Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference – June 2020

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference - June 2020

Apple WWDC 2020 keynote in 18 minutes [Video]

Video uploaded by The Verge on June 22, 2020

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference – on 22nd June 2020

Surprisingly, on 22nd of June 2020, Apple held the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) as the company had planned before the Coronavirus pandemic. Of course, they had to adapt the event according to the regulations of social distancing, and the whole planning was changed to follow them. While Google and Facebook decided to cancel their events, Apple took the risk, made the conference completely virtual and this was a great success.

The Apple CEO, Tim Cook, said at the outset of 22nd June’s keynote speech, “This year, we’re delivering the conference in a whole new way to all of you around the world, directly to your home.” During the presentation which was long of less than 2 hours, mostly filmed at the Steve Jobs Theater at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, Cook and the cadre of executives talked about the updated versions of Apple’s key software. Let’s take a quick look at the most significant updates on the list.

Apple reimagines the iPhone experience with iOS 14.

First things first, the company reorganized some of its core elements on iOS. Craig Federighi, SVP in Software Engineering, presented the public with the new iOS 14, as well as some of the most interesting new features on the new platform. He started by announcing the App Library, which is a functionality created to reduce Home Screen’s lists of apps. This new space gives a customer an easy overview of all his apps grouped by themes and by frequency of using. Something like this we already saw years ago on Windows Phone Home Screen, but the next thing which reminds us this old platform are new widgets. They could, now, be dragged on the Home Screen in different sizes. The next feature, Picture in Picture, provides us with a possibility to watch a show and reduce the video in a separate window. So, you can enjoy your favorite series while texting or do another important thing on your phone.

After that, we saw a new Siri design. Reduced to a simple icon on the bottom of the screen, Siri can now offer you her services without taking you out of the context. Also, the assistant can now help you to communicate in different languages by translating the text. With a new translate app, you can have a conversation on the 11 most spoken languages in the world.

The App Library makes it easier for users to get to all of their apps with a simple, easy-to-navigate view at the end of the Home Screen pages.

Afterwards, some new details were added to Messages to simplify the app, such as new group functionality and a possibility to pin important conversations. Also, new little features were presented to simplify your navigation on Google Maps, Apple Car and App Store. These changes help you better organize your life and find what you need faster.

The same features were added, some changes added, to the iPadOS and MacOS. Additionally, Federighi announced some simplification on the interface of these platforms which looks like an imitation of Window’s basic functionalities, such as moving pictures or documents over to a quick sidebar of recently used files. Also, new functionalities were added to Pencil on both platforms. macOS Big Sur had several design changes that give a new look over the years.

The transition to Apple silicon in the Mac will create a common architecture across all Apple products, making it far easier for developers to write and optimize software for the entire Apple ecosystem.

All these features simplify the user experience with additional privacy protocols. Some of them prevent personal data leak, authors take care of tracking your personal information on different apps and the Web.

At the end of the presentation, new development features were announced. The developers can now easily work on new platforms and convert their work from the old ones. They also can work with the new cross-platform architecture of Apple Silicon. The Microsoft Office and the Adobe Creative Cloud were already updated to the new version on Mac’s Big Sur.

These were all important features and functionalities announced this Monday. The next week, we will probably discover and see more details on these updates. If you’d like see all the changes, you can watch a whole presentation on YouTube.