This WWDC is a little different. Instead of people from around the world flying to Cupertino to take part in Apple’s developer conference, they’re coming into the homes of Apple developers with online sessions. But that’s not the only reason this WWDC has already been like no other. This is the WWDC that Apple finally made some changes to iOS that users have requested for over a decade. Furthermore, we have a new shift in Apple’s Macs, including a new design language for macOS that makes the new OS look fresher than ever.
There are so many updates, and it’ll be worth going into detail about a few items over the next week as we find out more. For now, here’s a rundown of what Apple revealed during their keynote at WWDC 2020.
In This Article:
iOS 14
iOS 14 answered a lot of asks. It still mostly looks like the same iOS, but it hides a whole new way to use your iPhone.
New Home Screen
First, yes, there are home screen widgets. You can pull the widgets out of the Today view and right onto your home screen. You can resize them to take up either 2×2 or 4×2 areas in your app grid. There’s also a special Smart Stack widget. This widget displays a group of widgets. You can swipe through them and they’ll occupy the same space on your home screen. Your iPhone will learn how you interact with the smart stack, and what you like to use it for throughout the day. So if you check weather in the morning, it’ll show you the weather in the morning. If, by 10am you need calendar invites or stock information, that’s what you’ll see. At night, you may get your news widget. It will work largely like the Siri watch face on the Apple Watch, providing the information you need before you realized it was what you were looking for.
But that’s not the only way Apple has upgraded the home screen interface.
App Library
How many pages of apps do you have? I have 3, but two of them have folders full of apps, and the home screen is blank, with my apps organized in folders in my dock instead of on the home screen. I’ve been waiting for an upgrade for some time. The truth is, it’s usually faster to use Universal Search to find the apps I’m looking for when I want an app that isn’t already on my dock. Now Apple will add a new page, and you may find it’s the only page you need.
The new App Library will automatically organize your apps into categories. It’ll also show a section of Siri suggested apps as well as recently downloaded apps. The apps in the category icons will reflect your most recently used apps from those categories. Furthermore, there’s a search bar. Tapping it will bring up an alphabetical list view of all of your apps. This is similar to the launcher I use on Android. I don’t actually arrange my apps, I have a list of favorites that appears on my screen, and, upon swiping, I can access an alphabetical list. That’s it. That’s the whole launcher (it’s called Niagara Launcher, if you’re interested, Android users).
Now Apple will have that same simplicity. You’ll even be able to hide entire pages of apps so you can try out this new view for as long as you’d like, preserving yet hiding your former home screen layout.
Screen-Saving Siri
Siri takes up your entire screen. Isn’t that annoying? It means you never use Siri when you’re actually holding your phone. But with iOS 14, Siri will sit at the bottom of your screen, sending answers and results up to the notifications at the top of your screen. Siri will also pop up over the icons you’re asking your phone to interact with.
Smaller Call Notifications
And this is it. This is why you’ll definitely want to upgrade on day one. Phone calls no longer take up the entire screen. After 13 iterations of people asking for this, the phone screen will no longer interrupt everything. You can quickly dismiss that (likely spam) call with a tap on a notification that appears at the top like any other. Finally. We’re free.
Picture in Picture
This is another feature of Android that we’ll finally get on iOS. Picture in picture video. So, when you’re playing a video in an app like Safari, you can swipe up and it’ll go into a small view. You can move that view around, grow or shrink it with a pinch, and even push it off the screen. The audio will keep going. Take that, YouTube!
Translate App
Apple’s adding a new dedicated translation app to iOS. This allows people to translate in real time with two-way translations. It will work with 11 languages at launch, and, unlike some other language apps (Hey, Google Translate), all of the speech recognition and translation is done locally, on device. Your conversations will be private, even if you’re using your iPhone to have them.
Messages Updates
Messaging apps these days aren’t just for communicating with one person via text. You send emoji, memoji, gifs, stickers, and perhaps most importantly, have group chats. Apple’s new messaging app will allow you to pin conversations, select photos for groups, chain conversations with threading like Slack, and more. Plus, Apple’s updating memoji so you can better customize the electronic version of yourself.
Although, honestly, mine already matches pretty well.
What, you don’t think so?
