There were so many announcements during the WWDC keynote yesterday that even people who follow Apple for a living (and expected most of the details) were overwhelmed. New versions of iOS, OS X, and watchOS were only three of the biggies, alongside the official debut of Apple Music and a lot of small but interesting new details.
Since the keynote ended, I’ve been sorting through all of the stories, as well as all three new operating systems. What follows are my picks for the ten most game-changing WWDC 2015 announcements, some of them requiring more explanation than others. They’re not in rank order, but there’s definitely one that I thought was the biggest of the bunch. Share your picks in the comments section below…
1. iPad Split-Screen Modes. If I had to pick just one new feature announcement as the biggest game-change at WWDC, it’s what Apple is calling Multitasking — a collection of three different ways to split an iPad’s screen into segments.
Slide Over: A 1/3-screen pane that gives you an elongated iPhone-like view of one app while the other continues to occupy the full screen behind it.
Picture in Picture: Continue to watch a video or make a FaceTime video call while you’re using another app, thanks to a movable, resizable window that can be placed anywhere on the screen.
Split View: Expand the Slide Over pane such that it takes over 1/3 or 1/2 of the screen, leaving the other 2/3 or 1/2 free for the formerly full-screen app. This is only supported on the iPad Air 2, for now.
There are three reasons this is so huge. First, it enables iPads (including iPad minis (!)) to finally start acting like Macs when you want to simultaneously do one thing while monitoring another, or reference one app while working on another. Second, it sets the stage for larger iPads, which would never have made sense with big but single-app displays. And third, Apple really got the UI right. The feature not only works without a conventional windowing system to divide a screen into multiple panes, but is easy to learn.
2. Proactive Assistant. I don’t know any iOS user who wasn’t (at least quietly) jealous of Google Now’s ability to help Android users plan their days — using information culled from emails and other data, evoking privacy concerns. By bulking up Spotlight search results with location data and information on your routine use of your device, Apple is trying to offer more and better information automatically without crossing into “creepy” territory. From my perspective, Proactive is a lot more limited than Google Now, but anything that makes iOS more useful without having to dig through apps is a plus. Ditto on seeing much-needed search improvements to Spotlight on the Mac.
3. watchOS 2 SDK: A More Capable Apple Watch. Partially because the Apple Watch segment of the WWDC keynote seemed like a speedreading exercise, none of the user-facing features Apple added in watchOS 2 really stood out as a game-changer. I’d personally be surprised if any of them convinced a hold-out to get off the fence. But third-party app support is huge, as it opens the door for the Watch to become useful across a million niches that will eventually attract millions of customers.
4. Performance and Battery Boosts. Calling one hour of extra iPhone run time or 1.4x-4x Mac app improvements a “game-changer” might seem like a stretch, but Apple’s basically turning the key reasons people historically upgraded their hardware — speed and better battery life — into software improvements. For free. Who wouldn’t want a peppier, longer-lasting iPhone, or an iPad that can actually handle multitasking without killing its battery?
5. News. Missing from the early iOS 9 beta, the new News app has the potential to be a very big deal. There’s no question that Apple seriously messed up with Newsstand, crippling the feature within iOS 7 and 8, while ignoring publisher cries to properly support them. And cynical people may look at News as little more than an Apple effort to clone Flipboard, potentially monetizing third-party content in exchange for a nicer UI to navigate that content. But the UI is indeed gorgeous, and a lot of publishers will be willing to forget about Newsstand to give it a shot. If Apple pulls News off correctly, it could easily become a daily must-use alternative to RSS readers, Flipboard, and similar apps.
6. Notes. Notes doesn’t get a lot of attention, and it has barely been updated over the years, but it’s one of the very few apps I keep outside of a folder on my main Home screen for immediate access. Apple has seriously bulked it up in iOS 9, adding basic drawing and measurement tools, formatting and checklist tools, the ability to add multimedia content, and a 100% iCloud-based sync engine. Notes just went from “useful” to “crazy useful.”
