Aside from a number of other software-related announcements, the WWDC 2016 keynote at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco also gave us watchOS 3, the third major installment of the wearable operating system that powers the Apple Watch.
As much as watchOS 2 was about optimizing the experience with support for native apps, its successor focuses on improving that experience further with things like Control Center, a Reminders app, instant launch of applications and more.
This is about making the Apple Watch usable. In addition to keeping your favorite apps in the Apple Watch memory and background updates for Apple Watch apps, you can choose which apps go to the so-called Dock which appears when pressing the Side button.
Here’s Control Center on the Apple Watch.
It’s invoked similar to iOS, by swiping up from the bottom of any watch face.
With Background App Updates for Apple Watch apps, software that frequently updates content from the Internet now load much faster, including the new Find My Friends app.
watchOS also includes another fitness-focussed feature: Activity sharing. With it, you can share
your move, activity or stand goals with your friends and family, including the ability to communicate with those people with built-in chat in the Activity app.
Wheelchair users will love watchOS 3 because they have a setting to change the Time to Stand notification with a new Time to Roll, two new activities specifically created for them in the Activity app and more.
With another new app in watchOS 3, called Breathe, users big on body-mind medicine can define sessions from one to five minutes that lets them relax and deep-breathe, with gentle taps guiding them without needing to even glance at their watch. You can also set smart notifications to remind you to use Breathe, just like Stand alerts.
Messaging improvements include new reply options and a new way to write your messages with a new Scribble option, basically handwriting recognition that lets you draw the letters on the screen with your finger.
Scribble works in English and Chinese for the time being, and it automatically senses which language you are using. watchOS 3 has new watch faces: Activity, Minnie Mouse and Numerals. You can now just swipe to choose your watch face and you now have the ability to use more Complications.
Other new features in watchOS 3 include Apple Pay within apps on the watch, new APIs for graphics-intensive apps such as SpriteKit, an SOS mode with support for ability calls that will automatically send your Medical ID and current geographical information to an emergency outlet, and more.
This feature also works internationally.
After demonstrating several new Apple Watch features, Apple VP Kevin Lynch invited Director of Fitness and Health technologies Jay Blahnik to come up on stage and talk about some new fitness features. Perhaps most notable is a new feature in the Activity app called Activity Sharing.
As the name suggests, Activity Sharing brings social challenges to the Apple Watch, allowing users to easily send fitness achievements and stats to friends and family, fostering competition. This is something that has helped Fitbit grow and popularity and is a welcome addition to the Watch.
So to share your activity in Watch OS 3, simply swipe to the right of your Activity Rings, and you’ll be shown the rings of family and friends. You can communicate directly with the people you’re sharing with right through Messages, and the smart replies are geared towards working out.
Apple has taken the wraps off watchOS 3 this morning during the keynote presentation at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. With features designed to advance the experience for Apple Watch owners, watchOS 3 will release this fall, Apple confirmed today. The major new version of the Apple Watch operating system will be released at no charge as an over-the-air update.
watchOS 3 includes a number of features like much faster application launch times, a new Scribble input method, Control Center, an SOS mode with support for emergency calls, a Breathe app and much more.
Apple on Monday at its WWDC 2016 event announced a new app for Apple Watch that will come pre-installed on watchOS 3 called Breathe, which offers a new perspective on health.
Setting itself apart from the typical fitness aspects of health, Breathe will be oriented around breathing exercises.
Breathe is an app that works to improve your health by taking you through 1-5 minute breathing exercises throughout the day. It’ll provide notifications that remind you to perform breathing exercises, as it’s an important part of your everyday health that ensures your body is getting enough oxygen.
Once you’re provided with a notification to perform a breathing exercise from your Apple Watch, you can either start the exercise, or you can snooze the alert.
If you tap on Start, it walks you through the breathing exercise process in real time, and then the app provides you with heart rate information and breathing information so you can see how the breathing exercise impacts the way your body handles your heart rate while you breathe.
You may opt to snooze the alert when you’re in the middle of doing something, or when you’re not in an environment where a breathing exercise is possible.
tvOS 10 announced with dark mode, Single Sign-On, universal search improvements and more
In addition to iOS 10 and watch OS 3, Apple also unveiled tvOS 10 with an all-new Remote app during the WWDC 2016 keynote at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Here are some of the things you’re going to like in tvOS 10.
Powering the fourth-generation Apple TV, tvOS 10 advances the experience provided by Apple’s operating system for the living room, which launched last fall with the release of the new Apple TV, with new features like Single Sign-On, automatic downloads for Apple TV apps, a new dark mode and more.
Among the new features in tvOS 10, Siri can now search Apple’s full archive of more than six-thousand television shows and movies within a specified time range.
More importantly, tvOS’s universal search feature now supports a lot more apps, including YouTube. This is really useful as you can use your voice and Siri to search for specific videos on YouTube, and tvOS automatically takes you to YouTube for Apple TV, if installed, and automatically loads your search results.
Similarly, if you have a video app with support for live streaming, asking Siri to watch, say, ESPN, will automatically put up live video. Apple has also solved the problem of having to sign in to many of these video apps with your cable or satellite subscription, or using an alphanumeric code that has to be typed into a browser.
