Four OS updates. One big day.
Announcing upgraded operating systems for iPhone and iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. We’ve packed them with new features and experiences, so with a simple update this fall all your devices will feel more powerful, personal, and fun than ever.
Watch the keynote
It's that time of year when Apple teases new bells and whistles coming to its devices.
CEO Tim Cook took the stage in San Jose, California, on Monday at its annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) to preview new software features for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
The company announced its next-generation mobile software iOS 12 is packed with performance improvements, quirky features like an animated version of you and a tool to help combat your tech addiction.
Here's a closer look at the new software:
Tech addiction tool
Apple is adding tools to help its customers use their phones less, a direct response to criticisms it received earlier this year from shareholders worried about phone addiction. A new activity report will track how much time you're spending on your mobile device and how you're spending it via a daily breakdown.
Apple is also adding a page for users to see apps are sending you the most notifications.
"You can make decisions about how much time you'd like to spend with your device each day," Apple's Craig Federighi told developers.
Related: What to expect at Monday's Apple event
If you need a little help making those kind of decisions, a new setting called App Limits acts as your iPhone babysitter. If an app is sucking up too much of your time, you can set your own limit, such as one hour a day for Instagram. You'll get a 5 min warning when you're almost out of time (and a button if you'd like to extend your time, of course).
Parents have extra controls and can give their kids time allowances. They can also schedule "downtime" for kids to prevent them from checking their devices at bedtime.
The features came several months after major shareholders wrote a letter to Apple asking the company to add more parental controls and to study the impact of excessive iPhone usage on mental health.
Memoji
Tigers, koalas, and T-rexes, oh my! Apple is adding new animals (and a ghost) to the Animoji feature, which is only available to iPhone X users. It's also adding tongue detection, so the animals mimic your own tongue movements.
But the biggest emoji news is a new option to create an Animoji that looks just like you. Called a Memoji, the feature lets you create a cartoon version of yourself. Users can select skin color, freckles, hairstyle, head shape, eye wear and more. The software will then recreate your head and face movements just like the other Animojis in Messages.
Group FaceTime
FaceTime will soon be able to support video chats with up to 32 people. If you're in an unwieldly group chat, you can start a FaceTime directly from Messages so you can argue with family members over video.
Meanwhile, the camera in Messages is getting new effects, including filters, shapes and stickers. Texting is more fun in iOS 12, too. But perhaps not as fun as 32 people trying to talk over each other at once.
Augmented reality
iOS 12 also focuses on augmented reality. Apple also showed off a new AR tool, Measure, that turns your phone into an $800 ruler. It also highlighted how some developers, such as Lego, are incorporating the trendy technology into apps. (Lego app users will soon be able to hold an iOS device over certain Lego sets to play a multiplayer games).
The operating systems themselves won't be available to the general public until the Fall, but Apple announced an earlier public beta program for eager iPhone, iPad and Mac users. But it's not a full picture of what will eventually come to your devices. The company saves a few surprises for its September press event when it also announces new iPhones.
Mojave
Apple's next macOS will be named Mojave, after the desert in California. It adds a dark mode, which makes backgrounds black and grey instead of white. Dark mode will be optimal for viewing your computer in a dark room or at night, but it can also be useful for editing photos or other creative projects.
For messy desktops, there's a new option called Desktop Stacks, which sorts the random files on your desktop into piles by categories, such as file type, date or tag. But it's still all there -- it's a bit like throwing your papers into a pile, rather than getting rid of things you don't need.
Apple is bringing some classic iOS apps to its desktop, including News, Voice Memos, Stocks and Home. The apps' look will be similar to the iPad versions of the apps.
Privacy
Apple announced some new privacy and anti-tracking features coming to its Safari browser. Federighi got in a tiny dig at Facebook at the same time.
Comment fields and like and share buttons are now turned off by default in Safari. Apple said the tools are used to track people across different sites to serve them ads. In an on-stage demo, Apple showed an image of a browser blocking "Facebook.com" from using cookies and website data while you browse the web.
