Apple’s CEO Tim Cook took the stage on Monday in front of an empty audience starting the biggest Apple event of the year: The World Wide Developers Conference. Before moving on to Apple’s product updates of WWDC 2020, Cook predictably shared some thoughts on the current political climate of the United States as well as the COVID-19 situation. Online, the event was followed by millions of fans and critics, as usual, with a large part of them being developers.
No Surprises Here: Apple Devices Will Be Easier to Use Than Ever
Presentations started from the new iOS 14 version update. In the future, it will be easier for the user to find a given app from his phone with the aid of artificial intelligence. This is made possible with the new search tab. Apple promises the feature to be so handy that the user might not even want to see other tabs on their phone for their apps. In addition, Apple brings in improved widgets to iOS 14 that you can place in a more dynamic way. And, as you might have guessed, there will also be updates for the Memoji emojis.
Speaking of AI, the Siri assistant will also be getting new features: it can now translate speech in real-time between two or more conversing parties. It will still take a while until this can be used with the Finnish language, though. And, to be frank, I am not yet convinced of how useful this feature will be in practice.
iPhone’s Messages application also got a feature update, though most of these features can be already found from applications such as Facebook’s WhatsApp. In any case, group conversations will be much easier and the user is also able to pin messages to the start of a message thread for themselves. Messages’ updates are related to the company’s attempts in keeping up with other messaging app giants. It’s safe to say that Messages will never make it big as it is only available on Apple devices.
But information is not the only thing that moves from point A to B and this is why Apple will also be offering digital car keys. Together with car manufacturers, Apple has developed a solution that can open and lock car doors using only an iPhone, meaning that physical car keys are no longer required. You could also give a person the right to use your vehicle by sending it straight to their iPhone. The announcement makes me wonder if thieves could hack into cards like these in the future.
Planning your route on an electric car will also be easier as your iPhone will be informing you of charging stations on the map while also taking into account which station is suitable for your specific vehicle. Apple’s Maps application will also be giving bicyclists a hand with improved biking route calculations. Short cut suggestions will also be available with instructions such as “Carry your bike over the stairs here”. Unfortunately, neither of these features will be available in Finland for now.
As you might have guessed, there will also be updates for Apple iPads, televisions and watches without forgetting the new MacOS version that the company titled Big Sur in reference to the Californian rugged mountain area.
The Gauntlet Is Thrown Down on One of the Biggest CPU Manufacturers
In the future, Apple’s Mac-branded computers will be using the same architecture as mobile devices, meaning that processing power and power management will be improved. The new chips will also offer better information security.
Some of the company’s biggest applications are already functional with these new rigs. As an impressive example, the video editing software Final Cut Pro was shown running three 4K resolution videos at the same time by using a CPU made for iPads. Processing power related updates were also demonstrated with Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Lightroom and Cinema 4D. Though the demos were remarkable, Apple did not offer almost any details about the technical aspects of the new ARM-based chips.
These new devices will be able to run old software made for old Intel-based Macs with the Rosetta 2 tool. The company made a promise of supporting its devices based on Intel technology for years to come.
The Week Is Just Beginning
The WWDC 2020 week is a continuous celebration for Apple developers: there will be important announcements going from Monday’s key note all the way to Friday this week. At Punos, we will be monitoring the event with great interest while looking forward to what else Apple has to offer this year.
P.S. You can see all of the WWDC 2020 keynote here. Also, you can read our last year’s article here.