WWDC 2021 Roundup: iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, and watchOS 8

Where is this event airing?

The Californian company is offering the event in streaming through its Apple TV application on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. It also offers coverage through its website, although if you want to follow it in a more comfortable way you can do so through the following video on its official YouTube channel.

WWDC 2021 begins!

The event has already started, after an iMessage animation, which could be a preview of what we are about to see. After that we find a particular Apple intro parodying Tim Cook, Federighi and other faces of Apple. All the protagonists are developers, so it is loaded with winks and jokes from the environment. Apple does not forget that in the end these events are focused on them.

Enter Tim Cook at the Steve Jobs Theater and with an audience! These are Animojis though. An image that, although it is edited by computer, is appreciated after seeing a completely empty theater last year. In the opening speech, he emphasized the company’s commitment to offer resources to developers, highlighting all the workshops that they carry out during the year and more specifically in these conferences.

Introducing iOS 15

The highlight of this new generation of iOS is undoubtedly FaceTime . Much emphasis has been placed on all the news that will come to this native communication application in order to improve the experience that you can have. Specifically, spatial audio is added to video calls in order to have a more natural experience when speaking with other people, including also a cancellation of ambient noise . In this way, the application will detect your voice and ignore all external sounds. In order to favor the image much more, the color saturation has been improved and the possibility of blurring the background of the image has been added with an integrated portrait mode.

One of the biggest shortcomings that FaceTime presented was without a doubt the impossibility of sharing the screen with other people. This is now fully solved with iOS 15 thanks to a new functionality that pursues the fact of being able to view multimedia content at the same time with other users. Right now it is compatible with different services such as Disney +, HBOMax, Twitch among others. This way you can watch a movie with another person at a distance. Also, if you do not have an iPhone or an iPad, you will also be able to make use of FaceTime thanks to the creation of links and the opening of a web space to be able to develop these video calls from an Android or Windows.

This sharing function also applies to music such as Apple Music. In this way you can be enjoying content simultaneously with another person. At all times while on a call, a banner will appear at the top of the iPhone to control what is being shared.

And if your passion is sharing the content you are watching with other people, iMessage has adapted to you. Now it is possible to share from any application what you are seeing as a song in Apple Music through an interactive banner that moves to the application in question. This also adds to an improvement in Spotlight as it now includes the ability to intelligently search for photos. Specifically, it will be able to detect people, scenes, elements or locations.

The management of notifications is also an important pillar in iOS 15. Apple has wanted to introduce better artificial intelligence in its management system to group them and summarize them in an easy-to-see way. In addition, if there is a notification that you do not want to consult at a specific time, you can delay it or schedule its appearance.

The Do Not Disturb mode will now have much more weight in the applications since it will now appear in the form of a status to the different contacts who try to contact you. For example, in iMessage a message will appear that the contact you are trying to contact is not available at the moment. In this way, much more will not be insisted and the notifications will be totally silenced since they will not arrive.

A feature called Focus is integrated in which notifications can be separated depending on the task you are performing. You can determine at any time which applications are those that correspond to the field of work or personal. That is why when you are working, all notifications from social networks will be silenced, for example, and when you are not on your day, all notifications from work applications will be silenced. This means that you can always focus on the task that you are developing at that moment, working for the hours of the day or simply for the location.

The iPhone camera is now enriched as it will act on different texts thanks to the Live Text function . It consists of capturing the text from a blackboard or a poster to be able to copy it directly and paste it into another application. In addition, the phone number of the posters can also be detected to make calls directly. This text detection is also compatible with the photos you have stored on your iPhone. And in relation to Photos, it has now been integrated with Apple Music to be able to make compilations of photos with background music. In addition, the creation of interactive montages will also be allowed.

If you have a car compatible with opening through Wallet, you’re in luck. Now the application has become much richer in this sense since functions related to the opening of the vehicle or the possibility of opening only the trunk are added. To this is added in Wallet the possibility of scanning the driving license although everything indicates that it will be an exclusive feature of the United States and will not be exported to Spain.

Apple tries to prevent you from resorting to third-party weather applications by enriching its own. Now the design has completely changed giving much more prominence to weather alerts as well as the probability of rain that are in the foreground. The forecast for the rest of the days is relegated to the background. But most interesting of all is the inclusion of weather maps that clearly show the temperature of a wide area or the probability of rain with a pattern of colors.

