WWDC21

Well, we are done with WWDC21, my first WWDC as a developer. Just as last year we got an amazing keynote flying, teleporting and driving around the Apple campus. We got to see more of Craig Federighi, who is by far my favorite host for these events (and who desperately needs to get a twitter account).

Here are some of my thoughts on the new updates.

iOS 15:

This is was a minor update which we can sometimes expect after an update as big as iOS 14. We got some features I really love and look forward to using and some which I don’t know how to feel about just yet.

By far the best new feature is SharePlay. When on a FaceTime call, the ability to watch a movie, listen to music, or share your screen is amazing. This year I have constantly been using NetflixParty (Teleparty) to watch movies with my friends, while that works well, it isn’t natural to just share your thoughts over a chat, this is why I am hyped for SharePlay. What's even better is that SharePlay is an open API, so presumably, every service you want may get support in the future. Also being able to create a common Apple Music queue for everyone on the call, is just genius.

Do not disturb also got a huge update which I am here for. I love DnD, my phone automatically goes on DnD at night and I use shortcuts to automate it whenever I want to disconnect. Focus modes are smart, it allows you create profiles to determine what notifications you get and what your home screen looks like. This makes it easy to just disconnect in the way you need at a moment. I can already imagine creating profiles for class, studying, coding, kicking back with a movie, or meeting friends.

Messages got an update as well although considering all the emphasis on messages in WWDC promos, I was expecting more. All the new features are cool and convenient but aren’t feature I would miss if they were removed.

Live text is clever computer science, it seems to work well but it seems gimmicky at the moment. I'm also not sure how I feel about the new look of Safari and Notifications. I need to use them before I can share any thoughts. Similarly, I'm not sure how useful the maps update will be, I’ll try it out when I get to my college campus in the fall. The transit features in maps are intriguing though.

Finally, on-device Siri should be so much better, let’s see how it works.

Oh and it is wild that the 6s and SE are supported, Apple gave 5 years to the iPhone 6, 6 years to the 5s and now 7 years to the 6s. I have absolutely no idea what Apple is doing.

iPadOS 15

Of course, iPadOS gets all the features new in iOS 15 and some of its own. However, a lot of the updates this year are honestly features that should’ve been in iOS 14 (this is one of the few times Apple “acknowledged” a mistake). Okay lets get into it.

The biggest feature this year for iPadOS is the improvements to multitasking. Apple has had some trouble balancing the complexity some high-level users need with the intuitiveness casual users require when it comes to multitasking. Now I personally haven’t used an iPad since iOS 12 and it was a mini 2 so it didn’t even have most the multitasking features anyways so I really don’t know how much of a hassle multitasking was but this update seems to make more sense and seems a bit more natural.

Notes also gets a nice update. Tags and mentions in particular make it a lot more robust. I still favor bear for note taking but this might just motivate me to switch to Apple Notes. The quick note feature also seems pretty cool (Although it should’ve been added long ago, considering Samsung has had it for a while.

The Safari on iPadOS 15 is cool and brings the iPad even closer to a real computer. The fact that you can use extensions is amazing. Tab groups may become something incredibly useful but i’m not sure yet.

Then we have the updates to Widgets, that that you can now move widgets anywhere on the Home Screen should’ve been part of iOS 14. Apple defended it for a while (for example Craig spoke about it to MKBHD) but clearly just gave up that fight after a while considering most people just wanted to move them anywhere. The addition of the 8x4 widget is cool, it makes sense for the larger device but they should’ve maybe considered a vertical 4x8 widget and a smaller 2x1 widget for iPhones.

Then of course there’s the new App Library. I was honestly surprised that it hadn't been added to iPadOS 14 and I still don’t get why Apple didn’t add it then.

MacOS Monterey

MacOS got the biggest update outta the three. Of course it gets some of the new features added to iOS and iPadOS but it also gets some features which are mindblowingly amazing.

First Safari gets a new update just like the other devices but I unlike the other two I don’t need to use it to know I like it. It just seems to work so much better on the Mac. I also think tab groups make a lot more sense on Mac than it does on iPad.

We also finally got Shortcuts on Mac. For those who don’t know, I love shortcuts, they are amazingly versatile and I use so many (I am going to share them on this website, ill update this post when I do). I also feel like shortcuts ties into MacOS quite deeply, lets see whether we get enough actions right away or if we’ll have to wait for a while.

Airplay to Mac is something I didn’t expect but I can already think of some cool uses for it. I watch Netflix on my phone and my Mac, often switching between the two. I have been waiting for media handoff where I can start an episode on my phone and move it to my Mac and this comes slightly closer to that. What I am thinking about doing is Airplaying Netflix to my Mac rather than using Netflix through safari on my Mac. Then when I want the video back on my phone, all I have to do is turn off airplay. Of course I wouldn’t do this constantly but it may just work.

Then there’s universal control, I don’t know how Apple managed to pull this out of their bag but it seems like absolute magic. Although I doubt i’ll be using this feature anytime soon, its crazy to imagine some of the workflows we can create. Sidecar was cool, it was simple and something I expected from Apple when you thought of a feature that used an iPad and Mac together, but this blew my mind.

Also a low power mode on Macs. Finally.

Conclusion

Once again it isn’t a huge update like last year with widgets and Big Sur’s new design but it’s unfair and unrealistic that we’ll get a huge and revolutionary update every year. Apple has spoiled us and our expectations are always a little too high.

To me the bigger bummer is that we didn’t see any new Macs. I really wanted to see a 14” MacBook Pro even if it doesn’t have an m1x chip (or m2 or m1 max or whatever Apple decides to call it). Even though, I will probably go with the 13” current MBP anyways, it would be nice to see. This is also part of my bigger problems with Mac releases, the should always release Macs before the fall so that college-going students like me can get a new laptop before our classes start. I would’ve definitely considered the new Mac if I could get it before my classes started but since it hasn’t been released and probably won’t before the September event, ill have no choice but to get the 2020 Macs.