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WWDC 2015 Roundup
Here's an overview of the main announcements and new products unveiled at WWDC today.
- The latest OS X will be named OS X El Capitan. Features include: Natural language searches and auto-arrange windows. You can make the cursor bigger by shaking the mouse and pin sites in Safari now. 1.4x faster than Yosemite. Available to developers today, public beta in July, out for free in the fall.
- Metal, the graphics API is coming to Mac. "Metal combines the compute power of OpenCL and the graphics power of OpenGL in a high-performance API that does both." Up to 40% greater rendering efficiency.
- iOS 9: New Siri UI. There’s an API for search. Siri and Spotlight are getting more integrated. Siri getting better at prediction with a far lower word error rate. You can make checklists, draw and sketch inside of Notes. Maps gets some love. New app called News "We think this offers the best mobile reading experience ever." Like Flipboard it pulls in news articles from your favorite sites. HomeKit now supports window shades, motion sensors, security systems, and remote access via iCloud. Public Beta for iOS 9.
- Apple Pay: All four major credit card companies and over 1 million locations supporting Apple Pay as of next month. Apple Pay reader developed by Square, for peer-to-peer transactions. Apple Pay coming to the UK next month support in 250,000 locations including the London transportation system. Passbook is being renamed "Wallet."
- iPad: Shortcuts for app-switching, split-screen multitasking and QuickType. Put two fingers down on the keyboard and it becomes a trackpad. Side by side apps. Picture in picture available on iPad Air and up, Mini 2 and up.
- CarPlay: Now works wirelessly and supports apps by the automaker.
- Swift 2,the latest version of Apple’s programing language . Swift will be open source.
- The App Store: Over 100 billion app downloads, and $30 billion paid to developers.
- Apple Watch: watchOS 2 with new watch faces. Developers can build their own "complications" (widgets with a terrible name that show updates and gauges on the watch face). A new feature called Time Travel lets you rotate the digital crown to zoom into the future and see what’s coming up. More new features: reply to email, bedside alarm clock, send scribbled messages in multiple colors. You can now play video on the watch. Developer beta of watchOS 2 available today, wide release in the fall for free.
- Apple Music: “The next chapter in music. It will change the way you experience music forever,” says Cook. Live DJs broadcasting and hosting live radio streams you can listen to in 150 countries. Handpicked suggestions. 24/7 live global radio. Beats Connect lets unsigned artists connect with fans. Beats Music has all of iTunes’ music, to buy or stream. With curated recommendations. Launching June 30th in 100 countries with Android this fall, with Windows and Android versions. First three months free, $9.99 a month or $14.99 a month for family plan for up to six.
Latest OS X: Expected, while interesting features nothing huge.
Metal: New Graphic engine... Again! means developers will need to rewrite their apps so they look right with the OS.
iOS 9: Kinda neat. When I get it I will update and play with it.
Apple Pay: Nothing new to me.
iPAD: Sounds like stuff android had for a while.
Car Play: So I have to buy a new car to get this? Sorry I like a car that is good on fuel, dependable, and affordable, if it comes with Car Play great if not no big deal.
Swift 2: Get me a version where I can make apps in Windows or Linux too... Otherwise OK that is fine, but staying to one platform development isn't my thing.
Apple Watch: I still can't find a good reason to get one.
Apple Music: I am looking for ways to reduce my monthly fees. Being that this cost more than Netflix or Hulu and you get less data traffic, it doesn't make sense.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Mavericks and Yosemite introduced a number of really bad bugs and annoyances. Has this fixed some of them?
-Can you access the file dialog with out waiting forever with just the spinning disk showing?
-Does the filesystem update when things like screenshots are taken with out having to force a reload of the filesystem cache?
-Can you lock the dock to a certain position on one screen?
-Can we have it so the HDMI Port stops cutting out?
-Can the screen properly update without black boxes sometimes covering content / UI elements?
-Can we have an OS that doesn't feel like it is from the early 90s?
-Can we have more graphical setup options instead of having to do things through the command prompt?
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
I thought they made a really compelling argument for Apple Radio. They are pushing on the idea of a distinction between radio and algorithmically-driven playlists. Of the role of a djay in curating music and placing it in a cultural context. On the very notion of pop music not as a pejorative term but as a dimension of our shared experience.
Ok sure, I'll bite, at least for the trial period. $10/mo sounds expensive, tho.
$10/mo is cheap compared to SiriusXM. SiriusXM is a terrible company, their customer service is awful and their marketing machine makes the people selling fake viagra blush. Advertisements on some channels (Comedy in particular) are some of the sleaziest late-night ads I have ever heard. But I have struggled to find something better. The barrier to entry into online services is a bit high- every online service there is requires some tweaking, customizing, or "learning your tastes" period, whereas I can just turn on Sirius and go to a genre channel and get exactly what the channel says it is.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Anybody else think that Apple should ditch Metal in favour of Vulkan? If they want the latest games ported to Mac then they should use an open API that is used on other platforms.
But I am starting to think that maybe ports is not Apple's game... Maybe they want there to be almost only Apple-specific titles on Mac so that people wouldn't compare performance on Mac to that on PC or consoles. Now that they are known mostly for laptops and their desktop machines are also having laptop-grade internals then they are not going to be able to compete on graphics performance anyway.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Imagine that, a phone introduced in September 2011, still getting updates....
Additionally, you no longer need to be in the developer program to build and run code on an iOS device. The $99 / year membership is now only needed for selling things in the App Store. Anyone with an Apple account can download the Xcode 7 Beta and deploy a compiled app to their own physical iOS device.