WWDC 18 Highlights

Here are the highlights from today’s World-Wide Developer’s Conference held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA.

Apple opened the conference with a video in the style of a science documentary about the species knows as a “Developer” and their annual migration to WWDC, “Welcome Home Developers”.

General Comments by Tim Cook

Developers from 77 countries are in attendance, more than ever before.  There are now 20 million developers worldwide.

The App Store is now 10 years old and is the largest app marketplace in the world.  Money generated by App Store sales will top 100 Billion dollars this week.

350,000 apps in the App Store have been developed in Swift, Apples latest programming language.

iOS Announcements

81% of iOS devices are running iOS 11 with a customer satisfaction rating of 95%

iOS 12 is the latest version being announced today and will double the performance of iOS 11.  iOS 12 will run on all the same devices as iOS 11

Augmented Reality will use a new file system called USDZ which was developed in collaboration with PIXAR Studios.

Introducing a new app called Measure.  By tapping and dragging your iPhone along a line, the app will the distance.  You can even combine several lines into a single measurement.

Enhancements to ARKit2 will support Shared Experiences.

Photos Update

Search is being enhanced to provide searches of not only people and places but also objects and scenes.  You can combine search terms to narrow the results.

Siri Update

• Siri processes 10 billion requests per month.
• Siri’s integration with third party apps is being expanded and a new function called Shortcuts will allow you to do more with Siri from right within an app.
• Apple is introducing a new app to allow you to create your own shortcuts.  There is a library of shortcuts available in the app to help get you started.

Popular app updates

News – new Browse tab makes it easier to discover new channels of interest to you.

Stocks

• Completely rebuilt in iOS 12
• Apple News will now be integrated into the Stocks app.
• Bringing the Stocks app to the iPad

iBooks – being improved and renamed to Apple Books

CarPlay – will now support third party apps like Google Maps and Waze

Do Not Disturb – you can now set an end time based on your calendar or preset times.

Notifications – Adding Group Notifications

Screen Time

• Empowers you to better control your time.
• Weekly reports will provide details of how you spend you time in apps, what apps Are sending you notifications and how often you pick up your phone.
• You can now set time limits and iOS 12 will alert you when you are getting close to your total usage.
• Set Downtime for specific apps to control your kid’s access.

Animoji

• Adding new Animoji characters, Ghost, Koala, Tiger and T-Rex and stick out its tongue
• Adding “Tongue Detection” so your Animoji can stick out its tongue.
• Meimoji – Make an Animoji that looks like you.
• Aminojis can be added to Message and Mail.

Facetime

• Introducing Group Facetime. Up to 32 parties.
• Facetime now integrated into Messages so you can start as a Group Message and convert to a Group Facetime
• People are shown in tiles and as someone talks, the tile enlarges automatically.
• Animojis can be added to Facetime calls.

watchOS 5

• Activity App now supports competitions with friends
• Workout app is adding Yoga and Hiking
• Automatic Workout detection will start and end a workout if you forget.
• Walkie-Talkie – a new watch-to-watch connection that supports short voice messaging.
• The Siri Shortcuts available in iOS 12 are being added to watchOS 5.
• You no longer need to say “Hey Siri”. Just raise your wrist and start to talk.
• View web content in Mail and Messages right on your wrist.
• Podcasts are being added to Apple Watch.
• Add Student ID cards to the Wallet app on your iPhone and Apple Watch
• Introducing an all new Pride watchband and Pride watch face. The watch face is available in the watch face app starting today.

Apple TV 4K and tvOS

• Adding Dolby Atmos to the AppleTV 4K
• Adding live sports and live news
• Introducing Zero Sign-On. No credentials needed.  Apple TV will authenticate all of your approved services.
• Aerial views now will provide location descriptions right on the screen.
• Apple has now partnered with the International Space Station to provide amazing views of the planet in aerial views.

Mac and macOS

• The next version of macOS is called Mojave.
• Mojave now supports Dark Mode.
• Dynamic Desktop changes your desktop as the day progresses.
• Desktop Stacks puts your desktop files into stacks automatically.
• A new view called Gallery makes it easy to view your content directly in Finder.
• You can now create “Custom Actions” right in the finder to make file manipulation easier.
• Quick Look now allows you to mark-up files without having to open the app.
• Screenshot has been enhanced to allow you to modify the screen shot right from the desktop and can now capture video as a screen shot.
• Continuity now allows you to add photos and scans to the desktop, right from your phone.
• New apps coming to the Mac include:
  • News
  • Stocks
  • Voice Memo
  • Home
• Overall system security is being enhanced to improve data privacy.
• Redesigned Mac App Store

All of these updates will be available this fall.

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