Apple Is Making A Comeback For 2016: WWDC 2016

By Honson Tran on June 27, 2016

It was until fairly recently when Apple announced its $40 billion drop in the stock market just two months ago. Many of Apple’s products have dropped, especially the iPhone. With technology these days, the market for smartphones and smart devices have very competitive companies as well as extremely close substitutes.

The differences between iOS and Android are slowly disappearing, and much of the functionality from either platform can be done on the other platform with ease. However, Apple’s World Developer Conference (WWDC) has given Apple a huge comeback for both developers and the consumer. Here’s a quick recap of what’s going on.

Developers: Everything is AppleOS!

Image from 9to5mac.com

Before WWDC 2016, a majority of what Apple has to offer was very limited to developers and those who wished to create applications. For a bit more universal look for both consumers and Apple itself, all of Apple’s supported device platforms are renamed to MacOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The entirety of the conference is all software updates (sorry for those who want an iPhone 7 release date!), but the sheer convenience of updates has given Apple a huge comeback for this year.

What’s new with watchOS?

For those with Apple watches, you’re in for a surprise. If you are into tech and invested into smartwatches early into the beginnings of its market, you soon found out that it’s merely just a watch that told you the weather, read your text messages, and made phone calls. A majority of the apps had very little functionality, and eventually, the watch became more of a fancy “want” than a productive product.

With the new watchOS, many of these features have been implemented and redone. Here are some key features listed below.

•Instant loading of apps & Dock feature: A very crucial part of tiny devices such as a watch. There is no reason to purchase a watch if checking your watch takes about the same amount of time as checking your phone, right? Additionally, the dock feature will be able to let you scroll through your updates and apps with ease. This is the key improvement to show potential buyers the power of productivity and convenience with an additional tech accessory.

Image by engadget.com

•Scribble: For a while, smartwatches have been struggling to create the perfect predictive texting keyboard for smartwatches. However, why tap tiny buttons on your smartwatch monitor when you can just hand-write letters? Genius!

Image from iDownloadBlog.com

•New health & fitness features: Now, you will be able to not only keep track of your exercise routine, but also to share and compare with your other friends.

What’s new with tvOS?

Standard TV cable is being cut constantly by households everywhere. Technology being so invested into the cloud and streaming, there is no need to catch your favorite show anymore when everything is on demand. Here are some key features to tvOS.

•Dark theme: Instead of the bright theme you always see on iDevices, you can now switch to a dark theme to prevent some over extensive glare.

•Siri integration: A very intelligent move from Apple. Siri users can now tell Siri what channel they want turned on or what they want to search for. This gives users more showtime and less controller time. As a plus, you can even search for content inside of apps (searching for videos on YouTube).

•Single sign-on: No need to sign into all your multiple Netflix and HBO accounts when you can just sign in once and authenticate them all!

Image from 9to5mac.com

What’s new in macOS (Sierra)?

A lot of college students love using Mac OSX a lot when it comes to productivity purposes and just work in general. What’s the reason? Mac OSX has a beautiful dock with phenomenal multitouch trackpad gestures that makes navigating between different resources a breeze. Mac OSX (well, now it’s macOS) is the epitome of integration. With this upcoming update (mac OS Sierra), we’ll be able to see more of Apple’s ideals of integration coming soon.

•iPhone & Mac Synergy: A nifty feature. Typing in passwords seems to be outdated for authentication. Windows 10 devices have face recognition, but Apple has an unlock feature based on if your devices are in proximity. Simply having an Apple watch or an iPhone near your Macbook will authenticate you and get right to work! Additionally, copy/paste functionality is shared across devices. This means copying an article or text from your iPhone will also copy it to your Mac’s clipboard.

•Space conservation: As discussed earlier, with the huge boom for cloud services and integration, macOS now puts any old data onto iCloud and removes it from your computer. This new feature not only increases the space in your computer, but it also gives iCloud a feature that other free alternatives don’t have. As a result, iCloud now is different than other cloud services, making it more appealing to purchase.

•Apple Pay: Paying has never been easier. Touch ID Apple Pay on the iPhone can now be used to authenticate purchases on macOS as well.

Image by TechCrunch.com

 

Picture-to-Picture capabilities: Need to watch a video for a class while doing a presentation or assignment? No problem. With Picture-to-Picture (PIP), you can minimize a video to a tiny window to drag around.

•Siri integration: With Siri on macOS, you can now also tell Siri to search for documents about a certain subject during a certain time period. Siri’s search functionalities go beyond that of just mere document names. It dives deep into the content of documents, its tags, recipients of the file, and even its date.

What’s new in iOS 10?

iOS 10, also branded as the “biggest iOS release for users ever” by Apple’s head of software engineering, Craig Federighi. Although there aren’t any huge booming implementations into the operating system, it’s the little things that matter. You can definitely tell that iOS 10 has gone beyond just polishing the interface. They’ve made everything more accessible at your hands.

•Quicktype (Predicted text): Now, typing someone’s name will predict their address or their email address depending on context.

•VoIP now integrated with iOS’s phone app: Instead of downloading a bunch of communication applications, all these accounts just link to your phone app for easy access.

•Predicted map locations: Maps on iOS recognize the location and time of where you are and provides recommendations of where you want to go by having convenient shortcuts at the click of a button. Gas stations and general locations are also now able to be searched such as gas stations and restaurants.

Open integration of iMessage & Siri: Another very smart move made by Apple. By opening up doors for developers to create more features and integration with their apps and Apple’s services, Siri becomes a strong AI and iMessage becomes more powerful of a communication method (you can order food with it now!).

Voicemail transcriptions: The header explains it all! People over the years have gotten tired of listening to voicemail. It’s about time!

iMessage rework: Now capable of hiding messages, handwritten messages, and instant emoji conversion from text at command!

Widgets: You heard it! Android users aren’t the only special ones anymore! Having widgets to view the weather, email, live sports channels, and much more will keep everything much more accessible.

Image by TechSpot.com 

HomeKit: Creating the perfect SmartHome

In addition to all the integration between already released products, Apple has also announced a new product called HomeKit. With HomeKit, users can easily unlock doors, turn on air conditioning, turn on and off lights, and much more all from their new “Home” app from their iPhone.

Image by Techtimes.com

This one’s for the kids … (Learn to code in Swift!)

As a motivator to encourage the joy of computer science (and to also promote their iOS development platform), Apple is also going to be releasing an iPad app for kids to learn how to code and create apps.

Image from TechCrunch.com

Conclusion (Finally!)

Everything is coming in the fall! Although Apple has not created any new hardware advances, it took what technology has to offer right now and did what matters to consumers more: functionality and usability. Simply upgrading a phone to make it faster is pointless now. Phones in this day and age have enough computing power to suffice a consumer’s needs. The convenience and functionality of Apple products is what keeps consumers coming back for more of Apple.

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