Apple WWDC 2017: What we know so far
Monday witnessed one of the biggest tech events of 2017 after Google I/O, the Apple keynote at San Jose, California. Hosted by executives Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller and Tim Cook, we got a look at what Apple has up their sleeves waiting. So if you missed the three hour keynote, you might consider taking a look below.
Apparently, here is a list of the Top 5 announcements from WWDC which took the spotlight.
WatchOS 4
If you are a person who feels incomplete without a smartwatch and made the decision of having an Apple watch over others, this one is for you. The are quite a few improvements like new watch faces. There's a oh-so-stunning Kaleidoscope watch face, a Toy Story watch face which the kid inside you will definitely love, and a Siri watch face which is actually useful. It shows information like schedules, traffic, weather, and of course time on the main screen.
If you are a person who feels incomplete without a smartwatch and made the decision of having an Apple watch over others, this one is for you. The are quite a few improvements like new watch faces. There's a oh-so-stunning Kaleidoscope watch face, a Toy Story watch face which the kid inside you will definitely love, and a Siri watch face which is actually useful. It shows information like schedules, traffic, weather, and of course time on the main screen.
A new feature allows sending data between compatible gym equipment, so you never lose a step on your treadmill. Apple being already a popular fitness watch, marks the spot. But other than that, there's nothing spectacular that would make one hoping for a smartwatch go for the Apple watch.
macOS
The latest version of macOS or OS X running on every mac or macbook is the OS X 10.12 "Sierra". The new update 10.13 has been named "High Sierra".... Um, yeah.
A refinement over its predecessor, there are a handful of nifty improvements. Safari now blocks autoplay video ads. An intelligent ad tracking system has been implemented into Safari that prevents the same ad popping over and over again. Some new filters have been added in the Photos app to make your clicks even gorgeous. The Mail app has a new split view.
Apple announced that OS X will now support h.265 video codec coupled with hardware acceleration and built into Final Cut Pro. Happy editing!
Support for VR and external GPU has also been mentioned. Unity and Unreal Engine is now supported natively. External GPUs will depend on Thunderbolt 3 .
So now you get a developer kit with a reference box external GPU enclosure packed with a Raedeon gfx card which you can buy from Apple.
Public beta comes later this June or you can wait till fall for the free upgrade if you own a mac.
The latest version of macOS or OS X running on every mac or macbook is the OS X 10.12 "Sierra". The new update 10.13 has been named "High Sierra".... Um, yeah.
A refinement over its predecessor, there are a handful of nifty improvements. Safari now blocks autoplay video ads. An intelligent ad tracking system has been implemented into Safari that prevents the same ad popping over and over again. Some new filters have been added in the Photos app to make your clicks even gorgeous. The Mail app has a new split view.
Apple announced that OS X will now support h.265 video codec coupled with hardware acceleration and built into Final Cut Pro. Happy editing!
Support for VR and external GPU has also been mentioned. Unity and Unreal Engine is now supported natively. External GPUs will depend on Thunderbolt 3 .
So now you get a developer kit with a reference box external GPU enclosure packed with a Raedeon gfx card which you can buy from Apple.
Public beta comes later this June or you can wait till fall for the free upgrade if you own a mac.
HomePod
The most hyped announcement of the keynote was Apple HomePod. Yet another smart speaker, Apple has chosen a name that's definitely out of the box and off the mainstream. Competing Amazon Echo and Google Home, and also the Sonos, the HomePod is small balloon sized speaker that has some assistant features built in. This a speaker first and not completely a smart home device.
There are seven tweeters around the base circumference so you get an omnidirectional audio output, coupled with a four inch woofer firing upwards. The smart features built in enables it to detect how far it is situated from a wall so that it can bounce of audio equally. You get decent bass from this bad boy which other small speakers lack and the mids are also better compared to the Sonos. Beat that!
The Siri functionality added to it allows you to command your favorite song from iTunes, but whether it supports stream services like Spotify, iHeartRadio and SoundCloud is not yet known.
The HomePod seems a pretty decent deal at $349 and is said to launch in December this year.
The most hyped announcement of the keynote was Apple HomePod. Yet another smart speaker, Apple has chosen a name that's definitely out of the box and off the mainstream. Competing Amazon Echo and Google Home, and also the Sonos, the HomePod is small balloon sized speaker that has some assistant features built in. This a speaker first and not completely a smart home device.
There are seven tweeters around the base circumference so you get an omnidirectional audio output, coupled with a four inch woofer firing upwards. The smart features built in enables it to detect how far it is situated from a wall so that it can bounce of audio equally. You get decent bass from this bad boy which other small speakers lack and the mids are also better compared to the Sonos. Beat that!
The Siri functionality added to it allows you to command your favorite song from iTunes, but whether it supports stream services like Spotify, iHeartRadio and SoundCloud is not yet known.
The HomePod seems a pretty decent deal at $349 and is said to launch in December this year.
iOS 11
This is what most of us waited for, in fact this is what most apple users wait for. Most changes are noticeable on visual aspect, and the UI is much flatter and lot more colorful and clean.