Apple Maps now invites you to use it since the maps have been completely updated in Spain and Portugal adding a new cartography that has been cooking for several months. This means that Apple’s Street View mode is already available in these two countries. In addition, to avoid confusion when you go behind the wheel, the option of having a 3D map with directions is added, which is really useful especially when traveling on the highway. To this is also added the integration of augmented reality in some selected cities such as San Francisco to move through the streets through the camera.

Safari has also undergone a design change since now upon entering you can see a more minimalist interface with tabs at the bottom. In an extra way, the possibility of searching in Safari through the voice recognition system or the integration of extensions is included. This is a feature that was traditionally only on the Mac but is now being carried over to mobile devices.

The AirPods have also been protagonists in this presentation with the inclusion of the ‘Conversation Boot’ function. This aims to improve the experience of people who have hearing difficulties when using computational audio to reinforce the environmental sounds that are being heard. In addition, Siri can now play the most important notifications such as the shopping list in the supermarket based on your location. Although, keep in mind that these features are available in the AirPods Pro and Max. Added to this is the possibility of tracking the headphones as if they were AirTags.

What’s new in iPadOS 15

We could say that iPadOS 15 has been somewhat decaffeinated by incorporating much of the news already seen in iOS 14 and that everyone expected to have seen in the iPad counterpart last year. It was also disappointing not to have seen features that power the iPad Pro M1 . Therefore we continue to have an iPad model with a Mac chip and without functionalities or applications that end up squeezing its hardware.

The widgets can finally be added anywhere on the screen, having an aesthetic very similar to the one they have on iOS. Of course, in some cases, such as the Files app, improvements are implemented when it comes to being able to view documents from any screen in a comfortable way. The App Library has also been added , to which a shortcut can be added from the dock. To this is added the shelf of apps that will serve to have a vision of the open applications to access them more quickly.

The multitasking has been enhanced with a new way to access it makes it much more intuitive than before. Among the most outstanding functions of this is being able to open any app in Split View without it being in the dock , since until now we needed at least one of them to be located there and now you can choose any one. Regarding floating sales, we find that they have expanded their size, being much more functional.

Safari will incorporate visual changes just like in macOS, introducing extensions for the first time . The tabbed interface also changes and is now located at the bottom, making browsing more comfortable. The Notes app will also bring improvements with the integration of participant mentions within shared notes or the creation of labels. In addition, quick notes can be created with the Apple Pencil from anywhere in the system. Also new keyboard shortcuts that will reach both this app and other parts of the system.

The improvements Apple translator are present also can meet the auto translator for conversations in real time and the ability to directly translate text translation images appear in a floating window quickly. This is a functionality that will also have iOS 15.

And, how could it be otherwise, we find improvements for developers in Swift Playgrounds with the possibility of creating applications on the iPad with the improved code and the inclusion of libraries and guides to be able to publish the image.

Privacy is still important to Apple

Apple remains very focused on the privacy of devices including new systems that try at all costs to avoid the tracking of information. In general, the following improvements can be highlighted.

• New email protection feature:  Mail will be able to hide the IP address or location among other relevant data that can be used by hackers or advertising companies.
• Safari  will also be able to hide the IP address from other people.
• New App Privacy Report:  native application in iOS that will be able to give data to the user about the use of their personal data when using different applications of the ecosystem.
• Siri will  never allow the user’s voice to leave the device as happens for example with the fingerprint.
• iCloud +:  iCloud is combined with Safari to be able to have a more private browsing since the traffic that leaves the device and is sent separately so that no one knows who is browsing or from where you are browsing.

Health improvements

Apple continues to work on research studies related to Health and granting new functionalities. Now the iPhone is able to measure the amplitude that occurs when taking a step while walking in order to determine, among other things, the probability of a person’s fall. This can be interesting to be able to determine the degree that a person has of instability for example. With all this information, different challenges will be offered to improve health through exercise, something that you already have on the Apple Watch but is transferred to the iPhone.