Maps Update
Every time Apple updates Maps, I ask why they couldn’t add cycling directions. Back when my job wasn’t a few feet from where I sleep, I would skate to work. I still like skating everywhere in my city. Bike lanes help me do that without getting ran over or into collisions too often.
Now you can get biking directions from Apple Maps. You can select routes based on elevation, or whether or not you’ll have to get off your bike and go up stairs or take some other pedestrian shortcut. This is why I skate, by the way. I mean, it’s far more fun than biking, but when you can pick up your means of transportation and take the train, go into the office, or hide it under a restaurant table, it kind of makes the other forms of transportation seem silly. But now you can get cycling directions, which work just as well for scooter directions, roller skate directions, or longboard directions.
For those with electric vehicles, you’ll be able to tell your iPhone what kind of car you have. It can plan out routes based on the range of your vehicle and your charging type, so you’ll never be without a charging station on a long road trip.
Carplay
Speaking of cars, Apple has updated Carplay as well. Now you can set a wallpaper background.
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You can also unlock your car with your iPhone. You’ll be able to use your phone in place of your car keys. You can even set up other drivers, and set up profiles, like limiting your teenager so they can’t access sport mode in your 2021 BMW M5, which is the first vehicle that will have the feature this year. If you were choosing cars based solely on whether or not you could unlock and start them with an iPhone, you could do a lot worse than an M5.
App Clips
This isn’t like Apple’s mostly forgotten Clips app. App Clips are more like Android’s Instant Apps. They allow you to access part of an application to perform a certain task. For example, say a parking meter in a city uses an app to buy time. You could scan a code or use NFC on the device to download the app clip, a smaller version of the app used to pay for time in that parking space. When you’re done with the app, your iPhone will clear it out of storage automatically. In many situations, Apple Pay or the full app will be better options. This is why Instant Apps haven’t been popular on Android. Still, it may come in handy some day, who knows?
Secret Feature: Default Browser and Mail Apps
Apple didn’t show this off during WWDC, or, rather, they didn’t discuss it at length. But a slide revealed that iOS 14 will finally allow users to set a default app for their web browser and mail client. That means you won’t have to use Apple’s mail for any mailto: links, and you can open links in any app in Firefox, if you want to.
Widgets and default apps? Is there any reason to switch to Android anymore?
iPadOS 14
On top of getting all the updates of iOS 14, there are a few changes to iPadOS that make use of the larger screen and Apple Pencil. For example, have you ever wanted to do a quick web search while using your iPad, perhaps for inspiration or while taking notes, and you didn’t want to put down your Apple Pencil, get out the keyboard, and type it in? Now you can just write directly into the search bar with iOS 14. In fact, any text box becomes an entry point for text. iPad OS will recognize your handwriting and automatically convert it to text. As always, this is done locally, so no one will know what you’re writing down. Well, Google will, if you do your searches with them, but what did you expect? You’re using Google.
Apple also improved navigation with a sidebar. This will function much like the side pane of macOS apps, giving iPad users a more intuitive method of going where they want that further differentiates iPadOS from iOS.
Outside of the drastically improved Apple Pencil support, iPadOS largely just retains the updates from iOS. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. iOS 14 looks to fix many of the issues the platform has had, and is going to be very popular with users.
macOS 11: Big Sur
Towards the beginning of Apple’s presentation, they mentioned directions to Big Sur. I called it on Twitter as soon as I noticed it: macOS would be called “Big Sur.” However, there was one item I only jokingly suggested, believing Apple wouldn’t do it.
“On the new software side, we can expect iOS 14, macOS 10.16 (I really wish they’d just go to 11, as they don’t call it “OS X” anymore anyway)”
– … Me
Well, Apple did it. They finally released macOS 11. So does that mean it’s a huge upgrade over macOS X, which was initially introduced as “OS X” in 2001?
Yes.
Yes it is.
Design Overhaul
One of the first things I noticed about the new interface was how clean it looks. Control colors are vibrant and seem to float off of the page. They have reactive shading that suggests this as well. This seems to be a first, albeit small, step into a design language known as neumorphism. Neumorphism is a simple design philosophy, not to be confused to skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism looks to emulate real-world objects with user interfaces. It’s a window that looks like brushed metal, or a panel that looks like wood. It was one of the least poplar aspects of iOS 6. Apple used skeuomorphism to make the iPhone feel familiar, but it added a lot of interface bulk, and made the OS feel disjointed.
