Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicked off in San Jose, Calif. with a product keynote from the senior member of the apple team.
Our favourite addition to the apple family “Reinventing home music”. The homepod works directly with apple music (40 million tracks). Competing directly with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. Compatible with Siri, the ultimate home assistant that blends intelligence with a speaker that truly has the power to rock the house. It will cost around £300 and comes in space grey and white.
Multi room audio is now built into iOS with friends being able to contribute to playlists seamlessly. This comes with a new interface to Apple Music with a “what your friends are listening to” function.
The iPad has a new addition to the product line with a bigger 10.7inch display. Although the new iPad has a bigger screen, the boarders are reduced by 40% and only weights 1 pound (this is now big enough for a full screen keyboard). iPads also have new displays that are 50% brighter and you can now display HDR video. ProMotion is now part of the iPad software, essentially the new displays are much faster meaning the content is smoother with the apple pencil reaping serious response time gains. The battery life has also been increased due to clever technology that limits the use of the powerful graphics for applications that don’t need the full capability. The new drag and drop capability for iPad is exceptional with the introduction of split screen. A new app called Files brings all of your files together that supports third party apps as well as iCloud such as google drive.
iMessage now syncs across all devices seamlessly and has been improved vastly. 50% of retailers now accept apple pay in the US and the apple pay integration with iMessage now allows the user to send and receive money to anyone via apple pay.
Siri has a new voice, male or female and now translates into multiple languages. Siri integrates across all devices including the new homepod.
Images now take half the space on your phone due to apple dropping the JPEG format. Live images now have the ability to pick your favourite photo, great for active shots. Other amazing photo features such as long exposure to capture movement and light in artistic ways debut with the iOS11 update.
Amazon are also partnering with Apple to bring Amazon Prime to tvOS along with a huge list of TV channels.
Maps now offers floor plans of malls and airports along with improvements to the in-car capability. A very useful feature to the navigation system is Lane Guides and live Speed Limits. CarPlay now features a do not disturb whilst driving feature for non-urgent notifications to be filtered out, even with auto messaging to key people to let them know you are driving making the in-car experience safer.
A new version of watchOS, the software that powers the Apple Watch has been introduced. A new Siri-powered watch face uses machine learning to customise content in real time throughout the day, including reminders, traffic information, upcoming meetings and news.
New fitness features include smarter workout controls, more prompts to set goals, and two-way workout data exchange with certain gym equipment. You’ll also be able to use the watch face as a flashlight or blinking light during night runs.
The App Store has also had a redesign, with a new today tab with new featured apps. Games and apps now have separate pages.
For developers the power of the various products available has been drastically increased allowing for editing in live VR environments. We also saw a sneak peak into the most powerful iMac ever priced at around £5000, the only iMac available in space grey.
No new iPhone. However, iOS11 will bring a very different feel to iPhone users and the experience across Siri, messaging, photos and video has been drastically improved.