You now get iMessage in iCloud, so when you switch between phones, you'll get all your messages there once u set up your iCloud. Apple Pay has now been embedded in iMessage so you can easily transact with another iPhone user via iMessage.
Again, there is native h.264 video support and a high efficiency image format so that all your photos take a lot less space on your phone.
Siri niw has a new voice, lot smoother and more human like, and there's also a male version too.
The Control Center is redesigned and has received mixed feedback from the audiences and critics, but as always, people will get used to. Control Center right now on the iPhone is a bit wacky and this may improve with the update.
The major improvement can be seen in iOS 11 for iPads. iPads always had a bad reputation in how they tried to be a complete replacement for a PC but could never really be, suffering heavily in the multitasking platform. Things changed and iOS 11 now sports a full dock on the iPad like the mac. Split screen and multitasking is present and now you can copy and paste items between apps too. The Notes app has a new scanning feature where if you take a note with the Apple pencil, it will recognize your handwriting and archive that and search through spotlight.
On a side note, a new iPad pro was launched with 10.5 inch display and slimmer bezels, but the spotlight feature is that it has a display that refreshes at 120 Hz, the default being 60, allowing a whole lot smoother experience than ever imagined.
This is what most of us waited for, in fact this is what most apple users wait for. Most changes are noticeable on visual aspect, and the UI is much flatter and lot more colorful and clean.
You now get iMessage in iCloud, so when you switch between phones, you'll get all your messages there once u set up your iCloud. Apple Pay has now been embedded in iMessage so you can easily transact with another iPhone user via iMessage.
Again, there is native h.264 video support and a high efficiency image format so that all your photos take a lot less space on your phone.
Siri niw has a new voice, lot smoother and more human like, and there's also a male version too.
The Control Center is redesigned and has received mixed feedback from the audiences and critics, but as always, people will get used to. Control Center right now on the iPhone is a bit wacky and this may improve with the update.
The major improvement can be seen in iOS 11 for iPads. iPads always had a bad reputation in how they tried to be a complete replacement for a PC but could never really be, suffering heavily in the multitasking platform. Things changed and iOS 11 now sports a full dock on the iPad like the mac. Split screen and multitasking is present and now you can copy and paste items between apps too. The Notes app has a new scanning feature where if you take a note with the Apple pencil, it will recognize your handwriting and archive that and search through spotlight.
On a side note, a new iPad pro was launched with 10.5 inch display and slimmer bezels, but the spotlight feature is that it has a display that refreshes at 120 Hz, the default being 60, allowing a whole lot smoother experience than ever imagined.
iMac Pro
The announcement which came in like a wrecking ball and took the cake is the introduction of the new Macs and the new iMac Pro. All the new Macs have brighter displays, fusion drives by default, the SSD is faster and can go upto 2 TB, all topped with KabyLake Intel 7th gen chips and AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards.
Now comes the iMac Pro. In all space grey matte black, it is a workstation grade device that is a beast by itself. 18 cores of workstation grade Xeon, AMD Vega GPUs, 5K display, upto 128 GB of ram and upto 4 TB of SSD with Ethernet on the back and 4 USB type C Thunderbolt 3 ports.... BANG ON!!! The beast also comes with a space grey Apple wireless keyboard, trackpad and a Magic Mouse. The device is priced at a hefty $5000 and is really aimed at pro users working on Final Cut Pro and other stuff who need all the horsepower.
But what is to be seen is how this device sells when launched in December since most sane pro users who are in need of a beast of a workstation would go for an assembled desktop to their likes, the sole reason being their upgradeability. The iMac Pro is seriously well justified with all its specs at $5K, but what's the use if you cannot upgrade it when in need of better components.
The announcement which came in like a wrecking ball and took the cake is the introduction of the new Macs and the new iMac Pro. All the new Macs have brighter displays, fusion drives by default, the SSD is faster and can go upto 2 TB, all topped with KabyLake Intel 7th gen chips and AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards.
Now comes the iMac Pro. In all space grey matte black, it is a workstation grade device that is a beast by itself. 18 cores of workstation grade Xeon, AMD Vega GPUs, 5K display, upto 128 GB of ram and upto 4 TB of SSD with Ethernet on the back and 4 USB type C Thunderbolt 3 ports.... BANG ON!!! The beast also comes with a space grey Apple wireless keyboard, trackpad and a Magic Mouse. The device is priced at a hefty $5000 and is really aimed at pro users working on Final Cut Pro and other stuff who need all the horsepower.
But what is to be seen is how this device sells when launched in December since most sane pro users who are in need of a beast of a workstation would go for an assembled desktop to their likes, the sole reason being their upgradeability. The iMac Pro is seriously well justified with all its specs at $5K, but what's the use if you cannot upgrade it when in need of better components.
Thanks for bearing with us thorough this journey. Lets hope to see how Apple keeps their reputation to what promised at the keynote. Peace.
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