With tvOS 10, you have something called Single Sign-On, which automatically signs you into these apps. These access credentials are managed in one central place, with a new page on the App Store showing you apps that you have access too.
This feature is going to launch on iOS, too.
Apple TV owners can now switch to a dark interface in Settings and apps downloaded on iOS which exists on tvOS can also auto-install to the set-top box with support for Automatic Downloads for Apple TV apps.
If you use your Apple TV for games, you’ll be delighter to learn that tvOS now supports up to four game controllers at once versus just two, as well as multiplayer game sessions and recording in-game videos with ReplayKit.
Developers can now create Apple TV apps that integrate with your Photos library with PhotoKit for tvOS. Graphically intensive apps and games will be nicer with new APIs and things like SpriteKit, and more.
tvOS 10 is launching this fall.
Apple rebrands OS X as macOS
That Apple would rebrand OS X as ‘MacOS’ was one of the worst-kept WWDC secrets ahead of today’s keynote, and Apple just made it official. SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi just announced on stage that from here on out, the Mac operating system is going to be called macOS.
The change of course brings OS X more inline with the naming conventions of Apple’s other platforms: iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. There’s obviously nothing ground-breaking here, but the rebranding is more than notable. So from now on, no more OS X. Just refer to the Mac OS as…macOS.
We know OS X is now macOS, and the first major version is macOS Sierra. So what new features does it have? SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi is on stage at Apple’s WWDC keynote running through the new additions and improvements in the software, and there are some great ones.
The main focuses for this update are going to be Continuity, iCloud and “the fundamentals of the Mac experience.” The first big new feature for the group is Auto Unlock, which allows you to automatically unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch—meaning, if you have your Watch on, you don’t need to type in your password.
Another new feature is Universal Clipboard. Like the name suggests, this means that clipboard will work across macOS and iOS. So copying something on your iPhone will add it to your Mac’s clipboard and vice versa. Apple Pay is also coming to the Mac via the Safari web browser (as rumored). When you shop online, you’ll have an Apple Pay button. When you pay, you’ll get a prompt to authenticate on your phone or watch with TouchID or a tap on the wrist.
Finally, Federighi announced that Siri is coming to the Mac. The digital assistant will be accessible via a Menu Bar icon, and a Dock icon, and will be just as capable as it is on iOS. You can command Siri to play a playlist in Apple Music, send Messages, perform image searches and much, much more.
Apple announced a major new feature for its upcoming macOS Sierra operating system for Macs on Monday at WWDC 2016, which will let you get into your Mac easier than you ever have before.
Dubbed Auto Unlock, it’s an extension of the Continuity feature between your mobile devices and your Mac.
Rather than being presented with a password entry interface from your Lock screen every time you wake up your Mac, Auto Unlock is going to let you get into your Mac as long as you have an authenticated device on your person – namely, your Apple Watch.
Whenever you’re wearing the Apple Watch, it’s already authenticated as long as you haven’t taken it off recently. It stays authenticated until you actually take it off.
The Apple Watch can already use Touch ID from your iPhone to be authenticated, so Touch ID can actively impact your Mac authentication as well. Keep in mind however, that you don’t need to use Touch ID to unlock your Mac directly.
After you’ve authenticated your Apple Watch, either by entering the passcode or by using Touch ID on your iPhone, you just need to keep wearing it. When you walk within Bluetooth proximity of your Mac, your computer is going to unlock for you automatically so you can start using it without even having to enter a password to get into it.
It’s very much a secure way of getting into your Mac, because Auto Lock won’t unlock your Mac unless you’re wearing an authenticated Apple Watch. If your Apple Watch is being worn, but hasn’t been authenticated, then you don’t need to worry because your Mac won’t unlock.
The feature is very similar to that of MacID, which would allow you to unlock your Mac from your authenticated Apple Watch, but now it’s going to be natively built right into macOS.
This is a feature that appears to be limited to the Apple Watch only, so if you don’t own one, then Auto Unlock won’t be possible. It doesn’t appear that the feature will allow those with Touch ID to unlock their Macs via their iPhone or iPad.
Here’s iOS 10’s revamped Lock screen with widgets, Raise to Wake, rich notifications and more
Apple is holding its anticipated keynote presentation at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco this morning, which has kicked off the five-day WWDC 2016 developers conference, and they just announced iOS 10, the tenth major version of the mobile operation system powering the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
For iOS 10, there’s a completely redesigned Lock screen that now makes it easy to respond to notifications with a lot richer 3D Touch support, the ability to enjoy widgets full screen, a time-saving feature called Raise to Wake and more.
Quick interactions from the Lock screen are now a lot easier than before because the whole Lock screen is now much more interactive. With a new feature called Raise to Wake, you can see on what’s your Lock screen without having to press a button—you just lift your iPhone to your eye level.
Notifications on the Lock screen can be 3D Touched, which can come quite in handy when responding to a message on the Lock screen. In fact, 3D Touch’s Peek previews are no longer static.
