Apple‘s opening keynote Monday for WWDC 2020, its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, started with Tim Cook addressing the empty auditorium about Black Lives Matter and coronavirus before it launched into the announcement of iOS 14 and its home-screen redesign and new widgets. Thus far, we’ve heard about the new iPadOS 14, MacOS Big Sur, TV OS and WatchOS updates as well. Public betas will start next month, and as usual ship in the fall.
But the big news was Apple’s highly anticipated move to Arm-based chips away from Intel, intended to deliver better performance at lower power consumption than before, a (presumably) Metal-optimized graphics processor and other custom acceleration silicon. New systems will ship by the end of 2020, and the Apple silicon will roll out across the rest of the Mac line over the next two years.
- WWDC: Microsoft 365, Adobe Creative Cloud will support new Apple Arm chip
- Apple’s own apps like Final Cut will support Mac Arm from Day 1
- Developers will be able to order a kit with the mac Mini running an A12Z this week
- But it hasn’t broken up with Intel
- Apple’s new Arm-based Macs will run iPhone, iPad apps
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All of the Big Sur Apple apps are written to support the new custom Apple processors, and Apple claims that support is just a simple recompile for developers (or at least within a couple days). Partners like Adobe and Microsoft will also be onboard with their apps at launch. And the company claims the performance will be great. Rosetta 2 will automatically recompile older apps when you install them. Catalyst-compiled iOS and iPadOS apps and games will run natively starting on Day One.
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More magic for AirPods! Smart switching the connection across devices comes to our rescue, and AirPods Pro gets spatial audio using a gyro and an accelerometer to track your head movements. It supports multiple spatial standards. Apps will provide more granular options for location tracking and give developers a way to show you more detail about what they’re capturing.
We also saw a preview of the new Apple TV Plus show, Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi book series.
Better multiuser support in TVOS lets you pick up where you left off in a game, and it now supports Xbox Elite and Xbox Adaptive controllers. Apple TV Plus has lots and lots of screens under its belt.
iOS 14
There are new capabilities for Siri, including a Google Translate-like app for live conversational translations. Messages, too, gets much-needed updates with the ability to pin messages, improvements in group conversations, and more looks for Memoji customizations.
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Maps, too, has new features, such as cycling navigation for more cities, and EV routing to alleviate worries about running out of juice en route. CarPlay “rethinks car keys.” They’re now virtual and shareable! App Clips come to the App Store for quick access to new apps and to link to apps from Safari and more.
Borrowing a feature from iPad (and Android phones), Apple brings picture-in-picture to the iPhone in iOS 14, which will give you a floating thumbnail of a video if you switch to look at your home screen or any other app.
For smart home, the Home app provides adaptive lighting, the ability to define activity zones for cameras, plus face recognition notifications from your doorbell across all the devices.
- WWDC 2020: With iOS 14, Apple redesigns the iPhone home screen
- Apple’s iOS 14 unveiled: A first glimpse at the upcoming iPhone software
- Apple introduces widgets to iOS 14 homescreen
- Apple Memoji gets face coverings amid COVID-19
- Siri will stay out of your way with a new design in iOS 14
- Apple jazzes up Messages with pinned contacts, mentions and in-line replies
- WWDC 2020: Apple introduces App Clips
- WWDC 2020: Apple adds cycling directions to Maps for iOS 14
- Apple adds virtual CarKeys to iOS, coming first in BMW 5 Series
- Apple unveils minor CarPlay update at WWDC 2020
- Apple WWDC: Maps adds EV Routing to help minimize range anxiety
- Apple brings streamlined smart home controls to HomeKit in iOS 14 later this year
- Apple’s WWDC 2020 privacy updates wants to tell people how apps are tracking them
- Apple updates Siri with new UI and adds 11 languages
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iPadOS 14
You’ll find the same redesigned widgets as iOS 14, but iPadOS improves Photos navigation with a sidebar; the sidebar design has also been integrated into several of Apple’s own apps, with tapping and dragging. Compact notifications for incoming calls and more won’t obscure your screen — that’s in iOS as well. Search has been redesigned to work from anywhere and to operate more like Spotlight on the desktop.
And finally, the new Scribble app provides handwriting recogniti