and USB-C.
They will also support graphics for VR content creation.
There’s a new iMac Pro as well, with a 5K display with improved cooling capacity, and 8-core Xeon processor (upgradeable up to 18-core), up to 4TB of SSD, up to 128GB of ECC memory, four Thunderbolt 3 ports and built-in 10GB Ethernet.
The new iMac starts at $1,099USD for the 21.5-inch model, and $1,299USD for the 4K model.
The Macbooks are getting upgrades also; the MacBook Pro starts at $1,299USD, which includes the updated Kaby Lake processor.
The iMac Pro starts at $4,999USD, and ships in December.
4. Mobile Devices
iOS
The new version of iOS software has got some big updates, such as an update to Siri that has improved speech – Siri has a new voice, the ability to help translate sentences into different languages, and on-device learnings that suggest actions based on what you do on your iPhone or iPad.
iMessages now lives in the iCloud, with synchronized conversations that you can delete from any device you own that are under the same account – Something that Microsoft have had for a while now.
You can also pay and receive payments from contacts through iMessage.
Photo capture is also improved, with better low-light performance, and the ability to edit Live Photos so you can change the key still image or trim the video. There’s a new control centre as well, which relies a lot on 3D Touch and condenses most controls on the lower half of the screen without looking cluttered.
There’s also a new safety feature that recognizes when a user is driving and automatically turns on Do Not Disturb to prevent distractions.
Lastly, the App Store has been redesigned for better discovery and a How To section for tips on how to use various popular apps. Apple’s also bringing back the “App of the Day” section to promote users to open the App Store more frequently.
Apple introduced a new ARKit to let developers build augmented reality apps for the iPhone. The kit can help find planes, track motion, and estimate scale and ambient lighting.
This is a direct attack on Microsoft HoloLens, attempting to make AR using devices many already own, rather a separate piece of tech. Comments around the web have already called this “Innovative” and “Better than HoloLens” without realizing the dynamics the HoloLens has in the way it renders AR. One significant factor would be Memory of Object Placement and the potential integration to other devices that will blow Apple AR into insignificance. Nice try Apple.
5. iPad
The iPad Pro will now be available in 2 different sizes, with a new 10.5-inch model introduced. There’s a 12-megapixel camera, just like the iPhone 7, with a 7MP selfie cam. It supports USB 3.0 and has 10 hours of battery life.
There’s a new feature called ProMotion which reduces the Apple Pencil’s latency to 20 milliseconds. It can automatically adjust the refresh rate based on what you’re watching (fast-moving video versus still image). ProMotion also doubles the refresh rate to up to 120Hz.
The 10.5-inch iPad Pro will be available starting with a 64GB configuration at $649USD.
iOS 11 improves multitasking that lets users pull up an app from the dock and drag it onto the screen to split the screen. Similar to what you can do on a MacBook, you can use touch to hold and drag folders, files, or photos and drop them in a different app such as Mail or iMessage.
Handwritten text from an Apple Pencil will also be searchable from the Notes app. Apple claims it uses “deep learning” to recognize what you write.
Apple announced “Files” app, which is a Management System that you can use to sort files by size and date, similar to how you’d go through your files on a desktop or laptop.
6. HomePod
HomePod is Apple’s upcoming speaker device. HomePod is Apple’s answer to the Amazon Echo and the Google Home, but the speaker focuses heavily on superior sound quality.
It measures at 7 inches tall, available in black or white and is covered with a mesh design.
There are seven beam-forming tweeters (each with an amplifier) built into the device, which offers pure, distortion-free high frequency acoustics with directional control.
For deep, clean bass, the speaker includes an Apple-designed upward-facing woofer, and it’s equipped with an A8 chip, which powers everything from Siri to a new automatic room-sensing technology.
HomePod is set to be released in December. Priced at $349USD.