"This year, we're shutting that down," he said about the commend fields and share buttons.
Apple TV
You'll no longer need to log with a cable account over and over again to access content via Apple TV. A new zero sign-on feature will detect if you're on your cable provider's broadband and automatically sign you in to apps that require a cable subscription.
watchOS updates
Apple Watch users will have more workout options, such as activity competitions and automatic workout detection, and new watchface designs. The company demoed a handful of new watch apps by having an employee workout live on stage.
Meanwhile, a fun new feature called Walki-Talkie lets you communicate with other people who are also using Apple Watches over voice. The Apple Podcast app is also coming to the Apple Watch.
App Store
Federighi nixed rumors that the iOS and Mac App Stores would merge. But the Mac App store is getting a makeover with more editorial content to look more like its iOS sibling
Apple is also adding some developer tools to help make it easier to bring iOS apps to the Mac.
But the move is most likely shrewd. Apple depends on customers buying its devices, not spending lots of time on them. Apple is pitching the tools as evidence that it is putting its customers’ interests first — and that if people are worried they are addicted to their smartphone, the iPhone is the device that will help them.
The new tools are also a shot across the bow to Silicon Valley’s other big tech companies, like Google, Twitter and particularly Facebook, that depend on users spending more time with their services.
Apple’s move is also not happening in a vacuum. Silicon Valley has faced early signs of a reckoning over tech addiction, including an open letter to Apple from investment firm Jana Partners and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. The letter urged Apple to research the health effects of its products, particularly on children.
Will this be enough to help people curb their addiction? Presumably, if you set a limit for yourself you will be able to easily remove the restriction and continue using an app like Instagram when you run out of time.
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If anything, the feature will certainly make people more mindful (and perhaps ashamed) of how often they use certain apps and encourage them to put their phones down.
— Brian X. Chen and Jack Nicas
Apple says it is different about your privacy, too.
Apple took another swing at its rivals Google and Facebook with tools that sharply diminish their ability to track users as they surf across the web.
Apple said that by default its Safari browser would disable tracking software, or so-called cookies, that advertising companies like Facebook and Google embed in websites to track users’ activity across the internet. The cookies are often embedded in tools to share, comment or “like” content on third-party sites.
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To share an article directly to Facebook from a news site, users of Safari will need to manually allow the cookie to track them. Apple said it would also make it more difficult for companies that track users using a different technology, known as fingerprinting.
As the world wakes up to the sheer amount of user data tech companies have collected over the years, Apple is doubling down on its bid to be the privacy-focused tech firm. Unlike Google and Facebook, which rely on user data to sell ads, Apple’s main business is selling devices to consumers, so its focus on privacy has become a central selling point.
Apple said it would also restrict third-party developers’ access to more data on Mac computers, a nod to the scandal over how a Facebook developer enabled the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly harvest the data of millions of Facebook users.
— Jack Nicas
The Apple Watch gets a throwback feature.
The Apple Watch’s latest operating system has a nifty throwback to an old technology: Walkie talkie. “You press to talk, and your friend can hear your voice — just like a walkie talkie,” said Kevin Lynch, Apple’s head of Watch software.
The feature only works with users who opt-in — I need your approval to send you a walkie-talkie message — but it’s striking for the way it improves the Watch’s best feature, letting users stay in touch without having to use a phone.
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There were also a few new features for activity monitoring. The new software will automatically start tracking a workout even if you didn’t let tell it you were working out. And it has a new way to let you compete with friends. For instance, you can set up a weeklong exercise-off between you and a friend.
But all this requires waiting. The new OS will be available for the Watch later this year, through a software update.
— Farhad Manjoo
Changes to address software speed issue.
Apple’s head of software, Craig Federighi, opened the event with the introduction of a new mobile operating system, iOS 12, an update that he said was focused on speed.
