Apple announced quite a handful of new products at the just concluded WWDC 2017 that made Apple fans and even the tech community pretty excited.
The tech giants unveiled iOS 11; the next version of the iPhone and iPad OS, and macOS High Sierra. The company also announced a brand new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, the first iPad in that screen size. And yes, the “Siri speaker” known as the HomePod wasn't left out.
So, let’s get into detail of every major announcement at WWDC 2017.
iOS 11
iOS 11 was basically the star of the show as you can imagine. The release is especially good news for iPad users who have been longing for a software update that would elevate the iPad’s capabilities and put it more on par with a Mac. iOS 11 brings system-wide drag-and-drop to the iPad, a redesigned multitasking layout, a Dock that now looks like the one found on the Mac, and new markup features for Apple Pencil users. iOS 11 also heavily supports augmented reality and comes with ARKit for developers, which was showcased largely on the iPad.
iOS 11 also comes with lots of little new features across the board. You can now send payments with Apple Pay to friends in iMessage, create looping Live Photos, add new filters and edits to photos, ask Siri to translate something or play music you might like, get more personalized recommendations in News, see what friends are listening to in Apple Music and more.
The App Store and Control Center have also been redesigned with the App Store sporting a complete overhaul. There is a new Today view which shows great new and recommended apps in a card view, plus offers tips and behind-the-scenes looks at them. The store is also now split between apps and games
Control Center is now customizable. In Settings, you can choose which functions show up in Control Center. Plenty of new options appear like screen recording, Apple TV remote, low power mode, accessibility settings, and more. It’s a welcome addition to the OS for pro user
macOS High Sierra
The macOS High Sierra didn't get much features added but Apple has made some improvements in the area of stability. The major upgrade here is the adoption of the Apple File System. Most users won’t know at all what this is, but they’ll feel it. It’s based off of an entirely 64-bit architecture and designed to be not only safer, but way faster with handling files.
High Sierra now moves to HEVC (read: H265) video as the standard which offers 40 percent better compression. It also includes Metal 2 for developers and adds several layers of support for virtual reality.
On the end user side of things, Photos gets pretty decent improvements to its facial recognition, organization, and editing tools. Safari also blocks autoplay videos and automatically enables Reader for articles to help streamline the web a bit. Notes has tables, FaceTime has Live Photo support for capturing moments, and iCloud supports shared family storage.
HomePod
HomePod is definitely the most unique of Apple's announcement. It’s a home speaker that directly integrates with your Apple Music subscription to play music throughout a large area with crystal clear sound. Apple promises it’s as quiet as you need it to be or as loud.
It has an Apple A8 chip, a six microphone array, seven tweeters, and a high-excursion woofer. You can give commands via the microphones: whether it’s playback control, volume control, or of course Siri commands. HomePod understands just about any Siri request you throw at it. It’ll look up information for you, control your HomeKit accessories, and access Apple Music recommendations. The mics are loud enough to hear you from across the room too.
The HomePod won't be available till December and it will cost roughly $350
watchOS & tvOS
tvOS will now feature Amazon Prime Instant Video. But that's about all the update to tvOS.
watchOS 4 however, brings great new exercise features like high-intensity interval training and integration with workout machines to wirelessly provide data to the Watch. watchOS 4 will also automatically start playing the playlist of your choice when you begin a workout with an improved UI to the Music app too.
New Watch faces have also been added: a kaleidoscope, Woody, Jessie, and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, and the new Siri Watch face. The latter automatically populates with intelligent cards that recognizes what you might want to do at certain times of the day. This could include reminders, calendar appointments, workouts, weather reports, traffic, and so on.
iPad Pro
Apple decided to launch the second generation of the iPad Pro which comes in form of a new 10.5-inch iPad Pro. Alongside the redesigned 12.9-inch version
These new iPad Pros come with an A10X Fusion chip that promises 30 percent better CPU performance and 40 percent better graphics performance over the previous A9X in the 2016 iPad Pro. They also have vastly superior displays with a 120Hz refresh rate for the first time in a tablet and an impressive 500 nits of brightness.
The cameras have also been improved. On the rear is a f/1.8 12MP shooter like the one on the iPhone 7. The front features 7MP selfie shooter with a f/2.2 aperture.
Pricing begins at $649 for the 64GB 10.9-inch iPad Pro.
New MacBook Line and iMac Pro
More importantly was the unveiling of the new iMac Pro coming in December. It has a new space gray finish on the outside with powerful specs under the hood. It can feature up to 18 cores — yes, 18! — Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz, up to 128GB of memory and 4TB of SSD storage. The display is at 500 nits like the iPad Pro and can show one billion colors.
The iMac Pro will start at $4999
Photo credit: Apple
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