Apple once again held its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, CA, from June 5-9, 2023. Here are all the exciting announcements, including the big reveal.
Apple Vision Pro
While the world’s most valuable company spent most of its time catching up with industry trends going back almost a decade, Apple blew audiences away with what will become the final computing platform: Vision Pro. It will be available at some point in 2024.
This Augmented Reality (AR) headset, running visionOS, is designed to be an all-in-one device that connects to your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Without a mouse, keyboard, or controller, the user can easily manipulate and interface with multiple displays hovering in plain sight, a feature only available with what Apple calls “spatial computing.”
Watch a movie as if you were at the cinema itself, extending the size of a video to take up an entire room, or use a digital whiteboard to collaborate on tasks with colleagues at work, or even play games with fantastic characters that come to life before your eyes. Apple Vision Pro is whatever you want it to be, but like the Microsoft Hololens 2 that came well before it, you’ll need to pay a pretty penny of $3500.
AR technology, along with virtual reality (VR) technology a la Meta Quest 2, has become a growing trend in the industry due to the infinite use cases it allows. Still, to get to the point where it becomes affordable is something the masses will need to wait on.
MacBook Air 15″
With 5mm borders and Apple’s M2 chip, the 15.3″ MacBook Air runs at up to 50% extended battery life compared to PC counterparts.
Beginning at $1299, the device is available for purchase today. What’s more, Apple even lowered the cost of the 13″ MacBook Air, with the M1 variant starting at $999 and the M2 variant starting at $1299.
Mac Studio and Mac Pro M2 Ultra Versions
The famous Apple silicon has a new variant of the M2 chip known as M2 Ultra, which is used for professional tasks like image and video editing.
Apple also announced that the M2 Ultra is inside the Mac Pro and Mac Studio to provide users access to both PCIE expansion and Apple silicon for the first time. This will expand the usage of the device across the industry of professionals that have relied on Apple for so long.
iOS 17 and iPadOS 17
Among other key features, Apple revealed updates to messages, autocorrect, and AirDrop. A significant new app called Journal allows users a native place to keep track of their day with reminder notifications and dated posts.
An additional speculated feature revealed for iOS 17 is Standby, which provides users the ability to turn an iPhone into a widget device to track live activities, display photos, and track time.
Apple improves various widgets as part of iPadOS 17 to provide developers with greater interactivity. These changes will also be coming to the lock screen on the iPad, as they have been on iOS devices for quite some time. They also brought over live activities, which let you track multiple things in real-time.
macOS Sonoma
Apple is trying really hard to compete in the AAA gaming industry, seeing as how people only use their devices to play mobile games, which is the dominant category on the App Store. macOS Sonoma brings a ton of new features.
For one, Game Mode allows the Mac to enhance the polling rates of PS5 and Xbox controllers along with low-latency audio over AirPods. What’s more, you’ll be able to display widgets on the home screen to work alongside an iPhone.
Web Apps are coming as well to macOS Sonoma, letting users turn websites into app-like experiences through updates to Safari. Finally, Safari will include improvements to passkey support and private browser windows.
watchOS 10
Widgets will also be coming to Apple Watch with watchOS 10, a new design for apps that improves all first-party programs, providing developers with new tools to make better designs.
Apple also introduced a variety of new fitness features, particularly assistance for players of Tennis and Golf.