With WWDC come and gone for another year, we have a summary of what all went down and was announced. Apple definitely brought their A-game back on Monday and introduced quite a few new things. A new OS for the iPhone and Macs, an update to the Apple Watch, and a new music streaming service called Apple Music among a few other updates.
iOS 9
Apple mentioned that they see over 1 billion requests through Siri each week, so what Apple did was improve Siri even more. Siri is said to be 40% faster and 40% more accurate than before. A new UI for Siri will come out along with new intelligence call Proactive. Basically what it means is that Siri will be a Google Now case scenario. If you ask Siri to show you pictures of something specific, the phone would bring it up. Even setting reminders has been updated. Say your significant other needs you to pick something up from the grocery store, just ask Siri to set a reminder. A user can swipe right on the home screen and a Siri suggestion page will show allowing you to set reminders, directions, traffic, and others.
One thing that iOS users didn’t have was a Split View feature, but that has since changed. Apple included this feature in iOS 9 for iPads. To launch it, double tap on the home button and then swipe from the right which will bring in the second app. As of right now, only the iPad Air 2 will be able to support this feature.
Apple Maps was finally updated, which was definitely needed. There is now an option for transit and for walking. Some cities will get the transit service at launch and some cities included are: Baltimore, London, Washington D.C., Toronto, New York, Chicago, and more.
A new font is coming to the keyboard in iOS. Helvetica is the font style currently and will be changed to the San Francisco font that the Apple Watch uses.
Another new feature in iOS 9 is a “low battery” mode. Apple didn’t go into much detail on it other than it will add an additional 3 hour battery life. Other than that, there is a battery life improvement which will extend an extra 1 hour of usage.
For more details on more improvements to iOS 9, check out this article written by John Vincent earlier this week.
OS X El Capitan
El Capitan is the name of Apple’s newest OS for Macs. This OS X is focusing on two areas, performance and experience. Safari has gotten a complete overhaul and users will be able to pin sites and the address bar is now the spot where you can find audio that is playing. Spotlight has also been updated and has the ability to respond to queries in natural languages. The Mission Control interface has better window management and the Split View feature.
With performance being better, apps are said to open 1.4 times faster and PDFs in Preview are also 1.4 times faster. Metal, which was introduced in iOS last year is coming to El Capitan. OpenGL is being replaced by Metal for rendering graphics and is up to 40% greater rendering efficiency.
OS X El Capitan is currently available for developers right now.
Our very own Jack Holt created an article about OS X El Capitan which can be found here: Apple introduces OS X El Capitan.
watchOS
Not too long ago, the Apple Watch was released and now we have information about its next software update. The watchOS 2 update will bring smoother performance, more features and apps. The developer edition is available now for those who are developing apps or want to develop apps for the Apple Watch. As for when the release date will be, it’ll be some time in the fall.
A few new/updated features will include:
- Using photos as a watch face. You have the option choose a photo album to use as a watch face and any time you flick your wrist, a new photo will show.
- Third party apps
- Nightstand which will act as an alarm clock
- Replying back to emails
- Siri
- Apple Pay
Apple Music
We knew it was going to happen some day, the day Apple announces their own music streaming service. Apple Music will learn your taste of music and provide new songs to listen to. The price of the service will cost $9.99 a month, or $14.99 for a family plan which covers up to six individuals. Paid subscribers will be able to download playlists and albums offline, while free users will be able to listen to radio stations with limited skipping. Siri is integrated with this service, so you’ll be able to ask Siri to play a certain song or the number one song from five years ago. Apple Music will be available on June 30th for iPhone users and some time in the fall for Android users.
And there you have our WWDC 2015 wrap-up. What Apple update or service are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
