Apple WWDC 2018: All the Major Announcements

Well if you were expectant of Apple being offering big game-changing leaps at its Worldwide Developer Conference, you might be a tad bit disappointed. But nonetheless, the little tweaks and adjustments would hopefully bring better experiences with Apple gadgets.

What does Apple brings to the table? 

The Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote just concluded yesterday, in San Jose, California as the CEO, Tim Cook, and his senior staff made a focused keynote with iOS 12, Mac OS 10.14, watchOS 5 and tvOS 12 announcements. Though there was no major hardware showcased, WWDC offered a chance for developers to get an idea of what they will be working on in 2018. Also, developers can download the iOS 12 beta 1 right now. Let's dive in to get into the major announcements.

New Features in iOS 12

The whole idea behind iOS 12 relates to better responsiveness on devices. Apple confirms that the keyboard on the old iPhone 6S Plus, for instance, will fire up 50% faster than initially. The camera performance too will boost up by 70% percent and the app loading will be twice as fast now.

• On Monday, the company introduced the latest version of its mobile software, iOS 12 that helps you kick off the irresistible habit of constantly checking your phone. The new tools that come along allow you to monitor the amount of time you spend on your phone and with the applications.

• The new version also includes an enhanced feature of Do Not Disturb, as well as a screen time app that offers a weekly report of your phone usage. The Family sharing app will allow parental controls as well for managing their kid’s screen time.  

• The version even provides detail breakdown of how often you are picking up your phone and which apps do send the most notifications. The user also has an option to set the limit on how much he can use his phone, which will cut off when the limit is reached. Apart from this, the feature is synced across devices you actually can’t sneak off.

• The Notification also got an update and the now the users can group notification by topic and will be able to access them with a single swipe. In fact, Siri will even make suggestions on the notifications user might be considering to turn off.

Though there are these blessing, ios 12 sounds a little less exciting due to security concerns.

Also Read: Check out some awesome iOS apps here 

AR Kit 2.0 hogs the Limelight:

Apple introduced AR Kit 2.0 which enhances the capabilities of what you can do with AR. They also teamed up with Pixar to introduce a new file format for AR, called USDZ, that Adobe would support.

Showing off the benefits of the digital and the physical worlds merging they mentioned their new app, Measure, which employs AR to see the size of the items just by dragging a finger across them. Apple demonstrated sizing of a suitcase and picture framing for that matter.

Brands like Fender and Lego were on-board for representing impressive demos. A new Lego AR game was also presented that showed people setting up a building in Augmented Reality and opening to see what is actually happening indoors.

Also Read:The Huge Impact of ARKit

Improvements with Photos:

The Photos app got intelligent as it will get a new enhanced search option. A fresh “For You” tab would appear to make suggestions on what possibly could be done with the photos you have. The suggestions would use machine learning offer advantages like making a GIF or who’s in your photos so that you can share with them.

Siri Gets Smart Enough.

The much-needed Siri update is finally here now. A new feature called “Shortcut” came to the forefront allowing easier integration of Siri with other applications for creating bespoke commands.

Apple, for instance, showcased Tile Bluetooth Tracker, letting the user create a voice command like “ Find My Keys” to activate the Tile app locator feature. Such features will easily identified with an “Add to Siri” option, while you can also train the voice assistant with custom commands.

Siri will also now make suggestions on the lock screen, letting the user know whats happening in the vicinity and will be even intelligent enough to prompt to inform your colleagues if you are running late.

 Also Read: Which AI assistant wins the race?

“Become the Picture” with Memoji

No one will disagree that Animoji went insanely popular. Apple took a step further to improve Animoji with tongue detection and new characters they also created Memoji- personalized, animated emoji that can be redesigned to look like you. Also, these emojis, filters and sticker packs could be used live.

Also Read: Emoji Talks | iOS Developers

FaceTime Group Calling:

Need to video call a bunch of your friends? Apple got you covered! Group calling in the new FaceTime will let you do that making the use of moving tile display of faces, coming to prominence when someone begins to chat.

At the bottom of the screen, there is a list of users allowing you to choose who takes the center stage.

Awesomeness on the wrist with watchOS 5:

Apple being wellness and fitness-focused gives you plenty of support with the new watchOS 5. It offers bespoke fitness challenges among your friends, yoga exercises based on the heart rate and what not!

Podcast will also now be a part of your wrist, syncing your spot across audio devices. And the most exciting part, watchOS 5 will let your apple watch become a walkie-talkie. Working over both cellular and Wi-Fi connections, you get a feedback alert when someone wants to have a quick chat.

Read More: Check out some cool apple watch apps here

New MacOS Mojave:

The next version of MacOS Mojave is set to come with a gazillion new features including a dark mode, better organizational options and even desktop version of various ios apps. Apple CEO Tim Cook said Mojave’s new features are “inspired by pro users, but designed for everyone.” A beta version is likely to come this summer with a full-fledged final release in the fall.

• Dark mode is finally added that turns the dock, taskbar and the chrome around your apps into a dark gray color.

• The Mac App Store gets a redesign with bigger billboards featuring apps and collections. Also, editorial content has been put up about different apps. But will it rejuvenate the app store altogether? That’s quite hard to say right now.

• Desktop Stack will be a new way to clean the messy desktops as there will be folders dedicated specific file types and automatically collect files that are ought to go in them.

• Also, Privacy is now added to Safari that certainly counts as a big plus as it adds the ability to block social channels like Facebook from tracking you across the web.

• A new option in Finder called the “ Gallery View” lets the user scroll through the small previews of the file while having the selected file appear larger at the top.

tvOS 12 to Launch in the Fall

tv OS 12 will roll out in the fall and will come with a good number of features.

Support for Dolby Atmos Sound will prove best as it will offer much more immersive sound experience that is better than any sound support that any device from Apple has previously supported. It will be added for free to any films the user owns in his iTunes Library provided an Atmos Mix is readily available.

TvOS12 will also take more controls over its ariel screensaver footage. The user will be able to see location information and swipe between different screensavers.

A new feature of Zero-Sign in enables your Apple TV to detect your broadband network and lets you automatically sign into all the apps you are entitled to through your subscription package.

With all the keynotes mentioned, we still expected a little more from Apple. We wait for the new redesigned Mac Pro that made noise in various press releases. The iPhone SE 2 leaks ahead of WWDC 2018 made it seem as if it will get a big update this year but no announcements were made. Also, there were no hints regarding the iPhone XL which was supposed to be at s lower price tag, but we’ll probably be waiting a few months after WWDC to find out.

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