7. Transit Maps. Again, it might seem like a stretch to call the addition of something arguably small — mass transit directions — a “game-changer,” but this was actually a huge omission from Apple Maps on the day it launched, and has limited its utility for huge numbers of people in major cities. The more cities Apple adds to Maps’ Transit feature, the more widely used the app is likely to become as an everyday point-to-point mapping solution.
8. Apple Music. A lot of people use Spotify and similar music subscription services, enough to have actually made a dent in music sales for both the industry and iTunes Store. I’m not going to tell you that I would sign up for Apple Music myself, or that I found the overall pitch to be compelling, but I haven’t signed up for any competing service either, and wouldn’t for $10 per month. Other people obviously feel otherwise, and having the feature integrated into iOS 9’s Music app, the iTunes Store, and the Apple TV is going to be a very big deal for them.
9. Apple’s New Keyboard Solutions, Including QuickType. This is a big deal that looks like a small deal, but fixing the messed up iOS 7/8 shift key by borrowing the “shift the entire keyboard” feature is a welcome change, and some of the briefly-mentioned iPad keyboard tweaks — support for accessory keyboard shortcuts and swipe-through-the-keyboard gestures — again hint at what Apple’s been planning for a more powerful iPad Pro. The changes mightn’t seem huge on the surface, but for a more Mac-like iPad, they have a lot of potential.
10. Safari Quality-Of-Life Improvements. From pinned tabs — being able to keep a Facebook tab perpetually active in the corner — to mute controls for increasingly obnoxious interrupting audio, to AirPlay-to-Apple TV video streaming directly from a Safari tab, Apple is bringing a ton of additional multitasking-like power to Safari. These little tweaks will make the overall browsing experience a lot better for people, and extend the power of web pages into your HDTV in a very Chromecast-like way.
What announcements do you think were the biggest at WWDC yesterday? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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Hopefully, most importantly (and not mentioned) will be improved stability of the two OS’ and improvements in iCloud reliability. No doubt this is assumed as they stayed within Yosemite and didn’t add too many new capabilities.
I’m not so sure about the performance and battery boosts. I can’t say much about battery life because it is only a day and you have to wait for 2-3 more beta updates before making the final decision on it.
What I can say is the performance: I didn’t see much performance boosts in either iOS 9 and El Cap. I saw animations reduced a lot and it feels a bit faster but that’s it. I don’t get the feeling that the foundation has changed like I did when SL was released.
Well, it is only beta 1.. we’ll see if Apple really worked on the foundation when they release iOS 9 to the public this fall.
Fwiw, the difference on my iPad 4 is astounding. I mean, it’s sad because now performance is just getting back in line with iOS 6 after the last two embarrassments they called upgrades, but considering I can’t go back, I’ll take what I can get.
I did a clean install of El Cap on the Mac, and I can see more improvements compared to the same Mac with the upgrade from fairly clean Yosemite > El Cap. I think Apple needs to figure out how to refresh current installed OS X. A large share of their userbase won’t know how to do this.
I’m going to do a clean install of iOS 9 on my iPad as well later as I have a feeling it’ll be faster as well.
The split-screen multitasking lock is only available on iPad Air 2. It is Apple’s way of addressing the low-iPad sales figures. It is a shame they are making people repurchase a product in order to replace it with something more functional – the iPA is not hardware limited (a jailbreak would certainly prove it’s capable of multitasking). This fact (in order to drive sales numbers) goes against their ethos of being a responsible, environmental company. It is wasteful and wrong and while I want to see Apple succeed, I can’t help but feel ashamed by this sales marketing approach.
“I want to see Apple succeed”… uh, they may have succeeded a few years ago… I mean they’re slated to be the first trillion dollar company ever.
