iOS 17 (Photo: Apple)
While the stars of the opening night of Apple's developer conference were the Vision Pro augmented reality glasses (you can read about them in the linked article), Apple also made a series of announcements in the various hardware and operating systems - from iPhone and watch to Mac. Let's dive into the main ones: Let's start with the iOS update, in version 17 of the operating system for iPhones Apple introduces a series of graphic and cute refinements.
First, an update to the traditional phone app will bring iPhone users the option of designing personal contact photos, and another feature that was actually stolen from Google - Live VoiceMail, a transcription of incoming calls on the screen, so that the phone owner can decide whether or not he wants to answer the call if it is spam or sales. A similar nice feature has been announced for FaceTime, with the ability to leave short video messages if you don't get a response.
The messaging app will undergo a serious upgrade, with added features like swipe reply, or the option to jump to the original first message even in a long thread. Transcription of voice messages will also allow you to avoid having to listen to them, of course and probably only in English at first, presumably.
Another cute feature is the ability to send an automatic "I've arrived" message to concerned parents or spouses, informing you that you have arrived home safely. If, God forbid, you don't get home in a reasonable time, the option will allow information like your location to be sent automatically. Another colorful and entertaining feature is the ability to turn images into animated stickers, and the feature will be available throughout the operating system.
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iMessege on Apple's iOS 17 version (Photo: Apple)
Another app that's getting a serious upgrade is AirDrop, with a new feature of exchanging contact information by simply pinning devices called NameDrop, along with creating shared activities, again pinning devices. Cute.
A new app called Diary will also come to iPhone owners, and it actually allows you to keep a personal diary with the day's events and even offer suggestions on what to put in (of course, under Apple's privacy stencil), with experts believing that keeping a personal diary is an action that helps mental health. And if we mentioned mental health, Apple also allows, within the framework of concern for our mental health, to also record and analyze emotions and offer an explanation for their existence, again, of course, under the company's familiar privacy restrictions.
Widgets for everyone
Apple's tablet operating system is also undergoing minor upgrades, with the addition of direct capabilities on widgets, along with improvements to the lock screen with the ability to create beautiful personal and animated lock screens (including stars in the solar system), and of course, again, widgets and tweaks, along with improvements to the drawing software for scribbles and drawings.
Apple's Health app is also coming to the iPad, along with improvements to PDF handling.
The next version for Macs is Sonoma, which also has... Widgets. Along with a new gaming mode, which prioritizes access to hardware and reduces headset lag for gamers for whom every millisecond counts. Speaking of news for gamers, the award-winning Death Stranding game will arrive in the director's cut for the Macintosh.
The next version for Macs is Sonoma, which also has... Widgets (Photo: Apple)
But probably the biggest draw is an improvement that will allow you to present your character in the video as a layer on top of your screen presentation, without the need for a green screen. The feature looks very impressive, and will work with all the well-known video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and others.
The long-running Safari browser will now offer password sharing with friends and family, and segregated workspaces for fact and personal use, so you don't have to skip tabs. You can also instantly create web apps, simply by dragging websites to the Mac taskbar.
Ultra CPU
Speaking of Mac: the announcement of the opening of the developers' conference was actually opened by hardware announcements - the first is the new MacBook Air 15, a 15-inch computer in the Air series, weighing less than two kilograms, 11 mm thick, with 18 hours of battery, six speakers and two USB-C ports that runs on the M2 processor. The price will be about $1300.
But the biggest hardware innovation is a new superprocessor – the M2 Ultra that will succeed the M1 Ultra, with 24 main cores, 192GB of internal memory and 80 graphics processing cores, manufactured using 5nm technology. For example, it is capable of handling 22 8K video streams. Pretty psychic.
15-inch MacBook Air (Photo: Apple)
This monstrous processor will sit at the heart of Apple's two high-performance work computers - the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro (the studio will also offer a version with the M2 Max). The Mac Studio will start at about $2000,6999, while the Mac Pro will start at $<>, which is very expensive.
And before we move on to the operating system that received the most significant upgrades, we will also mention that Apple's popular headphones, the Air Foods will soon receive adaptive noise cancellation and volume adjustment, based on machine learning.
TV innovations
Funnily enough, the operating system that is about to undergo the most significant tweak is tvOS, which will receive a new control center, including smart home command, the ability to locate the remote control with your smartphone (by the way, forget hey, Siri, from now on it's just Siri), and for the first time - FaceTime on the TV, where your iPhone will be used as a camera and can be placed anywhere. TVOS is also coming to the popular video conferencing platforms Zoom and WebEx, so you can switch to video conferencing on your TV.
New version tvOS
New version for tvOS (Apple)
Other innovations are in the AirPlay sector, with a special version for hotel TVs, so you can enjoy the last season of "TED" even when you're on vacation (Apple has created an identification option in front of the hotel TV with your account and personal device), as well as the option of sharing music of passengers in the car, so that the driver does not have a dictatorship on the playlist when you are on the go.
And for dessert, the operating system for watches is also undergoing an upgrade and facelift in version 10, with a full-screen display for apps, cute capabilities like flipping between time zones and new additions to the Compass app such as the last point where you had cellular reception or a display that also represents height differences for the field people among us.
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