Neumorphism is something different. This takes a simplistic and flat interface and adds 3D effects and other small visual indicators to make the software items appear as though they could be real, if they weren’t so clearly software. It almost makes everything feel like AR. User interface objects, while flat, seem to show depth and light direction, as though they were pressed out of a singular surface. It creates a clean yet friendly interface, and it’s my favorite modern software design trend.
Apple is also rounding corners more, to increase this friendly effect. The dock will “float,” with all sides being rounded, instead of feeling like it’s coming off one side of your screen. Apple’s also forcing icons into their rounded square icons, like those in iOS. This should make groups of icons look more uniform.
Widgets and Control Center
So touch-friendly! It’s a shame Apple doesn’t have a touchscreen Mac… yet.
Apple’s bringing iOS-style widgets to the Mac, with a larger widget area that combines widgets and notifications. The new notification center is accessed by clicking the clock, rather than a dedicated icon (presumably, swiping from the side or a keyboard shortcut will still work as well).
Apple’s also adding control center, with a few shortcuts for settings. These shortcuts can be dragged to the toolbar, or live in the little control pane. The controls look exactly like what you’d see on iOS. It seems a shame that Apple still hasn’t released a touchscreen Mac. This new interface would be perfect for an iMac with a Surface Studio-like design and Apple Pencil support.
Catalyst
Catalyst is the tool that helps iOS developers bring their apps to the Mac. With macOS 11, the feature will be complete. In fact, the reason Apple’s new Messages and Maps apps have all the features of their iOS counterparts is because in macOS Big Sur, the Messages and Mail apps are iOS apps. Apple has converted their iOS counterparts to macOS apps using Catalyst. If Apple thinks it’s good enough for their native apps, it’ll certainly work for third party developers.
Safari Upgrades
Safari is getting new upgrades to make intelligent and reactive privacy a built-in feature. This will work to block tracking across websites in the background. Safari will even have a privacy indicator that can show you what the browser has protected you from, much like Firefox. Also like Firefox is Safari’s new database breech monitoring. Now if someone gains access to one of the usernames or passwords you use in Safari and have stored in your iCloud Keychain, Safari will alert you to change the password.
Taking another page from Firefox, Safari will also use web-based browser extensions. This means developers of extensions for Firefox or Chrome will be able to easily import their extensions to Safari. Improving upon the privacy of Firefox and Chrome though, is Safari’s ability to limit extensions. You’ll be able to limit extensions to certain pages, or disable them by default, only enabling them for a day at a time. Extensions was a huge motivator for leaving Safari behind. With real extensions, not dependent on controlling applications, Safari might be ready to be your main browser again.
As rumored, Safari on the Mac will also get automated translation. Safari will be able to translate a page as you scroll through it, automatically detecting when the language of the website isn’t your native language. With Siri’s more natural-sounding translations, you may not even realize the webpage wasn’t written in your native language to begin with!
Apple SOC (ARM) Support
All of the presentations for macOS during the WWDC keynote were shown to us on a Mac that was running on Apple’s own processing hardware. It’s a Mac Mini with the iPad’s A12Z processor at its heart. Yes, the rumors were true. Apple’s bringing ARM support to the Mac through their own proprietary chips. Now the same processors that power your iPhone will power Macs.
Apple hasn’t clearly stated how this will work yet. They claim it can offer power and performance benefits, but had no benchmarks to stand by. The closest they came to showing any improvement was a chart with a little cloud of where they want A-Series powered Macs to sit, between power and performance. That’s it. The details of this switch were worryingly vague. Will it just be consumer Macs, the way Windows PC manufacturers have ARM-based Windows tablets? What about the entire lineup? Will Apple still use dedicated graphics from AMD, which are far more powerful than Apple’s chips? We don’t know. All Apple would say is that all of their native apps have been converted to run on their ARM-based chips. Third party developers will have to recompile their apps so they work on both Intel’s 64 bit chips (x64 architecture) as well as Apple’s system on a chip (SOC) based on the ARM architecture.
