On Monday, Apple hosted its first in-person event since the pandemic and it was great to be back at Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino.
The WWDC 22 event kicked off with a keynote address covering updates including its upcoming:
They also covered the upcoming macOS Ventura update coming to Mac.
Table of Contents:
MacOS Ventura will feature:
Stage Manager is a new feature that helps with screen clutter. With so many open windows cluttering your screen Apple can focus on the app you’re using without distraction. Stage Manager arranges unrelated windows off to the side in a 3D-like neat stack.
This will allow you to feature your main app in the center while the other ones are visible and accessible on the side of the screen for both Mac and iPad.
Apple’s search feature called Spotlight always has room for more accurate results. Major improvements in searching for stuff are expected to bring faster results with greater accuracy that are relevant to what you are looking for. Apple adds photo library into the spotlight search results including the text found within images.
Let the typo crowd cheer aloud! I’m one who often sends an email to the wrong person. I’m most guilty of hitting send before finishing an email. New features include the much-desired ability to fix all of that.
- undo send will let you get an email back when a mistake was made
- schedule mail to send later
- searching within mail expected to be easier and more powerful
- reminders to come back and handle unfinished or unread mail coming too
Apple likes to remind everyone that their Safari browser is faster and more private than traditional popular browsers on the market. Safari is adding a great way to collaborate with friends, family, and co-workers with Shared Tab groups.
These are new tabs that everyone you share them with can simultaneously sites with each other and see when others are looking at a shared site from the Shared Tab groups. Reminder to self: Make sure I’m not browsing from my Shared Tab groups when looking up my bank account info etc.
The new security focus for Apple is to put passwords and password managers behind us with what it calls Passkeys.
Passkeys allow you to access secure websites and apps without the need to create, use and remember a password – ever.
FaceID and TouchID will be used to authenticate a Passkey. Apple claims Passkeys would put an end to phishing attacks. That’s when hackers trick users into giving out passwords or access credentials. I’m not sure hackers won’t still try a workaround.
For now, Apple Passkey uses the web authentication protocol WebAuthn with end-to-end encryption which means no one can read them if intercepted. Passkeys are based on industrywide FIDO Alliance standards also being embraced by Microsoft and Google.
Passkeys will sync across all your Apple devices using Apple Keychain security. I look forward to seeing this up close when available and seeing what hackers do to attempt a workaround.
If Apple can swing the password pendulum for the entire online world with Google and Microsoft, we could see the beginning of the most secure online experience ever.
First off, Continuity is when you are on one Apple device like an iPhone and bring it near another Apple device like an iMac and can continue working from one device to the next.
A new feature that will be very handy will be the ability to handoff your FaceTime calls to other devices. For example, if you answer on your iPhone when you get home, your mac will allow you to seamlessly transfer your video call to your desktop, or iPad if you’d like. Great for those who find themselves with only Apple-related devices.
In the future, you can use your iPhone and your Mac or MacBook webcam with ‘continuity camera’.
Being labeled as “Continuity camera”, coming later this year, you will be able to use your iPhone as your webcam. There will be nothing to plug in. Your camera will speak to your Mac or MacBook laptop.
Speaking of webcams, there will be some additional new features that improve video calls.
A feature called Studio light will brighten your face and keep the background dark so that you look your best as if lit by a Hollywood professional.
Another innovation called Deskview is a winner.
Deskview taps into a similar continuity theme for you to use your iPhone as a second camera during a FaceTime video call. Think of Deskview like a cook on TV using a birds-eye overhead camera to demonstrate how a recipe comes together in the kitchen.
While you are on camera, you can also now see a desktop view of what you’re doing. We are still not clear how the second iPhone would be mounted to achieve this overhead effect, but there was a mention that accessory maker Belkin already has new mounts in the works.
One of the main discussion points is around collaboration and the above-mentioned Stage Manager. iPadOS is making your iPad act more like a desktop PC. On the iPad, you’ll be able to
- go to your messages and have a document available to a group to be edited/updated in real-time.
- You can collaborate within FaceTime and everyone can join a tab group.
The center of this collaboration discussion is around a new collaboration tool called the Freeform app.
Coming later this year, Freeform app will provide a space to collaborate – on a freeform board – like a whiteboard. You’ll be able to share notes, photos, and diagrams with people located anywhere. Imagine a giant whiteboard where you can simultaneously contain everything in one session – photos, video, audio, docs, pdfs, web links. It’s Apple’s idea – and a smart one – at creating the perfect brainstorming tool.
macOS Ventura will be available in Fall 2022.
According to Apple’s MacOS Ventura preview page, the following Macs will be compatible
- iMac 2017 and later
- iMac Pro 2017
- MacBook Air 2018 and later
- MacBook Pro 2017 and later
- Mac Pro 2018 and later
- Mac Studio 2022
- Mac mini 2018 and later
- MacBook 2017 and later
iPadOS16 will be available in Fall 2022.
According to Apple’s iPad OS 16 preview page, the following iPads will be compatible
- iPad Pro (all models)
- iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
- iPad (5th generation and later)
- iPad mini (5th generation and later)
Which features are you most excited about? Comment below!
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