Today’s the day where Apple unveils all the updates to its products at WWDC 2024. This is the Oscars of the developer’s conference season! The morning began with the Apple execs jumping out of a plane and a nice Apple TV plug, it’s good to be back.
And before you ask yes AI was a major feature at this year’s WWDC (see below) and the Apple Vision Pro has an Aussie release date.
Here is everything announced at WWDC 2024.
Apple Intelligence: Apple’s new AI Venture
Well, this wasn’t really a surprise, we’ve been harping on about it for months now. But Apple finally announced its AI venture: Apple Intelligence. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering spent 45 minutes breaking down the new system. Apple Intelligence is the new personal intelligence system that makes your personal products more useful, well according to Apple anyway.
This was also a great time for Apple to slip in its collaboration with OpenAI and ChatGPT. There is a Siri and ChatGPT partnership across the Apple ecosystem
It has new capabilities, architecture and experiences for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Some of the new capabilities include prioritising notifications on your lock screen and new writing tools that can do a quick proof or enhance your text. There are also new AI powered emojis and AI images you can create in various apps. You can ask Siri for prompts in apps, for example, you could ask: “Play the podcast my wife sent the other day”.
Apple Intelligence has personal context, where Apple processes data to know our lives and understand our context for helpful intelligence. Federighi said Apple is aware of your data, without collecting your data.
New AI-powered features include:
- Genmojis: AI generated emojis by Apple Intelligence
- Image Playground app: An app where you can create AI images
- Photos app: ability to clean up background noise with AI
- Image Wand tool: In the notes app, create a sketch and the Image Wand will turn it into an AI image
- Record and transcribe audio in the notes app and summarise key points at a glance
- Record in the phone app with transcriptions
These features will be available on iOS 18 and released over the next year, so not everything will be available when the new OS drops sadly.
Read more about Apple Intelligence here.
iOS 18: All the new features coming to iPhone
At Apple WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled all the new features for its iOS 18 software update. These updates include new emoji tapbacks, game mode for iPhone, home screen customisation and an update to photos including the ability to see trips. Plus a Password App, finally!!
See all the updates below.
VisionOS: Apple Vision Pro Updates
Apple Vision Pro is coming to Australia on July 12!
Apple has released VisionOS 2 for its Apple Vision Pro with updates to its current apps bringing natural depth to its spatial photos with intuti, and SharePlay in the photos apps with new hand gestures.
Apple is bringing train support mode to help commuters enjoy the AVP on their commute. There will also be an update to the Mac virtual display updates, with a higher display resolution which is equivalent to two 4k monitors side by side.
Oh, and a new Vimeo app too.
Read more about the Apple Vision Pro here.
iPadOS 18: All the new updates coming to your iPad
iPadOS 18 has similar updates to the iPhone where users can customise their control centre, home screen and enjoy the same new features on their Photos app. There will also be a new floating tab bar for certain apps like Apple TV. But the most interesting update was the calculator app finally coming to iPad (yes the Calculator app, wasn’t available for the past 17 software updates!). There will also be math notes, where you can write calculations and the notes app will create graphs for you and update answers as you go.
Read more about the iPadOS 18 updates here.
MacOS Sequoia
Welcome to MacOS Sequoia, with iPhone mirroring, where you can access your iPhone on your MacBook or Mac. This is a massive update for its already convenient and cool continuity feature. You also can see iPhone notifications on your app. But your iPhone will be locked the entire time – cool. iPhone mirroring brings perfect drag and drop between the two devices.
The Passwords App is also available on Mac and for Safari users can see summaries for Safari where it breaks down a webpage on the side of the browser. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is coming to Mac and iPad. Plus, Assassin’s CreedMirage is coming to MacBook.
Read about all the MacOS Sequoia updates here.
WatchOS: New features coming to an Apple Watch near you
WatchOS has a new app called Vitals, giving users a daily health status and alerts them when something seems a little off. At WWDC 2024, Apple released new fitness features, including a new feature called training load giving people insights to make better fitness decisions. Move goals can also be altered by day, rather than by week. People can also have a smarter way to track their pregnancy now on the cycle app.
See the summarised features below. Read more about Apple WatchOS 11 here.
TVOS 18: Apple TV updates
TVOS is also getting some new features, including inSight, a pop up on AppleTV that shows you info about the actors, characters and music from Apple TV+ movies and shows. Similar to the IMBD feature Prime has.
Enhance Dialogue uses machine learning and computational audio to deliver vocal clarity over music, action, and background noise on Apple TV 4K.
Subtitles now automatically appear when the language in a show or film does not match the device language, when users mute, or when they skip back while watching something.
Gestures are coming to AirPods, you can nod your head to accept a call or shake your head to decline, this is enabled through Siri.
Also Snoopy backgrounds.
This article will be updated as the story develops.
Image: Apple