Keeping Tabs
A jam-packed, if mildly muted, WWDC 2021
I sat on it for a day. I still think the biggest change announced yesterday at WWDC was buried in the Safari section of the macOS Monterey update — weird, seeing as it had nothing to do with macOS. It was the change to the way tabs are handled on the iPhone. Which is to say, at the bottom of the window. You know, the area of the screen which human beings can actually reach. I just think this shift alone may outpace pretty much everything else announced yesterday at WWDC. And there was a lot of stuff.
A Lot of Craig
Having attendees dream up WWDC killer openings was a fun idea. Fake Tim and Fake Craig were actually pretty funny gags. In particular as arena rock dudes. But my main thought here was one that kept being reinforced throughout the show — is Craig Federighi the actual heir-apparent at Apple? We all know that Jeff Williams has the role and title to make him the next Tim Cook but I have this sneaking feeling that Federighi is in the running too. It’s possible he’s just the new Phil Schiller — the Apple exec who gets a ton of stage time and plays up the gags for laughs — but again, Federighi appears to be more than that. He more or less ran yesterday’s show.
iOS 15
And it was he who kicked off with Apple’s most important software: iOS. We’re up to 15 now and you have to wonder how high we’re going to let these numbers go. Are we going to have iOS 35 in 20 years? Given how much fun Apple has with macOS (dating back to the “big cat” nicknames, of course), you’d think they’d do something similar with their most popular OS.
Of course, I’m not sure I know anyone who doesn’t work at Apple that can remember which version of macOS is which. So that doesn’t really speak to the power of the naming schemes. It’s far easier to remember that iOS 13 was two years ago versus the macOS update two years ago which was… High Sierra, I think? That is an honest guess. I didn’t look it up. I might be right, but I’m not sure I am!
The software itself looks good. This is clearly a “tick” year versus a big change “tock” one. And I’m fine with that. Most of the focus was on core apps like FaceTime and Messages, both of which seem to be getting even better — and more in line with core competition. The software which shall not be named, namely Zoom and all the messaging products made by Facebook.
I think the updates to FaceTime in particular would have resonated a lot more loudly say, a year ago. You know, when the world discovered Zoom because FaceTime was underpowered. Now it works on the web! But still not my Apple TV. Baby steps.
SharePlay looks to be executed very well. I’m less interested in watching movies or listening to music with friends, but I’m also old. Also very clearly no Netflix and chill here because there’s no Netflix. I do think browsing the web together could be legitimately useful in a number of situations.
Sharing articles and other content over Messages is interesting, but seems awfully tied to Apple News? Remembering who sent you what is clever though, so you can respond to them later when you read it.
The ‘Focus’ functions are a good idea. I used to manually do something similar, by hiding certain app pages on the weekends. But it was too cumbersome to remember to switch back every week. This automates that. I just hope the automation is good as it’s based on ML!
Status messages are back! But not exactly AIM-style. Again, baby steps.
LiveText looks pretty magical. I know others can do this, but the default iPhone camera is my main camera, so it’s great to have this built in. I wish they would build in a lot of other things too!
Wallet will soon have ID cards! And the TSA will use them! Let’s see how long this takes to roll out. I’m hopeful but also not holding my breath. California has to be one of the early states to allow for this, right? RIGHT?!
The new Weather app looks lovely. I’d hope so, Dark Sky. This makes me feel slightly better about Weather Line. Slightly.
Oh My God they turned Apple Maps into a new version of SimCity! And it sort of looks beautiful? Honestly, it’s impressive looking. But the devil will be in the data. As in, will the maps direct me off a cliff? I feel like those fears have subsided, but I’m still a little wary. Still, my god they look good.
AirPods
I will use the hell out of announcing all notifications, and I’m sure I will quickly turn this off. Great accessibility feature though. Also, AirPods can now alert you if you’ve left them behind, which should save my household several hundred dollars a year (hint: not me).
Spatial Audio on tvOS FINALLY. This was always such a weird omission, but presumably it had to do with a lack of gyroscope and accelerometer. Except that as far as I’m aware, the stationary device did not magically grow those things. Still, awesome!
iPadOS 15
Little Brother all grown up, now at least matching the height of big brother iOS. Widgets on the homescreen — “this is a huge deal” says Federighi seemingly in all seriousness. I mean, it’s great. I think widgets will actually be more useful on iPadOS than they have been on iOS — but they would have and should have been last year.
