While I was watching Belgium vs. Italy, Apple did its whole WWDC thing, so time for some serious catch-up here on OSNews. Amidst all the frustrations caused by Belgium’s terrible play (still better than my own country, because we didn’t even qualify!), sideways glances at Twitter made it clear there was some awesome stuff taking place at WWDC, and since I’m trying this new thing where I’m not writing a mega keynote story, let’s chop it up a bit and look at the most interesting things in separate items.
Let’s start with iOS 10. First, while technically a small thing, it will cause millions of iOS users to heave a sigh of relief: starting with iOS 10, Apple will let you remove all the craptastic crapware that’s been accumulating in iOS over the years. No more ‘crapware’ folder on every iPhone, but a glorious little red jiggling X. It’s taken them way too long, but for me it’s probably the most welcome change in iOS at WWDC.
Apple also redesigned the lock screen, giving it the ability to display rich notifications, so you can interact with the notifications without opening the applications they belong to. They also introduced lock screen widgets. ESPN, for example, allows you to watch highlight videos without even opening the application.
Siri’s also been improved, and most notably, has been opened up to third parties. This mean you can now tell Siri to send a message through WhatsApp, or order a car through Uber. The number of supported applications is still relatively small, but this will surely rise in the near future. Siri’s contextually aware too, now, so it looks at your location, calendar contents, contact information, and so on.
There’s way more going on, of course, but nothing else really jumped out at me.
Strangely, they didn’t mention the biggest news of year at the keynote, a brand new file system for all future Apple products…
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/documentation…
Probably because it will not be for this release but for the next…maybe. So that actually means that Apple now admits that its current products aren’t good enough to meet current needs
Of course not meeting current needs will not stop Apple from shipping, selling, charging premium prices and promoting themselves as unique and ahead of everyone else
So just like every other business with a good marketing department then.
I see they are catching up with features introduced by certain Android vendors months if not years ago.
What’s next? Split screen multiwindow mode?
My favorite was the changes they were making to iMessage. I felt like I was watching I/O all over again.
… I reckon most of the messaging features shown at I/O were already introduced in many of the messaging apps like Line, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc. I think it’s better to say Apple and Google are just following those companies in this case (and probably most of the newfangled features related to messaging). Google just copied a bit faster.
Edited 2016-06-14 04:29 UTC
They “already” copied the Windows 8 splitscreen multiwindows appmode but only for the highest-end iPads because others aren’t powerful enough
Maps. Now taking reservations.
Pity it can’t direct me to the restaurant accurately.
Wonder if they’ve added the ability to avoid tolls. If not, it’ll be as useless to me as it always was.
So can I designate a third party client like Dispatch or Airmail to handle email duty when I tap a person’s address in Contacts or an email link in Messages, or will I just get a dumb prompt asking me to reinstall the dipshit Mail.app again?
Edited 2016-06-14 04:27 UTC
Differential privacy: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/apples-differential-privacy-collecting…
Very interesting, and one of the reasons I use Apple products. Unlike Google, and now also unlike Microsoft (after the data sucking Windows 10), Apple is one of the only tech companies that actually cares (aka has decided it will make them money and thus emphasizes it) about privacy. Every time they fight with the FBI they introduce more features to lock down my data tighter. That’s what I’m looking for.
Differential privacy is surely interesting, but if you read the end of that article you should worry a bit. They are actually going to collect more data and send that to Apple (very similar to Microsofts data collection to improve Windows that receives so much criticism). The difference is that Microsoft says it anonimizes that data while Apple says it uses a mathematical system that “I think they’re doing it right.†(see end of article)
I applaud the way Apple are championing privacy right now, but I think care is needed not just to take a company at its word. Apple doesn’t always have the best track record on privacy/transparency, e.g. failing to release their algorithms for anonymising Siri data. I’ve also had personal experience of them refusing my data access request to grant me access to the data they store about me.
If they’re really using differential privacy that’s great, but the linked article is rightly sceptical about the fact they’re not transparent about how they’re applying it. Differential privacy would prevent Apple making personal recommendations. If users value this functionality (and they do appear to) it will be interesting to see how far Apple is willing to compromise on it for the sake of privacy.
It’s also worth noting – as the article mentions – that Microsoft Research are also doing important work in this area.
Belgium huh? Have you started writing fiction? As we all know that is not a real place, there is nothing south of the netherlands until you reach france.
SRC: http://zapatopi.net/belgium/
I am not sure how I managed all this time before!
http://www.phonearena.com/news/New-Apple-Watch-app-Breathe-turns-yo…
p.s. Italy were a master class but still they try to defend when they are only one goal ahead and dominating play!
Speaking for myself, one of the things I’m looking forward to is the ability for VOIP apps to integrate into the phone API. This will hopefully mean, among other things, that I can answer my VOIP calls for work with my Bluetooth headset’s controls as well as cooperative call waiting between apps. For example, if I’m on a VOIP call and a regular phone call comes in, my VOIP is disconnected or put on hold. I hate that! Here’s hoping iOS 10 spells the end of that, providing VOIP apps actually get updated to take advantage of it of course.