Apple has made some huge announcements at this year’s WWDC. Here’s everything we know so far about the WWDC 2018 keynote announcements and the reverberations being felt throughout the tech community.
The annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has long been a highlight event for Apple. This year marked one of the company’s biggest product launch keynotes of all time. To begin with, the iPhone App Store is approaching its tenth anniversary in July. A part of one of Apple’s fastest growing departments, CEO Tim Cook announced that cumulative developer earnings through the App Store will surpass $100 billion later this month.
To the more consumer-friendly announcements however in the WWDC 2018 keynote was the unveiling of an update to Apple’s iOS which powers its iPhones and iPads. The 12th version of its operating system is going to make devices faster, no matter how old your Apple product is, and is performance-focused. Also, Apple announced a new augmented reality (AR) file format that it’s calling USDZ and an augmented reality app known as Measure. It subsequently also revealed new, updated versions of AR software development tools to allow for further exploration in this category.
Apple’s Siri will also be getting some pretty extensive upgrades as well. Apple’s voice assistant is being increasingly opened to more app development. A new tool called ‘Shortcuts’ will allow developers to add personalized cues to Siri. Consumers can also create their own Siri workflows through the Shortcuts application. This significantly opens up the potential to use Siri to other purposes. Imagine tapping a single shortcut to pull up GPS directions to a predetermined location and to set up a text message to someone special that you’re on your way. There’s a lot of work that could be done with Siri in the months to come once this app is put into play.
Beyond the big announcements, there’s also plenty of smaller changes being made, including a new Stocks app to track financial events in the marketplace, a re-design of iBooks into ‘Apple Books’, and the support of third party apps in CarKit. The Do Not Disturb feature to turn off notifications when you don’t want them is also seeing some new features. Apple’s voice-calling app FaceTime is also allowing for up to 32 simultaneous participants and the ability to launch group calls from your messaging app.
These are just some of the key takeaways from the WWDC 2018 keynote and there are plenty others that we just didn’t have space to enter here. It will be very interesting to see how these apps, features, and changes are implemented, and the subsequent reverberations that are felt throughout the marketplace in the year to come.
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