“Succeeded” is past tense, which I agree they have; but success of the past does not determine success in the future and in this case I meant continue to succeed [now and into the future]. Jobs started a business with the ideals of the counter-culture movement. He realized he needed money to continue that business, but also stated that he would throw that all away if it meant his company turning into something it wasn’t. He would burn all his cash to fight Android for their “stealing” of Apple’s designs and misuse of their patents. In my opinion, Apple’s success is determinant not only by financial milestones, but the positive influences it makes on society and its ability to challenge societal norms.
If you aren’t selling as many iPads or iPhones, the solution should be to slow down manufacturing and focus on the improvements that can be made, not force people into buying them. It’s the difference in a company being driven for profit vs need. Sure, it’ll save the company money (at least in the short term), but consumers aren’t totally moronic. They realize there comes a point where a device reaches its utility and it’s innovation approaches a limit and will soon resent a company that forces big purchases for new “features”.
You have zero knowledge about it, just presumption. Ever care to consider that they take battery life into account? Maybe the fact that the iPad Air 2 has 2GB of RAM, whereas everything else doesn’t? No. You just rant BS.
I think you are confused by the difference between a rant and a comment. It looks like he’s just commenting, but that’s beside the point.
I agree with you that hardware can influence what devices features what. That said, unfortunately I also agree with him. Having played with Jailbroken devices, similar features are already available on older devices. This isn’t only a matter of hardware. Perhaps Apple programmers are worse. At most, the battery life would be a factor, but a simple on/off switch would help – in the Keynote Apple said they’re even offering a low-power mode(!), it could even be included in there.
I’m confused on why you’re angry
While I agree it wasn’t a full blown rant, I do agree that the issue isn’t “can” an iPad Air 1, or iPad 4 “do” it. It is how well they can perform consistently and predictably. Everyone that cries “Forced obsolescence! Forcing people to upgrade!” are a bit unrealistic. I would rather Apple keep moving forward, and do what it can to keep older devices upgrading. Microsoft made the mistake of not moving forward and it cost them. Look at Android. You buy that and it’s a crap shoot if you will ever get an update?
What’s really bizarre is they made a point to have a dedicated slide in the keynote, where Mr. Federighi told everyone that iOS 9 would work on all the devices that iOS 8 worked on, and bragged about not leaving older devices behind (shot at Android possibly?)…then at the same time telling people that the “game changing” feature for split screen lock is only available for iPad Air 2. This is not cool at all IMHO. Also, by all accounts, the split screen feature should have been released last year (there are a ton of articles about it going back a ways); maybe if they got it out back then, I would consider it to be game changing, but with all the genius caliber engineers they have I don’t see why it took this long to develop it.
Yes, perhaps oOsmoothiesOo is right that is a battery/memory thing; after all, even under normal use, some apps crash. But it’s not one of the features you want someone who purchased your device 2 years ago to miss out on.
It’s not new for Apple to support older devices for iOS, but leave out key features, but like you said, this feature is late to the market. Just like the ability to have multiple logins/profiles per device.
Do you think that maybe… just maybe, the split screen pinned view is exclusive to the iPad Air 2 because that is the only iPad with 2GB of RAM? With slide-over, iPad can essentially suspend and resume one app (much like fast-app switching). However, if both apps are active at the same time then they will consume the memory of two simultaneously running apps. This requires more RAM.
I don’t you think you have to feel ashamed of Apple, but maybe of not thinking through your post before making it and stating it as fact.
BC, you could be right, it could have to do with memory. I’d concede to that point before battery life, but something you may have not considered is that this type of functionality has been around for a lonnnnnng time. Here are a couple examples from 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0YQNl9vlGc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YydtG9peoHg.
BTW Apple users have been calling for more RAM for a number of years and Apple knows this, that’s more of a parallel argument, since it’s a different point but addresses the same problem (futurability) and that also plays into upping the amount of SSD storage. One final point, with the past few versions of iOS, true multitasking was taking place not just save-state fast-app switching, though that is also happening.
