In this article we will be posting news as we get it from Apple’s keynote address at their fully online WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2020. We will get the information as it comes as quickly as possible into this article, focusing on the news that affects us in the pro audio industry.
Apple Announce iOS 14
App Library. This automatically organises apps into one simple to navigate view. Suggestions, Recently Added, Entertainment, Social, Apple arcade, Health & Fitness, etc, all auto-filled with apps. You can now hide entire pages of apps and show all in the App Library.
Widgets. They are now available in different sizes, so you can choose one that best fits your needs. Swipe to Today view, and you can see colourful options in a variety of sizes. You can drag widgets out of Today View and put them right on the Home Screen. A "Smart Stack" lets you swipe through widgets to pick the right one for the moment
Picture-In-Picture is coming to the iPhone as well, the implementation looking similar to that currently available on the iPad. This allows you to move the video around your different screens and apps always floating above the apps and home screens.
Siri. Until now Siri takes over the entire screen. Now there's a new compact design, with a Siri image at the bottom of the screen. You can also use speech recognition, and you can run dictation on your own device, enabling better accuracy and privacy. There's a new app called Translate to do conversations in multiple languages on-device, completely offline.
AirPods Pro Get Dolby Atmos Support
AirPods Pro are getting spatial audio to create an immersive surround sound from 5.1 via 7.1 and to include support for Dolby Atmos.
They have been able to intelligently establish and ignore when you turn your head or the car turns a corner so that the sound field stays fixed. It uses an accelerometer to track the motion of your head, remapping the sound field so it stays anchored to your device even as your head moves.
Privacy
Apple has announced some new key privacy principles: Data minimization, On-device intelligence, Security protections, Transparency and control.
Apple will enable developers to let you convert existing accounts to Sign In With Apple.
For location sharing, users will now be able to only share an approximate location, instead of your exact location. Devices will now have a light showing if your microphone and camera is being shared. For apps, privacy policy summaries will be available on the App Store so you see what kind of data will be collected before an app is downloaded.
macOS Big Sur
We now know what the next version of the macOS. macOS Big Sur will look more like the other Apple OSes to provide uniformity across all the Apple platforms.
The Finder has a new sidebar that picks up from the iPad OS sidebar and apps like Mail gets new icons.
On the menu bar you can now have Control Center and redesigned Wi-Fi and Sound menus.
It’s a new design, familiar to macOS users whilst being clearly inspired by iOS and iPadOS as well.
Mac Catalyst
Catalyst enables apps designed for the iOS and iPadOS and has been improved with macOS Big Sur, all of which suggests that Arm processing is coming soon as Apple is already using Arm processors in their portable devices.
Safari will have a customisable start page that you can configure to use just the tools you want to access.
The new Tabs look good, especially the preview of the page in the tab so you can see what is on the page without having to view the tab.
Apple Announce Their Own Custom Silicon
We have a dedicated article covering the new Apple Silicon check out Apple Silicon - Apple Announce new macOS Chips Based On Their iPad Chips.