I’m not a full-time writer. I’m a software engineer. Often at the end of the day I just want to get as far away from my keyboard as possible… my couch. However, Monday was a special day, so I got to writing right away… and it took until now to wrap up because it’s been a rough week. Sorry.
WWDC 2024. Apple announced the exciting changes coming to the next versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and even watchOS. All of them are, actually, fun in their own ways, if I ignore the elephant in the room. For now, I’ll have to. Because, if I was a full-time writer, I’d ask my manager to let me hack away at a story for the next three days about how Apple adopting AI truly is the end of humanity. Not as a species, no, but the good in us, the parts we like, the “humanity.” Yeah, that’s going away.
From the depths of the uncanny valley! No one better send me these.
AI will write a poem for your mom’s birthday, tell your boss you’re happy to be working on a Saturday, and generate an AI image of your child that, well, not even a mother could love. But enough about the abominations we’ll become when we run our own creativity and humanity through the HumanityFilter9000™, courtesy of underpaid, overworked, and mentally damaged Kenyan tech workers, we’ll save that discussion for a time when I’ve taken mood-altering medication and can better discuss the normalization of cruelty to others for the sake of poorly drawn images.
Instead, let’s talk about Snoopy and Woodstock on your TV!
In This Article:
tvOS
A few moments got me excited during Apple’s press conference, and I want to start off with one of my favorites. Snoopy and Woodstock. These two cute pals have graced your Apple Watch—if you still use one—and now they’re coming for your TV. I cannot wait to replace my screensaver of beautiful landscapes with Snoopy and Woodstock. Yes, I will miss the pretty views, but, honestly, these two are adorable and I earnestly am looking forward to seeing them on my TV.
What else does tvOS have? What else do you need? Okay, fine, you know that X-Ray feature in Amazon Prime Video? Where you pause and it tells you the names of the actors and actresses on the screen? Apple’s bringing that to their products, now called InSight. It’s a great feature and will save everyone a lot of time on IMDb. Sorry, IMDb. Also, you know how movies today don’t care much for things like scripts or actors or lines? You really just need to hear the explosions. Really feel that in your chest. Words? What kind of nerd cares about the words in a movie?
Oh, you too? Okay, we’ll be nerds together, listening to the improved boosted dialog in tvOS 18. Also, when you rewind by 10 seconds, your Apple TV will assume it’s because you need to hear the line again and show closed captions. It’ll also do this if you mute. It’s a handy feature, and will make watching TV and movies at home just a little better than going to the theaters.
Seriously, why do people go to theaters? If it’s that glorious widescreen 21:9 experience, you just got another reason to stay at home. The Apple TV will now support that ratio, even with projectors. Enjoy your movies the way they’re meant to be watched: from the comfort of your living room.
iOS
Finally, all the power of decade-old Android, in an iPhone
This was the second part that got me excited. Do you know how on Android you can put apps towards the bottom of your screen, where it’s easier to reach them with your thumbs, the things you use your phone with? Well now, in iOS 18, you can finally do that too. You can even tint the icons to match your theme or wallpaper. Finally, it’s here, the future 2015 promised us (that’s when my favorite Android launcher, NovaLauncher launched).
You’ll also find a new photos app that’s empowered by on-device AI to sort your photos better than ever. You’ll have AI-assisted summaries in your mail app. Reactions in your iMessages will be more fun with actual emoji instead of Apple’s boring reactions.
One feature I really am looking forward to is the new Control Center. I’ve always thought Control Center had so much potential, but never much use outside of adjusting brightness or accessing radio controls. That’s because parts of it, especially for home automation, jump around based on what it thinks you’ll need. So I always have to open the home view entirely to adjust the light in my office, as I don’t adjust it as often. It’s a pain, one that will be alleviated with iOS 18.
If you don’t already use a password manager (I recommend 1Password), perhaps you’ve been using Apple’s own saved passwords. However, there’s no easy way to manage these outside of settings. In iOS 18, however, you’ll have an app you can open to view, edit, or delete all your stored passwords. That app will be across Apple products as well.
There are far more smaller features. Better control over what contacts an app can see. Data sharing between apps that also use AI, so when you ask Siri when you’ll have to leave tomorrow, it’ll know you have a concert to get to and tell you when you have to leave for it. It’s clever, and it’s one of the ways that AI can be trained on-device and applied intelligently to protect your privacy and not be a detriment to others.
Can’t say that of some of the AI Apple showed off.
Oh, and you know when you want to just type to Siri? You can finally do it. Siri was introduced in 2011. It took 13 years for them to add typing. I can’t imagine what they’ll think of next. Oh, shaking your head, apparently. Neat.
iPadOS
Mathematical!
First, iPadOS will be getting all the fun customization options that iOS had. The AI features as well, obviously. On top of that, there’s an exciting new tab bar Apple had to talk about. It floats at the top of the screen, like an Apple TV tab bar. Plus, if there’s more you need, it’ll also open on the sidebar.
🤯
Okay, okay, there’s more.
A. Calculator.
Oh yeah, friends, we got it. EIGHTEEN versions of iPadOS, but we finally got every programmer’s first “real” project: a calculator. It has some fantastic features like history of what you’ve entered so you can show off how you needed a calculator to add 27 and 42. Nice.
Oh, and handwriting and formula recognition.
I buried the lede there, didn’t I? Sorry.
The new calculator app on the iPad will also allow you to write out mathematical formulas. You can write x = 15 in one part of your notes and when you write 2x = y, it’ll tell you y = 30. Write something like y = x2 + 2, and you can get a graph drawn in your math notes. It’s like having a graphing calculator for your notebook.