I’m not sure if ashamed is the right word, but it is one of those cases where you support something and feel just a little let down.
Agreed that RAM is a big issue and they have chosen to suppot the 2GB RAM device so users won’t complain that it’s slow when they use the split view.. but if Jailbreak tweaks from the iPhone 4 era could provide the little video player, why can’t Apple allow it on all supported devices..
looks more like a tactic to sell the stock of iPad Air 2s that have not been sold because many don’T want to upgrade every year..
As has been stated by others, Apple really needs to up the RAM on their IOS devices.. look at the iPhone 6Plus.. it has a huge battery yet 1GB of RAM.. I’m sure the 6S will have the 2GB of RAM , maybe even 4, and Split view support (only for the 6S plus).. I can already see it on a slide in my head lol.
I for one am waiting for the iPad Pro release to upgrade my iPad 3 (unwanted child of Apple but an important device for me that has been my workhorse tablet for 3 years now and counting)..
The problem with this line of thinking is that there are plenty of things jailbreakers are willing to do to their devices because they know how to fix the potential problems that may be caused by their fiddling. Apple clearly felt like 3 processing cores and 2GBs of RAM was necessary to drive two apps at once in a way that is up to their standards of performance. This day and age though they’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t. If they had allowed it on all iPads and it ran horribly you’d say this was a sign of poor quality control instead. Older iPads are still getting some of the multitasking features, such as the floating video PiP, and the slide over view, they just can’t run multiple apps side by side.
You are jumping to conclusions. The iPad Air 2 has twice the RAM of the iPad Air and RAM is the single biggest factor in making the split screen dual app thing work right. You may have seen or played with a jailbroken device running two apps side by side, but until you do major testing on the level Apple would be doing internally to prove that the jailbroken solution doesn’t have any negative impacts on battery life and stability, you are just talking out your rear hole. That additional gig of RAM will be a huge difference in making sure two apps side by side are stable, and there’s no way Apple is limiting this feature for sales purposes because that is not logical. If that was their method, they wouldn’t still be trying to crap iOS 9 into a 4 year old iPhone 4S that they also no longer sell.
LOL, “crap” was meant to be “cram”. Funny typo.
Give me a break…Game Changers? This stuff?? Mostly been done before. Even SameDung has done much of this. Game Changers are iPhone, iPad, iTunes.
Yeah, “Game Changers” may be a little too much, especially since many of these already exist in the Droidsphere, so it’s more like biggest outcomes.
If you use the stuff these are “Game Changers” for the user. I know it will change how I use the devices and I’m sure it will for software developers. So for me they are.
Keeping the 4S and iPad 2 alive for updating and security was pretty sweet to see….maybe 9 will give them an extra years worth of return on investment.
Reblogged this on Michele Jolie Blogs and other things too and commented:
I have a love hate relationship with Apple, while it is my favorite product to use I don’t like how expensive they are and how quickly they become obsolete it’s good that they are including some of their other products on their updates. Let’s just say I like to have the best, but I’m tired of having something new become old in just two years. I don’t like to be pushed around.
I still run Mountain Lion on my 2007 MacBook. I still use my 4S. Neither are obsolete
And Yosemite on my 2008 MacBook. Well.
The only thing I think I’m really missing is the latest BlueTooth hardware. Which makes sense.
Apple is the last company where I would use a word ‘obsolete’.
For a company that is working to squeeze iOS9 onto nearly 4 year old hard (iPhone 4S and iPad 2) you have a very strange definition of “obsolete”. Apple has THE BEST track record in the industry on this sort of thing, and they can’t just stand still on new hardware production, who does that?
You should try an Android product and see how that goes as far as obsolescence, when you get your last software update ever after 18 months of ownership.
Having new become old in just two years has nothing to do with Apple – that’s how the entire tech industry works, sorry. That’s progress. CPU power was double every 18 months!