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“For iOS 12, we are doubling down on performance,” he said. The update increases the speed for many important features of iOS, like the camera app and keyboard. In Apple’s testing, apps launched two times faster in iOS 12 compared with the last system.
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By highlighting speed, Apple is addressing a common complaint among owners of iPhones who feel that their devices seem to slow down after every new upgrade. Keep in mind that last year, Apple came under scrutiny amid revelations that it slowed performance of older iPhones with aging batteries.
The new operating system will work with devices as far back as the iPhone 5S from 2013.
Here’s something Apple should fix at the event: its Wi-Fi. None of us are able to get on the internet. I’m barely hanging on to a connection on my iPhone hotspot. Wireless has always been spotty at these events with so many devices in the audience fighting for a connection, but this is exceptionally bad.
— Brian X. Chen
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A focus on the little things.
It’s crystal clear that iOS 12 is focused on improving on existing features rather than bombarding users with brand-new features.
In addition to updating the Photos app and expanding Siri, Apple made minor updates to its Apple News, Stocks, Messages and FaceTime apps. The Apple News app now lets you discover articles through topics, and the Stocks app now loads Apple News stories that are related to stocks that you follow.
The Messages app was updated to let you create some custom emojis with the camera. And the FaceTime app lets you do a video call between multiple people, similar to Google Hangouts.
Again, Apple is responding to some negative feedback. Over the last few years, app developers and users have complained that iOS was getting increasingly bloated and confusing to use.
This is a good time for Apple to slow down on adding new features, especially after the introduction of the iPhone X, which fundamentally changes how the iPhone works by removing the home button.
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— Brian X. Chen
Apple’s new update strategy is on display.
This software conference illuminates Apple’s revised software strategy. In the past, Apple updated each new version of iOS on an annual basis with a long list of new features.
But recently, the company announced to employees that it would revise its strategy to a two-year cycle. In other words, next year, you can expect iOS 13 to have a barrage of new features. In the following year, iOS 14 will focus on improving those features. Rinse and repeat.
However, Apple doesn’t appear to be slowing down the pace of upgrades for the Apple Watch, a much younger product. Each version of Watch OS has introduced significant changes to the way the watch works. Apple’s allocation of resources to the watch shows that the company is treating the wearable computer as the post-smartphone device.
In a decade, will we all be wearing our phones?
— Brian X. Chen
Last week, I exclusively revealed Apple ’s new iPhone line-up. But now we have got our first detailed look at the most radical model and it comes from a great source…
Working in collaboration with MySmartPrice, Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka the legendary OnLeaks) has revealed a detailed 360-degree render of Apple’s ‘budget iPhone X’ which will deliver the company’s cutting-edge bezel-less design but at a heavily reduced price.
OnLeaks
What Hemmerstoffer’s images and video (embedded below) show, is a 6.1-inch design which blends the chassis of the iPhone 8 and a single rear camera with the fascia of the iPhone X, complete with Face ID facial recognition module and the distinctive notch. On the flipside, this means no Touch ID fingerprint sensor.
Interestingly, Hemmerstoffer also states the new model will be thicker than the current iPhone X at 8.3mm Vs 7.7mm (both measurements exclude the camera bump). Meanwhile, the length and width of the 6.1-inch design will increase proportionately from the iPhone X’s 143.6mm x 70.9mm to 150.9mm x 76.5mm.
These dimensions also confirm Apple has retained the ultrawide 19.5:9 aspect ratio for the budget iPhone’s display. And that’s just the start of its appeal.
Hemmerstoffer notes this currently unnamed budget iPhone X (my naming bet is simply ‘iPhone’), will also pack wireless charging, stereo speakers and a new A12 chipset. So this is basically a single-camera iPhone X for over $200 less.
With Apple expected to bundle expensive fast chargers as well, I predict this will be Apple’s biggest selling new iPhone. Yes, the company will also launch a supersized iPhone X Plus which millions want, but nothing opens wallets like a bargain…
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