Finally, there was something that may make Goodnotes and Notability sweat. Apple has new handwriting features in notes that can match your handwriting for autocorrect and suggestions. Goodnotes already has that. However, Apple will also let you paste in text using your handwriting style. It’ll also clean up your handwriting, making it look neater. I want to challenge it to recognize my chicken scratch, but I am pretty ingrained in the Notability world. Still, new users may wonder why they need a third party note-taking app at all.
macOS Sequoia
Every OS update this year has something that looks like a genuine improvement. For macOS Sequoia, there’s a feature you likely installed a third party app for anyway: tiled windows. You can drag a window to the corner and it’ll take up a quarter of the screen. The edge and you get half of the screen. It’s that easy. You can accomplish the same thing with an app like Rectangle or BetterTouchTool, but now it’ll be built into macOS. Sometimes Apple copies a company’s idea and replaces it. It’s called “Sherlocking.” It’ll be something that a lot of macOS users will enjoy, take it from someone who has been using it for years. I’ll miss my third party solutions though.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who loses her phone in her apartment sometimes. Or wishes that I could answer a text message with my MacBook. With macOS Sequoia, that’s a possibility. You won’t even have to leave your desk. You’ll be able to unlock and mirror your iPhone’s screen, wherever it is, on your Mac. It requires an Intel Mac with the T2 chip (new models from 2018 and later), or any Apple silicon Mac. You’ll even be able to get iOS notifications in Notification Center on your Mac, and answer them on the mirrored screen on your iPhone. Or finally do that Duolingo lesson the bird’s been bugging you about exclusively while you were busy (seriously, twice while I was in meetings today? Are you spying on me?).
macOS will feature some Safari improvements for video, as well as summaries in the reader app. You’ll be able to prevent pesky notifications while busy easier. And, thanks to Game Porting Toolkit 2, it’ll be even easier to port high-end Windows games to macOS. Macs will even get the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game, Shadows.
Of course, since you’re limited to Mac hardware with no eGPU support, it’ll still perform better on most gaming PCs running Windows, but at least Apple’s trying to make it look like they’re trying. Apple could always bring back eGPU support, but they likely don’t want to admit it could improve performance by bypassing Apple Silicon, so getting expandability support might be an uphill battle.
visionOS 2
It costs more than two 4K monitors, but it also weighs heavy on your head and lasts only 2 hours!
So many people keep closed captioning on while they’re watching TV. Maybe they’re only half paying attention, using the TV as background noise. Maybe it’s because audio mixes have gotten terrible. Perhaps it’s due to an increase in ADHD diagnoses and the auditory processing issues that often go hand-in-hand with the diagnosis. Whatever it is, we sure do love our closed captioning. Now it’s coming to real life thanks to visionOS 2. Live captions will transcribe live conversations in real time, similar to Zoom’s closed captions for video calls. It seems like Apple is starting to realize the Vision’s capability to help people, and I can’t wait to see what other accessibility improvements they can introduce.
The visionOS update will also bring an AI-enhanced image processing that can take 2D images and make 3D images for use with Vision Pro. I’ve seen similar versions of this before, and they haven’t worked well. Still, Apple may have more depth information they can grab, especially with live photos, and therefore replicate a 3D image more realistically than past attempts. Canon will also introduce a new lens that works with the EOS R7 mirrorless camera to bring 3D video and photos to the Vision Pro and, presumably, other platforms. If the fake 3D won’t help much, “real” 3D from photography experts may do the trick.
The Vision Pro will offset some computational power from your Mac, allowing it to expand your Mac’s display into the equivalent of two 4K displays combined. It’ll be the widest of big screen monitors, but you will have to wear it on your face.
One early tester in NYC found his Vision Pro didn’t work on the subway. The motion outside of the train in view of the cameras, along with the actual momentum, made the Vision Pro simulate the screens a user would have up being left behind. Travel mode will let people use their Vision Pro devices on the train. Finally. Anyone who’s been on the subway knows not to make eye contact with anyone, and the Vision Pro could make that easier than ever.
watchOS 11
I almost forgot watchOS. Every year Apple’s watch gets some of the most mundane updates. They can’t even detect blood oxygen in the U.S. anymore. The most exciting feature of an update might be restoring what it has already lost. But that didn’t seem to be the headline of the release. Apple Watches still can’t do everything they could do a year ago.
The main update of watchOS 11 is the new Vitals app. It helps you view health trends over time. It can help you track days when your overall metrics were off, possibly due to lack of sleep or illness. During pregnancy, cycle tracking can give you information about each stage of your pregnancy.
Just don’t ask it for blood oxygen trends.
And NOTHING ELSE
You can even ask Apple Intelligence to write a poem for your mom’s birthday, so you’ll never have to have a heartfelt interaction with her or anyone else!
Yeah. There were more things. There are AI features coming to Apple products, which Apple is calling “Apple Intelligence.” It will require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or a Mac or iPad with an Apple Chip. Some of it, surely, is good. Doing some processing on device, allowing you to control when the—hopefully secure—iCloud computing comes into play, and being able to tell Siri not to talk to that jerk ChatGPT? Great. But it still has OpenAI features, it’s not all Apple’s in-house AI, and we know how AI is developed.
“Our work involves watching murder and beheadings, child abuse and rape, pornography and bestiality, often for more than 8 hours a day. Many of us do this work for less than $2 per hour.”
That’s in your iPhone now. That’s what these updates will bring to your device. AI might be soulless, but only because they carved out human souls to make it. Congrats, Apple, Siri doesn’t sound like a computer from 2010 anymore. Finally. Was it worth it?
Sources:
- Apple Newsroom: iOS 18, visionOS 2, macOS, watchOS, iPadOS, Apple Home/TV, Private Cloud Compute, AirPods
- Dan Barbara, MacRumors via YouTube
- Canon
- Mike Wuerthele, AppleInsider