Imagine what would happen to Apple’s stock if they came out on stage one year and were like “we won’t make anything new this year so people with older devices won’t be sad”. LOL
This article reads like something from Apple Insider. Quite how anyone could be overwhelmed by such predictable and tepid announcements is beyond me.
Had they done something big with the Apple TV, then perhaps I’d have been impressed. Instead we just got one of the tamest iOS updates in years.
“Overwhelmed” is a mischaracterization of what was said, but whatever.
The iOS updates are actually pretty great this year, if you try using them.
I’ll try them when they’ve gone gold, but I see little which would significantly benefit the average user. The iPad split screen thing is the biggest, but of course has been around in Windows 8 for years now.
I’d have liked to have seen more done with the home screen. It’s still just an inanimate grid of squares. On the iPad in particular, that’s a tragic waste of space.
When you pull down the Today pane, you get all sorts of widgets and things. Apple’s home screen grid is basically the same thing as Android’s app drawer. The reason iOS does this better is because you can pull down the Today pane from ANYWHERE, while in any app or not, to get access to glanceable information from widgets and such. On Android, you can’t do that. There, you have to go to a specific place (the home screen), you have to leave what you are doing and go there to see those things, and then go back. If you put widgets on the iOS home screen, you’d simply be duplicating what you have in the Today pull down, it would be like putting widgets in Android’s app drawer. Makes no sense?
So how is Android’s or Window’s method better (having to go back to the home screen) than having access to all that same stuff anytime you want it without even leaving the app you are in, home screen or not?? Heck, I can get at all my widgets in Today from the lock screen even!
WWDC is for software developments, not hardware. Any hardware type announcements would generally relate to their significance for developers. Get with the program.
A new Apple TV would very much be for devs as well as consumers, as the new device would presumably have a real app store.
First of all @Chrisl84, if you actually do use a Mac or an iPhone I don’t get why you think what Jerremy is writting about is actually game changing but hey that’s you.
1. Jerremy I think the split sceens on a Mac will be pretty sweet too.
2. Metal will my favorite new feature I work with adobe after effects and cinema 4D and I would not mind a faster randering time in real flow
3. The casour or mouse zoom in thing will awesome don’t know how many time I lose my casour in my 27″
4. My personal favorite was the spotlight, where I can search in my own words I have 70 TB data that I have to revisit now and I again when a client needs me to reuse
Nice list Jerremy
Are you talking to me? I’m confused.
It’s the enhanced Spotlight and its new API. I’m already turning to Spotlight more and more as my default way to search instead of Google. With the enhancements Apple announced yesterday – including allowing third party Apps to be searched right from it – it becomes even more favourable a choice over Google. Search for “Iron Man 2”, and tap right through to playing it in Netflix. Search for “USB flash drive” and there’s options to buy on Amazon and more. The Proactive stuff is great, but that enhanced Search? That is going to be MASSIVE.
I use spotlight all the time but the new centextual search will be awesome on power users
It’s interesting how Apple has used Siri and Spotlight both to enter into the search game…I think if they truly mean what they say about privacy, and if they get the integration down to where it’s tight and super accurate, then they can do some serious damage to el goog.
However the fact that search results in Yosemite by default are transmitted to Apple along with your location data is very concerning.
Still no truly custom watch faces — I am very disappointed with that. Very eager to get El Capi though — Yosemite, compared to Mav’s stability wise has been kind of a downgrade.
“Game Changing”….. really?? The bar seems to be set lower and lower at each Apple announcement. Apple makes some of the best hardware out there, their software is ok and their cloud is an absolute joke. Apple has not innovated anything (for the consumer) since the iPhone.
Time to retire “game-changer,” unless Apple introduces an app that changes games.
In other news, the New York Times is running an obituary for the man who wrote the New York Post headline decades ago, HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR.
