I was hoping to bring some review of the usual Townhall that Apple usually puts on to launch its newest phone line, games, and whatnot. Still, as they haven’t done that so far, I thought I would talk to you a little bit about the Keynote presentation for the World Wide Developer Conference (or WWDC). I found it interesting, but I recognize that some people may not find some of the more technical stuff exciting, and frankly, the whole thing was two dense hours of updates and information. That being said, I won’t be covering everything that they went through, just some of the highlights.
1) Racism and Social Change Commentary – This year has been filled with all manner of changes in our lives. It’s fair then that Tim Cook should open the talk discussing things like Black Lives Matter. Because this happened in March when the murder of George Floyd had just happened, that was the main focus. It’s not surprising that that would covert this right off the top, it’s an important issue, and It’s good to see that it was important enough to Apple that it came before anything else.
2) iOS updates – They are going to be releasing a new version of iOS called iOS14. Based on some of the features that I’ve seen, It’s going to be super cool. This first of which is called app libraries. It’s cool because if you have loads of apps but don’t want to scroll through too many pages to get to the one you wish to, App libraries make it so that all of your pages are summarized in one page. This makes for better searching, better organizing of apps, and also makes it so that you only have to worry about having too many pages to swipe through. The other feature that is going to be awesome is what they’re doing with widgets. Previously all the widgets you had on your phone were on the home screen, which you would have to scroll left for. Once iOS14 is released, not only would you be able to have essential widgets on your main screen, you would be able to customize them to have different widgets at different times of the day.
3) Car Play – I don’t have a lot of experience with Apple Car Play. Mostly this is because previously, I didn’t have a great deal of experience using it. With some of the updates coming down the line, I am going to have a lot more. There are only a few basic functions that you can do through car play, phone, music, and texting. Unfortunately, it comes only with a black background, which has never really been Apple’s style. They are fixing that, though, because, with some of the updates, you will be able to add a wallpaper, which will make the easy viewing experience better. They also introduced the concept of turning your iPhone into a car key. This will only become available for a few car brands to start with (they mentioned BMW and Ford), but I would imagine that we’ll start seeing it available in other car brands down the road if this becomes successful. As soon as I can test it for my car, I will give it a go and report back.
4) Other cool stuff – There were a bunch of things that they highlighted during the Keynote aside of what I’ve mentioned above. Some of the notable items include Airpods getting the ability to switch between devices without redirecting them manually. This will be a nice function because currently, I know that when I use my AirPods for my iPad, I have to go into settings and tell my iPad to connect to the Airpods, and then tell my phone to pick them up when I go out later. Granted, it’s a minor inconvenience, but I will be grateful if they have a solution to deal with it. They’re doing a lot of stuff with the watch, including a new sleep tracking function which monitors your sleep. My only issue with this is when you are supposed to charge your watch? I charge my watch at night, so it wouldn’t accurately track my sleep data. Unless they want us to charge the watch sometime during the day, I’m not sure how to accurately track my sleep data through the watch.
There is a whole whack of stuff that I haven’t covered here. Like I said, It was a dense 2-hour program, and there was a lot covered. I think that some of the things that are coming out are going to be just insanely cool. The WWDC Keynote is only another method for Apple to do a soft launch of its products. If and when Apple decides to do their yearly town hall, I will definitely be watching and talking about that later on. Like I said, I’m a massive Apple fan. For now, I’m going to sit and wait for all the various OS14 iterations to come out so I can play with the new features. If you want to check out the WWDC keynote, you can click here and check it out. It’s on the Apple Website, but you can also click here, and it’ll take you right to the recording of the Keynote.
Do you like Apple Products?
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