Apple says it will take two years to complete this transition. That means, in two years, all of your apps and games that haven’t switched over to ARM versions will be useless on your computer. Those that have switched over may be useless as well. Apple’s including a Rosetta layer to translate between ARM and Intel code, but it’ll slow your apps down significantly, as it did for the PowerPC to Intel transition.
Transitions like this are a messy pain for developers, and users may not see a clear benefit. But Apple will. Since they won’t have to pay Intel’s prices for processors, they’ll be able to increase their profit margins on A-Series Macs… if anyone still wants them.
SOC Woes
This was what I wrote in my notes as soon as Tim Cook mentioned rewriting something about macOS’ core.
When Tim Cook stated that Apple had been working on a deeper overhaul to macOS, I’ll admit, my stomach dropped. I’m very much against Apple using their own processors in their Mac lineup, at least not for the entire lineup. This is because they still don’t match the performance of higher end Intel or AMD chips, they don’t work with dedicated graphics cards (yet), and they wouldn’t work with everything out of the box. I’m a developer, an Android developer at that. Do I think Intel’s HAXM acceleration for Android emulators is going to carry over? Will Google even make upgrades to Android Studio for macOS? Will I still be able to use a Mac at work at all? What about legacy games? I already lost a number of the games I own on Steam because Apple no longer supports 32bit libraries, and many games rely on those libraries still. That’s at least a similar architecture! ARM is completely different from x64.
Apple showed games running on a Mac with an A12Z chip, but failed to point out that the only reason this was seamless was because the game was designed with Metal. Apple could just swap out the Metal layer for their new version and the game could run almost as smoothly as it would on an Intel machine. Most games aren’t using Apple’s Metal. Frankly? We’re not ready for this yet.
The performance increases will only be seen on the lower end, even for native apps. Higher end machines with dedicated graphics cards from Nvidia or AMD will outperform Apple’s hardware. After all, if the iPad was powerful enough to replace the Mac, it would have by now.
The real reason we’re seeing this change is so Apple can save money on processors, brag about battery life, and offer similar performance. Their margins will increase, but at the cost of the utility of their computers.
Apple is selling a $500 developer kit to registered developers. This is a Mac Mini powered by Apple’s A12Z from the iPad Pro. It’s available for reservation on Apple’s developer website now.
Compatibility
AirPods Firmware Update
I wasn’t expecting any upgrades to AirPods, so when Apple announced some huge ones, I think we were all pleasantly surprised. New AirPods firmware, along with new software across Apple’s platforms, will allow AirPods to automatically switch to whatever device is outputting audio. Have a video on your Mac and pause it to start playing music on your iPhone? Your AirPods will be smart enough to switch to your iPhone. No more Siri shortcuts or output selectors to quickly switch your AirPods between devices!
But the updates to the AirPods Pro may be even more astonishing. AirPods Pro will get spacial audio surround sound. This creates a 3D, immersive effect with surround sound and head and device detection. If you move your head or your device, the sound will seem to emanate from the same direction. It’s the kind of thing you’d see only in virtual reality applications, but will now come to all of your music, movies, and games. The new feature will work with multichannel surround sound as well as Dolby.
Airpods go where they’re needed.
Also unannounced during WWDC, we’ve since learned that the AirPods will also support new battery charging techniques. If your batteries don’t need to charge because you’re unlikely to use them, they won’t, or they’ll only trickle charge. This will help preserve battery longevity, so your AirPods won’t run out of juice so quickly a year or two after owning them.
watchOS Updates
Quick question: how long should you wash your hands for to kill the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Did you say “At least 20 seconds?” You’re right! Can you count to 20? I thought as much. But maybe you count too fast. Maybe too slow? Is the latter a bad thing? Maybe not, but you don’t want to leave any germs on your hands. Especially if you have trouble thinking without putting your hand on your chin.
🤔
However, your Apple Watch with watchOS 7 will be able to detect when you start washing your hands. It’ll then count down from 20, making sure you kill all those nasty germs. And, yes, I mean destroy the lipid encapsulation and rinse them away. But to your body, the difference is minimal, at best.
Apple will also let watchOS 7 users add multiple complications from the same app to their watch faces. App developers—and pretty much everyone else—will be able to create watch faces and share them with others. Many app developers may want to do this to set a theme or create a watch face that only has their complications on it. You’ll be able to download them from just about anywhere you can click a link.