Two thoughts —
1. I’ll listen to any Mac Pundit who GETS why the dock belongs on the left instead of the bottom.
2. Massive game changer — Apple’s sort of trackpad. An admission that using text on an iPad BLOWS without a proper mouse or trackpad. I hope it’s a hint that real trackpad support is coming to iPad.
On your #1, I also believe it belongs on the left because of the nature of a horizontally wide screen, it’s less used space. I suspect you might have a different better reason, I’d love to know it.
I was really impressed with what Apple is planning with the News app. I am however upset that it is launching in such limited countries. Considering it pulls news from a variety of sources, why does it even need to be limited? I understand that there may be country-specific news sources that need to be approved, but why not release it without that support and add it in the future as it becomes available?
Side note, Apple was rumoured to be releasing an stylus in the future, the new sketch feature of the notes app strengthens this rumour quite a bit, I think!
Nothing was game change to be sure, which kinda bums me out. Much of what was announced I’ll never use, like multitasking and subway directions.
It’s nice, but game changing not even close, and that’s be kind coming from a fanboy.
Ummm. How about Swift going open source? That’s one of the most surprising moves Apple has made in years. Easily one of the top 3 announcements at WWDC. They want people using it for much broader cases than just “apps on phones”. Said it themselves.
Indeed. After making HealthKit open source as well I think I see where Apple is taking themselves from now on.
Based on the response of the audience, I would say it was easily the top announcement.
I would have considered this to be no. 1
For those talking about split view on the Air 2 first it has 2gb or RAM but also many people seem to think the A8X is just a little step from the iPad Air 1 when in reality is a huge update. It has 8 graphic core unlike the Air which has only 4. That makes even more sense since running to app would split the graphic cores between the 8 cores
Can anyone with a beta copy of iOS confirm if Mail will finally allow you to attach more than just pictures into a message? That would be huge as almost EVERY OTHER mail app connects with Dropbox, Google Drive or other cloud services so you can attach PDFs, Word docs and other content to emails.
I saw an article that said that the iCloud app is basically hidden from the Home screen but wondered that now that it’s accessible can you now attach files from it. For all that’s holy I hope you don’t have to go into the iCloud app to send a document but that you can do so right from Mail.
Hope someone gets to the bottom of this comment thread to read it and reply! 😃
Yes, you can now attach other files than images/video. There is a new option which brings up a iCloud file browser.
👍
Is is just me or is the release of these improvements makes Apple now looking more like Google/Android?
1. Multi-tasking
2. Google Now
3. Google News
4. QuickType = Android like alternative keyboard improvements
I can already feel Steve Jobs rolling in his grave….
I watched Google IO 2015 and to be fair, 5 of the 6 headlining features of Android M have already been part of iOS, some for years. These platforms are much more similar than different and that’s because they are targeting the same users – humans. There’s only so many ways to do the same things and we all want to basically do the same things as humans.
Did anyone in the comment section mention the slicing app feature? cutting down on app sizes by just downloading the version needed for each units. That would be something I would look forward to.
App Thinning. Yeah, another good one not mentioned. Especially since it can actually allow a user to leave full features of an app off their device until needed. Downloading those parts “on demand” at a later time as needed.
Maybe this years WWDC was more for the Developer as I don’t think the average user would really get a lot of the new enhancements built into iOS 9 and new set of Developer Tools. Apple is setting up something … that’s for sure.
i like what you wrote of the music coming down the pipe…my experience comes from the early days of the internet and an application by the name of “music match”(i believe steve jobs had a hand in killing said application, but that’s just hearsay)…i’ve tested various “radio” streaming apps in the past but every time i’ve been disappointed or disagreeable with the mixes offered through those services…not so with music match…i was able to mix whatever and however i liked (and tag however i liked)…and take it with me wherever i liked…my personal mix….don’t get me wrong but i like various artists and genres in my mixes…but how about the app with which i could/should be able to mix?a multimedia app at that!
Apple WWDC 2015 in an Infographics – http://crayond.com/blog/apple-wwdc-2015-infographics/