Apple WWDC 2020 Keynote Highlights — Part I (OS Updates)

The First time all virtual Apple WWDC 2020 keynote was in excellence with the production. Apple scored the viewer’s attention with the amazing drone work covering beautiful locations of its silicon valley campus. Though there was a lack of cheering and clapping, with the traditional style of a curated list of a variety of speakers presenting the pre-recorded production work and the transitions worked very well on the audience. There was a subtle amount of on-stage jokes. They started with software updates like iOS 14, iPad OS, watchOS, macOS, and so on, and finally the bigger announcement. There were not many hardware announcements though this year.

Here is the gist of the cool new features that were fascinating in each product section. I would be covering it in two parts. Stay put.

iOS 14

Apple introduced the new looks of iOS 14. Apple is bringing some of the great features already available in the android world.

• App Library: Swiping past your final page of apps the new page App library where apps are auto organized and users will be able to see apps grouped thereby reducing those the extra pages. And the fun part is what they call the jiggle mode to hide the pages we don’t want to see anymore.

• Widgets: Next is the Widgets on the home screen. For more data-rich info to the user on the home, screen apple allows now different shapes and sizes for the new widgets and we can also move it around.
• Picture-in-picture: A floating window on the home screen of the video that is being watched screen that can be resized and moved. In addition, it lets us minimize to a small button on the side of the screen and just hear the audio.
• Siri: Siri UI is made simple and user-friendly no covering fullscreen, and now does on-device speech-to-text translation.
• Messages: Pinning important messages, better group message notifications(with tagging) and organization, and all new Memojis( including wear masks) are new features coming out.
• Maps: Apple’s new maps include bike lanes and hills. Oh! and directions for electric vehicle owners based on battery range and charging locations.
• CarPlay: Parking, charging, and food ordering apps and also cool new wallpaper options are coming out. And most importantly Apple is working with major car manufacturers on using the phone as the key
• App Clips: Something similar to Android’s Instant Apps — lightweight app clips pop-ups on demand. For example, payment on the fly with various triggers like NFC, QR code, or via Safari/Messages. (though this is interesting this has its own benefit of doubts).

iPad OS

In addition to taking all the features of iOS 14, iPad OS also brings in its specific charm

• Universal search: Full-screen search UI is gone now. Also, the search can now further look into apps like Messages, Mail, Keynote, and Files.
• Apple Pencil/Scribble: It is all about more accuracy and more machine learning technology. Any text field recognizes the handwriting and converts it appropriately. Auto conversion/correction of rough shapes that are drawn.

Watch OS

There is a lot of useful and also timely improvements in Apple Watch.

• Face Sharing: Share current watch face setup with others through a different medium — Messages, Mail, or Safari.
• Multiple complications per app: Multiple different watch face complications across apps, rather than one per app.
• Dance tracking: (personally curious to see this) A step further from its competitors, apple watch now uses gyroscope and accelerometer, mixed with heart rate data to track a range of dance types.
• Sleep tracking: Automatic Sleep detection
• Handwash tracking: This is a fascinating and very relevant feature. Apple Watch can now detect hand washes, uses an accelerometer to detect for the motions and the microphone to record for the scrubbing sounds. It also automatically start a countdown timer to ensure if we had washed fully as recommended for 20 seconds.

Mac OS — Big Sur

Apple reveling of new Mac OS name had its fun and comical touch to it. Rounded icons, built-in app suite all bring the new mac os look similar to iOS.

• Control center: Upper right dropdown for one-click access to display volume and dark mode and other settings is much similar to iOS.
• Safari: Safari now monitors saved password and also have a “Privacy Report” button. It’s Extension now focuses on limiting data extension that can e accessed. Regulations around access browsing history like limiting period, permissions to specific sites, or across all sites.
• New maps: macOS’s maps support in-door maps, guides, favorite locations, etc now.
• Notification Center: Unified View of notifications/widgets for cleaner notifications.

There are more highlights which I will be covered in Part II.
Meanwhile, if you wish to see the whole Apple’s WWDC keynote - here.

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