WWDC 2019 keynote

Apple were firing on all cylinders this year. Clearly all that hiring they’ve been doing is starting to pay off. The keynote rolled out at breakneck pace and almost everything announced was impressive and highly anticipated. In many areas they went far beyond expectations, and despite there being a large number of leaks this year, the sheer number of announcements meant there were many surprises to enjoy.

I’ve not been this excited at a WWDC for many years.

There were a few standout announcements that for me made this special, below I’ve singled out my personal top-10 announcements. I’ve not tried any of these features myself yet, but I will in a few weeks when the first public betas are released. I rely on my iPad too much to risk installing the developer betas.

iPad OS #

Finally the iPad gets treated like a first class citizen. This forking of the OS (albeit subtle for now) will set the iPad on a unique evolutionary path that will allow it to further stand out from iOS. It will be interesting to see over the years how many additional features are added, increasing the division between the phone and tablet market.

iPad cursor support #

I’ve been trying to use my iPad more for work, and always hit the wall of not being able to use in it a sensible desk setup. I wrote a whole post about this topic already. Cursor and external device support will allow me to use an iPad at a desk, with an external display, keyboard and pointing device (Wacom tablet ideally, mouse if I have to) enabling use for extended periods of time. This was my number 1 wish for WWDC and it came true. I cannot wait to try it.

It’s been hidden away as an accessibility feature (something that’s been possible for a while with dedicated hardware), which is correct as it is useful for accessibility reasons and is a niche feature. But this one small addition will have the greatest impact for me on how much I can move the iPad more into my daily workflow.

Photo courtesy of Federico Viticci

iPad multitasking #

Apple don’t seem to be able to leave this alone, and I’m very thankful. Change to such a pivotal part of the OS is usually disruptive, but welcome as after a short adaptation period the changes prove to be for the better.

Slide now over acts like a mini, floating OS of its own now - like a separate virtual iPhone; it has it’s own history and multitasking navigation. The multitasking indicator present on iPhones works the same here allowing you to shuffle through the app history stack. This history can be exploded into its own timeline that belongs exclusively to slideover apps. A clever implementation that utilises existing knowledge of iOS paradigms.

Apps can now have multiple instances of themselves, allowing you to open multiple views or docs and have them exist in app pairs; either together or paired with other apps. You find all instances of an app spread across the system by entering an exposé view, which is essentially a filtered multitasking UI. Again a clever solution to a previously tricky problem - I’m impressed.

Together these improvements give the multitasking abilities of the iPad a huge upgrade. I can see myself preferring this to MacOS, whose split screen-spaces paradigm has me spinning in confusion.

Pinned widgets on iPad #

I use widgets. A lot. My most common use case is to access shortcuts which I do 20+ times a day. I also use the weather widget from Weather Underground, HomeCam, Screen Time, Battery, Eventail and Dropbox. Most of these I could live with being an extra swipe away, and to be honest, on the iPad I’m usually accessing these direct from inside an app (via notification centre first), or the lock screen, rather than from the home screen. Having shortcuts pinned to the home screen might change this… Time will tell, but the increased visibility will surely lead to more engagement, and perhaps a richer ecosystem of useful widgets from 3rd parties. Plus it looks cool, so I’ll be enabling this regardless.

Shortcut automation triggers #

This is very exciting, and hopefully adds the missing component that could take shortcuts to the next level.

Shortcuts today are always user triggered. You must start an action from a shortcut to use them.

Automation triggers allow external events to trigger the shortcuts to run without a user directly interacting with a shortcut. Some examples include;

• Timers
• Geo Fencing
• Upon joining specific WiFi networks
• Actions within 3rd party apps

This will unlock a power that shortcuts had previously not had. It’s not entirely automated; as I understand it when the conditions are met you’ll receive a push notification asking you to confirm the shortcut action. Considering Apples stance on privacy I can understand this restriction.

There are a series of other small improvements such as;

• System wide creation abilities - create shortcuts from within apps using a shortcut UI, rather than in the settings app. You can now also customise these yourself.
• All inputs are variables by default, leading to simpler shortcuts
• Developer shortcuts API allowing parameters to be passed with inputs and outputs dynamically - this could be big.
• Deeper integration with homekit (I’m looking forward to playing with this!)
• And many more…

Swipey keyboard #

I’ve been using the gboard keyboard in place of Apple’s for years; since 3rd party keyboards were released. Two reasons;

1. Dark mode keyboard - I like to keep my UI dark on a phone, and am looking forward to Apples own system dark mode in iOS 13.
2. Swipe typing. I find this method to be faster and enables full keyboard use with just your thumb, at greater speeds than double thumb typing. You can also use just one hand which is super useful. I find swipe typing sightly more error prone, but the other advantages more than make up for it. I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple’s keyboard performs.

Photos discoverability #

I really like the photos app today. It does a pretty great job of surfacing memories and enabling me to find specific photos quickly from my enormous library.

This new upgrade tries to filter out all the crap (scans, receipts, screenshots, duplicate shots) and present a generated album of photos it think you’ll want to see. Ask photos are airways suitable, but it looks like this new cute is the new default. It presents the new views by all photos, and also by day, month and year. I really like this kind of smart filtering that make the otherwise difficult task of filtering a years worth of photos, easy.

The photo editing tools are getting enhanced and more importantly get a usability upgrade. The controls look much more extensive and all the same controls available in photos can now be performed on videos - which is impressive!

Dark mode #

I’ve had a solid black lock and home screen background for years. I occasionally change the lock screen for something else, but it’s always dark (what can I say - it’s on brand).
Add mentioned above I use Google gboard which I run in a dark mode, and enable 3rd party app dark modes wherever possible. I find it easier on the eyes, and with the OLED screens on the new phone, I love the black of the screen disappearing into the body.

It’s a minor thing, but I suspect I’ll be running my phone in dark mode full time.

Homekit #

I’m a big fan of homekit and smart home kit in general. I think I’m most looking forward to the shortcuts integrations. Apple Insider did a far better job than I ever could of covering the rest of the changes if your interested:

Mac Pro #

Holly shit. This machine is insane. We asked for a pro machine, and boy did they deliver. Unfortunately it’s out of the reach of most pros who just want one, you have to need this thing to justify the cost. No one is going to order the entry level system, and maxed out this machine is probably going to cost close to £40k. But I expect they’ll sell a lot of them to companies, especially in the video, 3D and special effects verticals.

It’s probably the most power you can stick in a desktop today, and maybe ever (for Mac at least) as this power will eventually all move to the cloud where it can be scaled up on demand. It could very well be the pinnacle of desktop tower systems. The industrial design is brutal, which is fitting for its abilities.

I’ll never need this much power, but boy is it fun to think about working on one of these. It’s an impressive feat of engineering and has to be admired for that.

The monitor is also a thing of real technical beauty. The closest other option available today, capable of the same things cost in excess of 40k, so its amazing Apple have managed to get the costs down this much. I’m just hoping Mac stores will display these, or I might never be able to see one.

There were a thousand other things revealed, but these are my top highlights from the presentation. I’m sure I’ll have many more opinions once I start using the beta sometime in July.