The 2023 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (Apple WWDC 2023) was packed with a wide variety of innovative products and upgrades. The widely anticipated Apple conference did not fail to deliver like every other as there was a combination of hardware and software announcements ranging from iOS 17 all the way to Apple’s new Vision Pro AR headset. Here are the key takeaways from the event.
The Exciting Keynote Announcements at WWDC 2023
The New Macs
The 15 inch book MacBook Air has now been officially announced with Apple silicon M2. Apple also introduced the Mac Studio with M2 max and M2 ultra. They also introduced the Mac Pro with M2 ultra.
Apple Mac Pro
Enhancements to iPhone, Messages and Facetime Apps
The phone app now gets a new feature called “poster”. This allows users to set a customizable image for each contact. Users can set a photo, set an image color and even set a custom font to show the contact name.
Another amazing feature Apple WWDC 2023 that was introduced is called “Live Voice mail”. When someone calls you and leaves a voicemail, you will be able to see a live transcript on the screen. The user can then decide to answer the call or not. This is a very useful feature especially when you are in a meeting and can decide if a call is important and needs to be answered.
FaceTime now has the ability to leave video messages! You can now leave a video message for users to view at a later time.
Messages app now gets a more robust search feature. The search now has filters and this helps users narrow down their search results better than before. There is also a new catchup arrow that lets you jump to the latest message within a conversation (just like slack).
Also – audio messages are now transcribed within the messages app! Messages now also allows you to check in on your loved ones’ location to make sure they are safe.
iOS 17 Posters
iOS 17 Live Voicemail
Updates to Airdrop
It is now possible to airdrop content by bringing the devices close to each other. There is also a new nameDrop feature that allows users to share contact details by tapping phones with each other.
iOS 17 Name Drop
Keyboard and Dictation
The keyboard now has better autocorrect which uses a new “transformer” language model that provides a better and more accurate autocorrect experience. There is also an added sentence level correction feature. Dictation also gets a new transformer-based speech model using an on-device neural engine.
The “New” Journal App
iOS 17 introduces the Journal app. This app can collect memories such as activities, places, peoples in addition to photos. Journal app will make suggestions on moments and memories to capture and store. Users can write details to these memories.
iOS 17 Journal app
Standby Feature
A new standby feature shows glanceable info such as time, temperature, etc when the iPhone is connected to power and on a landscape orientation when mounted on a stand like the MagSafe stand.
iOS 17 Standby
Improved Siri
It was announced at Apple WWDC 2023 that Siri has also been revamped to drop the Hey in Hey Siri to activate the voice assistant. Siri finally supports back-to-back commands so the user does not need to use the trigger command every time.
iOS 17 Siri
Interactive Widgets on iPad OS
A feature that has been long pending on the iPadOS is the support for interactive widgets. This enables users to interact with widgets right on the home screen without having the user open the app.
iPadOS 17 Widgets
PDF Support on iPad OS
iPadOS now fully supports PDF files. It auto detects text fields and allows users to fill these fields. iPadOS also adds autofill support for PDF files. This also includes documents scanned with the camera.
iPadOS 17 PDF Support
Enhanced widget support on macOS Sonoma
Widgets can now be placed anywhere on the desktop as opposed to them being within the notification center. These widgets will fade into the background when apps are opened. macOS now supports iPhone widgets as well.
macOS Sonoma Widgets
Presenter Overlay on macOS Sonoma
macOS Sonoma introduces a new feature called “Presenter Overlay” that allows users to overlay images/slides on top of their video while presenting on apps like zoom, teams and webex. This also lets users add reactions real time on video calls. These reactions can recognize hand gestures.
macOS Sonoma Presenter Overlay
Improvements to Safari
Safari now has profiles that lets users create separate profiles such as work, personal, etc. Each profile will have separate cookies, extensions, tab groups and favorites.
New private browsing feature locks browser windows, blocks trackers from loading and removes URL trackers.
macOS Sonoma Safari Profiles
Webapps for Mac
Web apps are miniature apps that users can create right from within safari. For instance, a user can create a web app for Atlassian confluence. This will then show up on the dock, can be switched between apps and you can even receive notifications from web apps. A few apps that are currently supported include confluence, pinterest, fluid, etc.
macOS Sonoma Web Apps
Adaptive Audio on Airpods
Adaptive audio combines transparency and noise canceling in real time to attain best hearing conditions based on surroundings. Conversation awareness will lower music volume and helps users focus on voices.
Apple Vision Pro
Apple is entering into the AR space with their new headset called Vision Pro. This headset uses a combination of the M2 chipset and a new custom made R1 chipset to deliver real time visuals to the users. The device will have a separate wired battery with 2 hours of life. There are also custom optical inserts developed in association with Zeiss optics to help users that help users who wear spectacles. The device uses a state of the art operating system called the VisionOS.
Apple Vision Pro
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