Apple WWDC 2021 Highlights

The IT conference, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference began yesterday on June 7 for the year and on the very first day, Apple announced the new iterations of its operating systems – iOS 15, macOS 12, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and HomePodOS 15. The day also had two major events with Apple wrapping off the new MacBook Pro and unveiling a new Mac Mini M1X. The event was fascinatingly jam-packed with news and updates. The company also went on to announced updates on Siri and AirPods.

Due to the COVID-19 safety restrictions, WWDC 2021 (June 7 – 11) is being presented online and the last year’s event was cancelled citing pandemic restrictions. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook appeared on stage as soon as the event began. Later, SVP, Software Engineering, Craig Federighi takes us through the new features on iOS 15.

FaceTime: He started off with updating on iOS15, stating that FaceTime will offer spatial audio to make the voice appear more natural and lifelike. Besides, it also eliminates background noises. FaceTime will get two new updates – a grid format to the videos and a portrait mode to better view person-person. In FaceTime, one will see an added option to create a link where you can use it cross-platform across the web and non-iOS devices. Also, the company announced SharPlay to allow group listening, watching and screen-sharing, all via FaceTime.

iMessage gets a new stacked photo feature and Apple Music gets a new shared list feature. One of the highlights, iOS 15 gets a new Live Text feature that automatically recognises text in images, including handwritten, and makes it selectable, and you can even copy and paste it.

iPad: Moving to iPadOS15, they get home screen widgets and an app library. With this, one can hide pages and rearrange them. iPads also get quick notes that you can use parallelly with third-party apps and sites and easily drag and note links and text.

Siri: Talking about Siri, since it has 600 million monthly active users, it gets on-device speech recognition, which means the “audio never leaves the device”. As a part of Mail privacy protection, Apple Mails get mail privacy protection that hides your IP address, location and disables trackers.

Health: Apple also will now let you add Legacy contacts so that when you pass on, your details can be passed on to your trusted contacts. Along with 3 new health features, another feature comes in called ‘Walking Steadiness’ where it will alert you in case you have a “fall risk”. The health app will now also let you track the health of your family members – you can get heart rate notifications or other health reports from your family members. Apple Watch can now also track your respiratory rate.

Mac05: The new name macOS Monterey gets a Share Play and Universal Control that lets you drag and share details across iMac, MacBooks and iPads. Also, Safari has a new redesign.

Apple’s new Live Text will digitize text in your photos, which can let you copy and paste text from a photo. Apple says it uses “on-device intelligence” for the feature. Also, Apple’s Wallet will soon let you store your ID in a digital form (in participating US states), which you’ll then use as identification in US airports. The developer beta for all the new OS’ will be available starting today and the public beta will be rolled out in July.