Finally, there’s a new feature to track your motions as you sleep. The Apple Watch sensors can closely estimate your stage of sleep based on your motion and heart rate. Apps like Sleep Cycle have taken this a step further, waking you in your lightest stages of sleep so you feel more alert in the morning. I’ve been using it for years though, and still never feel alert in the morning.
Apple TV
Apple didn’t even have a tvOS preview page, so here’s an old photo of an Apple TV.
If you ask me, Apple’s squandering the potential of the Apple TV. A small, A-series processor-powered device with Siri support (but only through the remote) connected to what is likely the largest screen in your house. Apple’s using it to be something you forget about, a portal into Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV+. But it could be so much more. The hardware could have “Hey Siri” support, it could have its own speaker for non-visual requests, and the Apple TV software could serve as the central hub of all your devices.
At least Apple brought us closer to that last point with tvOS 14, if only slightly. Mostly, it makes your Apple TV a better gaming machine.
tvOS will support picture in picture, so video playback can continue in the background or in a small window on your screen. This also applies to video feeds from your cameras. So, without getting up or picking up your phone, you can check on the kids, see who’s at that door, and continue binging your favorite TV shows.
Developers will be able to add support for multiple users in games, so your little sibling won’t save over your save file. You’ll be able to progress through your game with your own profile. To play those games, you’ll also be able to use a touchpad, keyboard, or mouse, existing Apple/iOS controllers, PS4 controllers and Xbox controllers. Now, Apple’s adding support for the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 as well as the Xbox Adaptive Controller. The Adaptive Controller is one of the greatest ways for people with different or limited mobility to play games.
Privacy Enhancements
A small dot shows you that an app is using your camera or microphone.
Between Apple and Google, Apple’s the one focusing on consumer privacy and on-device machine learning. Still, as long as any information about a user can escape your device, there’s room for improvement. Apple made a number of improvements to privacy in their latest operating systems.
First, you know how Apple released Sign in with Apple last year? Every app that allows users to sign in with a third party service like Facebook or LinkedIn has to also allow users to sign in with Apple. Apple’s service focuses on privacy, giving developers a randomized email that Apple forwards responses from to your inbox. You’ll have a unique ID for each service, ensuring they can’t track you across devices. With Apple’s latest updates, you’ll be able to convert existing accounts to these anonymized Apple ID accounts.
You’ll also be able to see what permissions an app uses before downloading with a clear screen. It’ll also tell you how they use the data they collect. No, not like a lengthy privacy statement, more like a summary. This will make it easier to find apps that are mining your data.
Your Home-connected appliances will be able to communicate with end-to-end encryption. Cameras will be able to not only alert you when it detects a person, but use the photos on your phone along with facial recognition to tell you who’s at your door, if it’s a familiar face. Of course, this is all still local, between your own devices, so your privacy is secure.
You’re probably telecommuting a lot these days, if you’re working from home. Are you on a lot of video calls? Get nervous about a window into your apartment from your coworkers’ computers? Yeah, me too. iOS will now tell you when the camera or microphone is active with a small indicator.
In Short: A Mixed Bag
This was becoming my favorite WWDC ever. The updates to iOS and iPadOS are fantastic. macOS 11 looks beautiful. But watchOS and tvOS haven’t changed very much over the past few years. The Apple TV, especially, has room for far more potential, yet Apple does little with it. The real takeaway is the fact that the Mac platform won’t be the same ever again, and that may not be for the better. The transition means many apps are going to be left behind, and many users will be forced off the Mac platform, including developers. We’ll have to see how Apple handles this transition. I lost apps and games when Apple moved from PowerPC to Intel, and again when they moved from 32/64 bit to 64 bit only apps. I still have games in my Steam library that I can’t play anymore. Apple will certainly bungle this transition as well. Maybe they’ll pass some cost savings on to users though? Your Mac will be able to do less, but maybe it’ll cost less too? We’ll have to see.
Expect new versions of Apple’s operating systems by the fall, with Apple’s first “Apple Silicon” Mac coming to consumers before the end of the year. Until then, you may want to wait to buy a Mac, if only to see how this transition pans out. If we’re lucky, they’ll scrap it altogether!