The Big Things Apple Announced at WWDC 2017

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said that Apple had big announcements Monday at its annual developer’s conference. Cook promised updates to each of Apple’s operating systems – for the Apple TV, the Apple Watch, mobile devices and computers – plus some additional announcements that he promises will be “major.”

Here’s what we found out about each of them:

1. Apple’s tvOS will support Amazon video
2. watchOS: Siri watch face, more fitness related updates (will sync directly with gym equipment), improved music player.
3. macOS: Next update to be called High Sierra.
4. Next version of Safari to be more privacy conscious. Autoplay blocking! No more ads following you!
5. Mail to have better search, better photos app: more editing tools.
6. New Apple File System APFS: 64-bit, safe and secure, native encryption, ultra responsive
7. New H.265 video encoding, 40% better compression.
8. Better video performance with new GPU Metal 2.
9. New iMac with better display: 500 nits, 43% brighter; 10-bit dithering, with up to 1 billion colors. 7th Gen Kaby Lake processor. Higher memory limits. Fusion drive on all machines. USB-C+thunderbolt support.
10. Every configuration in new iMac line gets graphic bump. 21.5” with 4K display. 27” iMac. 5.5 Teraflops of graphics compute with new Radeon Pro GPUs.
11. Macbook Pro: SSDs and faster graphics to 15-inch MBP. New configuration of 13-inch MBP that starts up $1299.
12. Announces New iMac Pro Workstation-class performance into 5K iMac design. 8-Core to 18-Core Xeon Processor inside. Radeon Vega GPU with up to 128GB ECC memory. Up to 4TB of 3GB/s SSD. 4xThunderbolt 3. 10Gb Ethernet.
13. iOS: New look for iMessage. Support for translations in Siri. Siri gets smarter about what you’re doing on the phone. Apple Pay Coming to iMessage for Person-to-Person Payments
14. iOS: New camera features. new photos app.
15. iOS: Major redesign of control center.
16. iOS: Lock screen and notifications unified.
17. Maps. Internal maps, directory, and search, and browse by floor. Speed limit and lane guidance for navigation. Do Not Disturb Screen for Driving. Will auto-respond to calls.
18. Homekit: Speakers supported. Multi room audio throughout iOS.
19. Apple Music: Now check what your friends are listening to.
20. App Store: 500 million weekly visitors to App Store. 180 billion downloads to date. $70 billion paid out to developers.
21. App Store to be completely redesigned.
22. New tools for developers to better integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning across their apps. NLP, face detection etc APIs.
23. AR features coming to iPhone. Starting with new ARKit for developers to integrate AR into their apps.
24. iPad: new iPad Pro with 10.5 inch screen. Updated displays that adjust colors based on the room. Better support for the Apple Pencil stylus. Faster processors. Same camera as iphone. 10 hr battery life. 10.5″ model starts at $649.
25. iOS11 for iPad to get major overhaul. Better keyboard. New drag-n-drop across apps. New app switcher. New app called Files, across Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, and others.
26. iOS11 will have deep integration with Apple Pencil. Markup documents and notes with pencil. Handwriting recognition.
27. Introduces HomePod: Apple Speakers. To compete with Amazon Echo. Looks like a smaller, fuzzier Mac Pro. Comes in Black and White. Integrated with Apple Music, great audio, knows about its environment. Will ship later this year. 7″ tall, covered in mesh, has 7-beam-forming tweeters. Real-time acoustic modeling, audio beam-forming, and echo cancellation.
28. HomePod: Adjusts its music output depending on where it is placed, which room, what surface etc. Siri, so you can talk to the HomePod. Siri will compete with Alexa and Google to be the home assistant. Good luck Apple! HomePod will cost $349 To compare: Google Home costs $129, Amazon Echo costs $179.