For example, you can 3D Touch on a Messages notification on the Lock screen to not just peek at it, but also type out your response, see what you exchanged in a thread and even enjoy inline media.
The Lock screen on iOS 10 also lets you slide over to the right to get to the Camera app faster than before. Or, you can slide over the other way to show widgets on the Lock screen. And speaking of widgets, they can show you even more information by tapping the More icon on the widget.
And that’s what’s new, ladies and gentlemen, for the Lock screen on iOS 10.
Photos in iOS 10 is receiving a major upgrade with several major new features and a few noteworthy improvements. For starters, Photos in iOS 10 has a dedicated Maps view similar to iPhoto for Mac which lets you browse your photos on a world map, based on where you took them.
More importantly, Photos now features facial, object and scene recognition that uses advanced computer vision and deep learning techniques to recognize objects on photos locally on the device, taking advantage of the power of Apple’s A-series of processors.
Because the photos are examined locally on the device rather than on Apple’s servers, your privacy is assured. Apple says that iOS 10 performs a whopping eleven billion computations per photo to recognize faces, objects and scenes.
Another new feature in Photos for iOS 10: Memories.
Taking advantage of advanced artificial intelligence which scans your entire Photos library to cluster together the photos that might make sense to you, Memories can surface trips that might be relevant, photographs relevant to last week or last month, pictures of people that are special to you, topics like the beaches, mountains and so forth.
The new facial recognition in Photos in iOS 10, along with object and scene recognition, also works on the Mac and the new Apple TV.
Eddy Cue is on stage right now, at Apple’s WWDC keynote, talking about the new Maps app in iOS 10. The stock mapping application gets a lot smarter in the upcoming update, with improved search, en route traffic information and a new feature called Quick Controls.
The beautiful new design language in a revamped Apple Music is now a reality. According to Apple, the first tab within the app is now Library that gives you quick access to your songs as well as your downloaded music. A new Recently Added section makes it easy to pinpoint new songs and albums you’ve added to your library.
Apple Music now has inline lyrics, which is pretty awesome.
The top of the For You tab now has a Discovery mix, a Recently Played playlist, a daily curated playlist in an obvious shot at Spotify and more. Content from the Connect tab is now integrated within the For You tab rather than live in its own tab.
There’s a new stock app in iOS 10 that most people will probably want to get rid of: Home. Home is the missing link in Apple’s strategy for the connected home, which now supports even more categories of HomeKit-compatible devices like smart cameras and door locks. It’s not just a new Home screen app: Home is built right into Control Center and it also works from the Lock screen of your iPhone.
And with iOS 10’s interactive Home screen with support for rich notifications, your security camera, for instance, can send you an alert if it detects an intruder and you can even watch a live video feed right from the Lock screen.
Remote access to your home and automation with HomeKit devices is now easier than ever because the fourth-generation Apple TV acts as a HomeKit hub for remote control. The new Home app is also included in watchOS 3.
iOS 10 was shown off at WWDC 2016 on Monday, and with all of the new features Apple brought to the table, the Phone app is certainly one of the spotlights that deserves attention.
A new Phone experience for iPhone?
Apple’s new Phone app in iOS 10 is going to get a lot of useful new features to make using the phone aspect of your iPhone a whole lot better.
Starting with improvements to VoiceMail, the Phone app in iOS 10 will now convert any voicemail you receive into a readable text that you can read rather than listen to out loud.
The Phone app also improves the experience with incoming calls, because when you receive a phone call from an unknown phone number, iOS can automatically tell you whether or not the call is likely to be a spam call.
Support for VoIP via API
Apple is also allowing third-party developers who make VoIP apps for the App Store to integrate with the Phone app so that calling notifications from those third-party apps actually fill the screen, rather than appearing as a useless Lock screen notification.
As a result, you can actually take calls from those VoIP apps from the Lock screen just like they were native phone calls. A slide to answer bar will appear at the bottom of the screen just like a phone call would, and the call will route through to the third-party app’s VoIP services.
Also getting a big update in iOS 10 is the Messages app. New features include inline rich links, which open YouTube videos, images and other types of media—videos now play right within the app!—a built-in Camera viewfinder, and some great emoji improvements.
These improvements include 3x bigger emoji images within your messages, so you can see the icons in greater detail, and predictive emoji. Apple calls this “emojifiable.” So the Messages app in iOS 10 can essentially guess emoji images for the words you tap on.
Also new in the Messages app is what Apple is calling “Bubble effects.” This allows you add nice little transitional effects to your Bubbles and even the full screen for the person you’re talking to. Some of the effects demoed on stage include swipe-to-reveal, zoom, full screen of balloons and much more. This is actually really cool-looking, and you have to see a demo of it in action to really understand.
Other Messages announcements: the ability to scribble or hand-write a message, Messages app APIs for developers (yes this means third party for Messages).
A developer preview of iOS 10 will be released to members of the Apple Developer Program following the WWDC 2016 keynote this morning at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. According to Apple, iOS 10 will release for everyone this fall for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, likely ahead of the iPhone 7 introduction.
End of Apple’s Event. This post will be updated with official screenshots and videos as soon as possible.
Elie Chahine 