This year's WWDC had a bit of an elephant in the room.
With the Apple vs. Epic trial and arduous App Store policies,
Apple's relationship with developers has become frayed.
And to compound that, none of those issues were addressed today.
And the features made for developers were left until the end of the presentation.
Instead, Apple led with almost two hours of software features that'll be coming
to all their products and platforms. And we're gonna talk about those.
But why don't we put developers first and check out what attention Apple has given them,
at least, development-wise.
Perhaps the most anticipated feature is TestFlight for Mac.
Currently, it's easy for developers to conveniently run and test their iOS apps
on their Mac with TestFlight. But there's never been a way to do that
with any Mac apps they're developing. That's changing, though it'll take a while.
Because this will be a part of Xcode Cloud, an integrated system for developers
to offload app building and testing off their Mac
and make collaborating easier. It's all coming out next year.
Another neat announcement for developers is the addition of Object Capture
with their Reality Kit 2. What it does is let you upload multiple photos of an object
and then it interprets it as a 3D model that can get uploaded
to any 3D content creation apps that support it. This will be great for video game developers.
In my mean, you'll see more 3D models of furniture available to explore when shopping online.
All right, so what about the features for the rest of us?
Now, one thing that stood out to me in this presentation
was that a lot of these features work holistically across iOS and iPadOS 15
and MacOS Monterey, especially FaceTime.
You can now create FaceTime links to share with family members you want to call
but who may not have an Apple device. Yep, FaceTime works on Android and Windows,
just through a browser. It's about time, especially considering that Steve Jobs himself
promised that FaceTime would be an open industry standard back in 2010.
This isn't quite the same, but it's in a good direction.
Then there's SharePlay, which lets you watch a streaming show
or listen to music together virtually. The protocol syncs up playback between all parties
and if you have an Apple TV, you can maintain a call on your phone while watching on the big screen.
Oh, and for those of us who deal with the stress of blind tech advice with family members,
they can now share their screens in FaceTime.
Hallelujah. Next, I share the same enthusiasm as Craig
for a feature that works across iPadOS and MacOS, literally.
It's called Universal Control and it brings those devices closer than ever.
Simply by dragging your Mac's mouse towards your iPad,
you can pass it to that device and continue working there. Better still, you can drag and drop files
and content between them too. What I think is cool about this
is that unlike Sidecar, which turns your iPad into another screen,
Universal Control lets your iPad remain an iPad round cursor and all.
So it can complement your Mac with its unique functions, streamlining the different workflows each platform brings.
Along with adding widgets on the home screen and an app library like the one found on the iPhone,
Apple is improving multitasking on iPadOS.
Up until now, it's been a little convoluted to figure out how to move and split apps,
let alone drag one into the sidebar. But now, above every open app will be an ellipsis
that you can tap to reveal a menu with options on where you want the app to go.
And if you're using an app that supports multiple Windows, there's a shelf that you can minimize those Windows too.
These are going to be some welcome improvements for iPad power users.
But I think more importantly, it might mean that regular users have a chance
at learning how to use multitasking without help.
Unfortunately, multi-user support on iPadOS
is still very, very absent.
Today, iPhone plays so many roles in our lives.
The phone has become a distracting and busy part of our lives
and so Apple gave notifications and what they call focus, some attention.
It's a complex problem and Apple is throwing some on-device intelligence at it
in hopes of making your digital life a little less chaotic.
With notifications, all I really want is a way to be able to get notifications from people I know
who are trying to communicate with me and everything else can just go away.
It appears that Apple has come close. Non-communication notifications can now be delivered
in a notification summary once or twice a day
while communication notifications get much higher priority.
It's not clear how Apple is parsing through these notifications.
I just hope that it can tell the difference between my meal delivery arriving
and a promotional offer for my next delivery.
And I don't want to have to go back into notification settings to figure that out, please.
If you turn on do not disturb, other iMessage users will see
that your notifications have been silenced. Though there's a notify anyway button
that I suspect could cause some social issues.
Now with focus, users can create different profiles
for different moods and states they may have like working, driving, family time, et cetera.
There you can set up different home screens that reflect the mode you're in
with different notification profiles based on who and what you want to hear from.
Reminds me of a feature that was on BlackBerry 10. BBM me if you know what I'm talking about.
Safari has also been redesigned, but I'm a little unsure about it.
On iOS, I appreciate how the address bar has moved to the bottom of the screen,
but I don't see a back button. On iPad and Mac, you can create tab groups now,
which puts them in the sidebar based on interest.
That's great, but I'm worried that if you have a lot of tabs open,
they're going to be sooner compressed into Favocon's only,
which can be a little ambiguous. Oh, and lastly, I'm surprisingly excited
that Siri requests are now processed on device,
which means that you can use Siri if you're out of service.
I'm still a little salty that in the past, if there was no cell signal on my iPhone,
it wouldn't just default to the pre-Siri voice control feature.
So this is so welcome, and it'll probably be faster too.
If you were hoping for any hardware announcements, any chips maybe, sorry,
because this event was packed full of software updates.
It's almost mind-numbing how many features and protocols were touched on today.
Like, here goes, AirPods Pro and Macs
are part of the Find My Network, and can boost conversations should you never, ever want to take them out
in social situations. iCloud Plus provides additional privacy features
to those who are paying for iCloud storage in the form of hide my email, iCloud Private Relay,
and expanded HomeKit secure video support. Apple continues to clamp down
on email and web browser tracking, as well as providing tracking reports
should you be interested in that. The Wallet app now supports car keys,
hotel keys, smart home keys, and your ID if your state supports it.
No more keys, wallet, phone mantra, just phone.
Maps has a pretty neat non-satellite 3D mode that shows elevation, overpasses, and even trees,
along with improved transit routing. There's the very Samsung-like feature of QuickNotes,
which is available to iPad and Mac users. Siri voice control can be integrated
into third-party devices. Shortcuts is available on the Mac.
There are more keyboard shortcuts on iPadOS. Maybe you can now use your iPad with only a keyboard,
like the old days of Command Lines. Live text will read text saved on photos
and let you copy and search them in spotlight. You can send photos from your Apple Watch.
Photos and messages are displayed in collections.
Any photos, links, podcasts, Apple TV shows, songs,
and websites that are shared with you in messages will appear in those apps too.
So what happens in messages no longer stays in messages.
Your health data is more shareable. You can share with family members or your doctor
if they use a supported service. There are more workouts in Fitness Plus,
respiratory rate tracking while you sleep with the watch.
Your iPhone will tell you if you're having trouble walking steady.
You can airplay content from your mobile device to newer Macs and HomePod mini pairing to Apple TV 4K.
But there's still that elephant in the room and I fear that no amount of features
and there were a lot of them can adequately address it.
What we got was a showcase of how Apple's platforms are evolving.
This was never going to be the place where fair relationships get fostered.
As for us users, we won't be able to check out these features until they're released in the fall
and you'll need an iPhone success or newer,
iPad Air 2 or faster and a Mac mostly made after 2015.
And before you do check these features out, maybe let me test out how well everything works together
in case there are any major bugs. This is all still a long ways off.
Thanks for dropping into this Mac Address. Make sure to subscribe if you wanna see more
and give this video a like if you like it. I'm curious what feature announced today
will be most useful for you. I think for me it's universal control.
I can't get over how cool it is.