It is a fact that it can be difficult to understand the results obtained from a blood test. That is why a detailed description is added to better understand it and see if it is in the expected ranges or not in addition to obtaining metrics to understand if you are at risk or not. In addition, Health Sharing is added, which is a very private way of being able to receive the trends that are being made. A notification system is added to be able to observe a significant change in a metric, for example from your father or from any other member who is already an age.

What’s new in watchOS 8

With watchOS 8, the Cupertino company had to think “if something works like a charm, why touch it? most of them in the health section that Apple gives so much importance to, fortunately. The first novelty announced has been related to the  breathing application , which from now on, in watchOS 8 will have a  new animation .

One of the great novelties comes in the form of a  new application  focused on both the health and sports sections since the Apple Watch will have an  app to Meditate . This practice is increasingly common in society and Apple has not wanted to pass up the opportunity to provide users with an exclusive application for it with which to  improve their physical and emotional health . We continue with improvements in the health section of the Apple Watch, the Cupertino company provides  heart rate monitoring while you sleep , being able to observe all the information in the Health app of your iPhone. This is vital since in this way your heart health will be the subject of a much more in-depth analysis by the Apple Watch.

The practitioners of two sports in particular will be very satisfied with this WWDC, since with watchOS 8 two new training modalities arrive  , specifically they are  Pilates and Tai Chi , which add to the wide variety of workouts available on the Apple Watch. But beware, this does not come alone, since  the Apple Fitness + service is also subject to improvement  with this new operating system for Apple Watch, offering  new training series  and improving the music suggestions for each of the available sessions.

Would you like your portrait mode photos to come to life on your watch faces? Just that is what Apple has made a reality in watchOS 8, now you can set portrait mode photos as spheres, in which several layers will be interpreted and depth will be taken into account, making  the use of the Digital Crown bring life to the face of your watch . This has not been the only novelty that the Cupertino company has announced in relation to  Photos , since the application itself has also been redesigned in watchOS, giving the possibility of sharing photos with other users from the Apple Watch itself, and even, Accompany with written text or dictation these fantastic images.

Finally, all the text that you write from now on on your Apple smart watch can be accompanied by different elements. On the one hand, you can  incorporate emojis whenever you want , something that we certainly celebrate since with them you can communicate a message in a much more optimal way. In addition, emojis do not come alone,  you can also include GIFs  from the Apple Watch thanks to the search engine that from now on you will have available.

What’s new in HomeKit

• Now you can ask Siri on the HomePod to play specific content on an Apple TV.
• With the iPhone or Apple Watch you can unlock a compatible door lock by moving it closer.

• Now you can view content together with other people through SharePlay with a new section in the Apple TV application that is titled ‘Shared with you’. This content sharing tool will be synchronized with FaceTime to comment on it live.
• The HomePod mini has Audio LossLess from today in Spain.
• The HomePod mini enables the ability to have voice recognition.
• Siri integrates with third-party products.
• New third-party security camera support tools.

What’s new in macOS 12 Monterey

Finally  Monterey  has been the name chosen to replace Big Sur. We found some  new features of iOS and iPadOS 15 applied to Macs such as everything new in FaceTime or the inclusion of Quick Notes and improvements through Share Play. Although, however, the most relevant news are found with  improvements in Continuity:

• ‘ Continuity ‘ function:
  • By placing the iPad and the Mac at the same level, the same keyboard and mouse can be used at the same time on an iPad or on a Mac.
  • Depending on how you are controlling the mouse, the operating system will be able to detect which device you are using.
  • It will be possible to interact between both devices. This translates into transferring files between the Mac and the iPad, or vice versa, through a simple drag and drop.

We also find  improvements in AirPlay  to be able to draw on the iPad comfortably from the iPad and view the drawing on the Mac screen. It is also possible to choose the Mac as a speaker for songs that are played from the iPad. Although what has surprised (and pleased) the most is the  arrival of the Shortcuts app:

• It integrates an extensive library that have been specially designed for macOS.
• Assumes the transition from Automator to Shortcuts. Apple confirms that the Automator app is being maintained.

Safari has also been  redesigned  with tabs that are now much more compact and lightweight with different groups of tabs to reduce clutter in Safari. To this is added a new toolbar making the configuration tasks more efficient. The interface will adapt to the colors of the web you are on.