WWDC 2016 First Impressions

Last month saw Google I / O with its interesting announcements of services concerned with data and smart systems. Now, it is Apple’s time: let’s see what’s new in store for users and developers of the company that doesn’t like to compromise.

Today’s Keynote is not held in the Moscone Center, as usual, but in the Bill Graham Auditorium — a historic building in the middle of San Francisco’s Civic Center. Usually, Apple’s consumer trends are on display, but this time they invited developers. As always, the first place in the queue is taken a day in advance, and two hours before the presentation you can stand somewhere in the middle of the crowd of 5000 developers.

In this report, I have gathered information from two presentations: Keynote and Platforms State of the Union, which told about all the first day’s announcements.

tvOS

tvOS had perhaps the least amount of updates, as essentially the platform simply repaired that which annoyed users from the outset:

1. The Single Sign-On feature was finally added for the applications, so now users do not have to constantly log in to the desktop browser or enter passwords.
2. There will be a night mode in the interface.
3. Applications purchased from the AppStore on other devices will be automatically downloaded to AppleTV.
4. Siri has learned to search through some applications, for example, YouTube.
5. There are changes regarding games, where you can connect up to 4 external controllers and require their presence.
6. Apple has promised to polish the Remote application for iPhone that will replicate the interface of the native Siri Remote controller.
7. You will be able to control the smart home devices that are connected through HomeKit, as the console will serve as a hub for the iPhone and iPad at a time when the user is outside of the home network.

watchOS

Apple does not know what to do with the watch, but has conducted serious work on the bugs.

1. Applications will finally be launched immediately. Of course, this applies to those services that the system has identified as a priority and has prepared in advance, but the speed is impressive — especially compared to the 5–10 seconds of launchtime in watchOS 2.
2. The side button is not a meaningless circle to show your friends your heart rate anymore, but a fully functional Dock with applications, similar to the history in iOS. The system will keep all of these applications in a “hot” state, and screenshots will always represent the latest information. It will also be the replacement of Glances, which proved irritating with its speed and stale data.
3. Instead of the Glances, there will only be the Control Center, like on the iPhone
4. For text input, the handwriting recognition feature Scribble is available now, reminiscent of Apple’s Newton (1993). The idea is not new, and the implementation looks doubtful. But this might prove to be a better option than talking to your watch every time you want to text someone.
5. Apple has taken wheelchairs into serious consideration and added the recognition of hand movements while in a wheelchair. Now all of this will be in Activity.
6. The number 1 award for meaningless goes to the Breathe application, which helps with breathing meditation. It is unlikely we will ever learn the name of the genius person who suggested speaking about it at a developer’s conference.

macOS

OS X was renamed the MacOS. This was hardly a secret, with the full name being macOS Sierra. While Apple and Google compete in mobile nose-to-nose, a desktop macOS is now ahead of the rest. This applies to usability, design, and integration with wearable devices.

1. All the proceedings were consistent with the Continuity theme: now a Mac will be automatically unlocked when the user approaches with an iPhone or Apple Watch.
2. Clipboard will work across all devices. This especially looks cool with image copying.
3. iCloud Drive will now work for all applications, not just those registered with the Mac appstore.
4. Since a growing number of users pay for cloud storage, Apple invented Optimize Storage mode, which is when the system itself will decide what to store in iCloud, and what will be stored on the disk. This frees up space pretty well.

• Since a growing number of users pay for cloud storage, Apple invented Optimize Storage mode, which is when the system itself will decide what to store in iCloud, and what will be stored on the disk. This frees up space pretty well.

1. ApplePay is now fully part of MacOS. It can be used for online shopping and for transactions made via Siri. Security is provided by TouchID on the nearest iPhone or the presence of an AppleWatch.
2. System tabs appeared in MacOS. They are promised to work throughout not just Apple apps, but also in those from third-party developers. If NSDocument is used, even adaptation will not be required.
3. Video will have Picture-in-Picture available, as in iPads.
4. And, of course, the main news — Siri will be on the Mac. It has the same capabilities as on iOS, and even works with files and documents: search, filter, and so on.

iOS 10

The greatest number of updates has traditionally been in iOS. It is evident here that the intense struggle for clients leads to beneficial improvements and curious services.

1. For the first time since the announcement of iOS7, something has apparently changed in the interface. Now notifications look and feel grown-up, and support third party application interface components. The lock screen and toolbar are updated, and system applications can be removed and replaced from the App Store.
2. Siri is now open for developers, and now Uber can be ordered via voice command. Unfortunately, the information is scarce, but apparently there will be no magic — this is only for predetermined domains (ordering services, sending messages, fitness, etc.), and customization functions in a very narrow range. In general, with full AI machine learning unavailable to us, the developers can only specify the dictionary and provide a visual interface.
3. There are growing fears that Apple will miss the “next revolution” in machine learning and artificial intelligence. In contrast from Google, they often rely on hardware and usability. However, this time Apple’s news looked quite modern: Siri is now built into the keyboard and is able to provide intelligent hints to analyze the application and issue a contextual action — in short, behaving almost like Google Now.
4. The Photos application now does the same thing as Google Photos and recognizes scenes, faces, and objects. This is a lag of about a year.
5. Components can be added in the maps system application: for example, ordering taxis, flowers, or whatever comes to mind. This is done using the familiar NSUserActivity and AppExtensions, as it is done in Spotlight, Siri, and many other places in iOS 10.
6. My favorite feature is the ability for VoIP applications to be integrated into the system dialogs with dialing, contacts, call history, etc. Just as in time messengers replaced SMS, VoIP will replace voice calls via traditional carriers.
7. Apple could not resist and stuffed a lot of things in its iMessage. I will not speak in detail, but these include stickers, animation, and full-screen effects, emojis and autocorrect on emojis, and formatting links. But the most important thing is the ability to embed third party applications. Yes, through Extensions. For example, you can send money on chat or choose a restaurant together. It looks much better and more developed than Facebook Messenger or Telegram, as it is done completely natively. And here lies the main minute: this has not been announced on Android. This, of course, is a verdict.

Developer Tools & Frameworks

For developers, there is still a lot of news to come about Swift, instruments and Xcode, new frameworks, etc.. Apple has developed its own AFS file system and completely revamped its app signing process (it was a pain!), made a simulator for developing applications in iMessage, tried to bring Swift Package Manager to bear and so much more. Most of these facts will be found out this week.