Apple WWDC: June 8th, 2018

WWDC is the World Wide Developers Conference that Apple hosts every year, showcasing the new and exciting software that’s been developed for their various devices. The goal of the conference is not only to show the new softwares, but also to show the direction that innovation is headed towards. The conference, located at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, is open to prominent tech figures and consumers. From there, we see (whether in person or streaming) a conference room with seats to be filled and updates to be presented to the anxious and excited audience.

 

 

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple starts the show out by mentioning some stats, info about the company and its sales, then comes the exciting stuff: Updates. As for the most recent WWDC, which was on June 4, 2018, there were a few noteworthy applications and updates to existing applications worth mentioning.

 

ARkit was a big part of the conference, and references to more games and applications to be featured in AR were announced. A game called SwiftShot, which was created by Apple, is a game that basically uses AR as a means to knock down blocks and geometric shapes as you play with a partner. It may look odd in real time, but that doesn’t defeat the fun and the point of the game.  As we know, ARkit was released last year, but this year, it gets a minor facelift. Improved face tracking, 3D Object detection and Realistic Rendering are some of the improvements they’ve made and by doing this, we will most likely be seeing more stable and realistic AR applications and programs. Of course, it wouldn’t be an Apple event if there was no talk about iOS. iOS has been a bumpy ride for some developers and beta testers. The biggest and most notable flub was the security flaw, which stripped away some layers of users security and left iPhone users data vulnerable. This was quickly fixed in an update thereafter but left some people in the dark as to why it happened. In iOS 12, they’ve made it a point to make security one of their biggest fixes, as well as including other types of updates to their already existing software. Check out some of the updates below:

 

Memojis: The emoji you can create that actually looks like you! They’ve also created “Tongue Detection” so the emoji can track your tongue movements.

 

Group FaceTime: Now, you can Face Time with 3 people…. Or 32. If you have the iPhone X, you can even take advantage of using the Memoji and Animoji while on the Facetime call and use different effects.

 

Measure: An application that literally let’s you measure objects in real-time. Using AR, whoever has an iPhone can trace the sides of an object and figure out the exact length and width as soon as possible. This is a feature that will come in handy whenever you don’t have your trusty measuring tape on you.  

 

Activity Reports/ App Limits: This is for all the smartphone “addicts” who can’t keep their phone down for a second and must check every Insta or Snapchat notification they receive. App limits lets you set a timer on how long you use an application. When set, you will be notified when the time is coming to an end.

 

And…

 

Do Not Disturb: Also revamped, will actually hide the notification screen until the morning, making sure not to disturb you in the middle of the night.

 

Some of the most interesting updates for Apple Watch are:

 

• The Walkie-Talkie feature
• Apple Podcasts
• Auto workout detection

 

These are just a few new features of the watch, in addition to a revamped Siri, which gives predictive and proactive shortcuts throughout the day. For MacOS, users will get an update called Mojave, which is inspired by the desert near Southern California.  

 

Some of the most interesting features for the new Mojave OS are:

 

• Dark Mode
• Desktop and Finder
• Revamped Macstore

 

As well as others, coming from the new update and thereafter. Apple has tried to cover every aspect in their updates and making their consumers have an easier time with continuity, managing their time and efforts and making sure that their applications have seamless experiences. We really believe mobile application developers and consumers will find the next line of products and softwares continuing to improve!