All I kept thinking as they showed more shots of iPadOS 15 was that the apps are still spaced too far apart. Bring that shit in, Apple. App Library in the dock is already 10x more useful than App Library as the last page you swipe to (as you do on iOS).
Multitasking was clearly the star of this portion of the show and… we’ll see? It looks interesting but also conceptually challenging. There are a lot of layers to remember. Not to mention shelves. So many shelves. Again, I hope this all works much more naturally than it looks. Still, it has to beat the current status quo, because anything would. Also, new keyboard shortcuts!
Notes got some nice updates but the main one is Quick Notes. It seems like this only works with Apple Pencil, but they later mentioned as an aside that you can make them on macOS too. But not iOS (where you can just access/edit them). This will likely be annoying/confusing. Still, it looks like a great feature. Maybe not my system-wide highlight, but closer…
You can now build iPad apps on the iPad. They played it as a big moment but it feels bigger than that. I know this isn’t full Xcode on the iPad. But it also feels like an important first step.
Privacy
This matters to Apple, have you heard?
But seriously, some pretty big changes which we may not fully know the ramifications of for a while? Like, what does this mean for newsletters, as you can no longer see open rates, etc? Safari now has a VPN, etc.
Siri
600 million monthly active devices now. Actually, no, I refuse to relay any information about Siri until she’s actually reliable. It has been far too long and all the jokes have been made. Just make her better Apple. And not just a little bit, but a lot bit. Still so many silly errors. It’s embarrassing. Impressive number of devices, which just means it’s embarrassing at scale!
iCloud+
Which is iCloud, but with a “+”. I mean, they did add features, some of which seem great — HIDE MY EMAIL — but the prices/tiers are the same.
Health
All interesting, important stuff on its own. But also felt a bit long in a keynote.
watchOS 8
Did I mention that it may be time to move on from the numbers naming scheme? Does anyone know/care which version of watchOS they use? How many people must be confused that while iOS and iPadOS are at 15, watchOS is 7 laps back?
The Mindfulness app seems nice. Everything else, just small tweaks, which is all that’s needed when you’re this far ahead in the space.
Also, GIFs from Giphy!
Home
“Siri, turn on Apple TV”
“Okay, turning on the app LeTV”
And now you can have this magic on third party devices. Joy. But hey, the more data the better to improve things, I guess?
The HomePod mini now works with Apple TV, which is nice since the HomePod proper did this and now it no longer exists. Which is really weird. There’s a mini version of a product but no non-mini version. I guess that’s what you get when you launch with the wrong strategy.
macOS Monterey
A lot of talk of feature parity with iOS and then boom: Continuity. One of those demos that seems like pure magic. Control the iPad screen with a MacBook keyboard. And control a Mac too. Or vice versa. Drag and drop between them. Again, amazing how well this demo worked.
Shortcuts on Mac will undoubtedly be more powerful than on iOS thanks to the Automator legacy.
Safari tabs on top! Safari tabs on top! Per my opening, these changes to Safari strike me as key as I just use it so much. The changes on the Mac look great. Tab Groups! Also, extensions on mobile! Extensions are still far behind on Safari versus Chrome, but this may legitimately change that equation.
A flash on the screen of “Low Power Mode” coming to macOS — which sounds great but might it also be a precursor to Macs with 5G?!
Developer Tech
By now, we’re over 90 minutes in. The struggle is real. But developers were rewarded for their patience with a few new tools/announcements. APIs, Swift, App Store. Xcode in the Cloud. Honestly, they probably should have saved macOS for the end just to help with cadence here.
Back to Tim
There was a lot here, but overall the announcements felt more evolutionary rather than revolutionary. And that’s fine! Not every year has to knock the socks off. There were some nice things here, no doubt. But I continue to believe that the really big changes will be some smaller tweaks that alter our day-to-day. Like tabs at the bottom of Safari on mobile. And at the top of Safari on desktop.
No hardware, and no real surprise there. You have to give the M1 devices some room to breathe before we move on to the ‘M1X’ or whatever. Also, you probably need to let the supply chain take a breather for a few. And Craig Federighi too after yet another dad joke virtuoso performance!
Previous Years’ WWDC Thoughts:
