[Updated] Apple  WWDC 2022 - What was announced and stuff

[Lightwreather]

Summary

So Apple's Annual developer's Conference is happening again and hopes are up once again for some new hardware. Either way, this is an event, and so it shall recieve coverage. Here’s what to expect when executives take to the virtual stage.

Expectations:
   

Spoiler

Software:

• iOS/iPadOS 16
       This is pretty much a given seeing as the whole event is literally based on around this.
      A freely resizable multitasking view on iPadOS is what I'm most excited for in this category

  Quote

  Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently claimed that iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 will represent “fairly significant” upgrades that touch on many aspects of the interface.

  Key apps, such as Health and Messages, as well as notifications should see improvements. We may also see Android-style car crash detection that automatically dials an emergency number. More importantly, iOS 16 could also deliver the first meaningful changes to the lock screen in years. Gurman hinted at “major enhancements” that could include wallpapers with widget-style functionality. However, rumored always-on display features might be limited to the future iPhone 14 Pro.

  The OS updates may also refine multitasking, particularly for iPad users. Code sleuth Steve Troughton-Smith noticed that the WebKit team recently added hooks for an iOS “multitasking mode” that allows for freely resizable windows.

   

• macOS 13 and tvOS
  Rumors indicate that this might actually just be a minor refresh upgrade and not something with sweeping changes. I'll be honest I'm fine with that, I don't really want to relearn an entire workflow just because someone wanted something new.
  Also, it appears that tvOS might be seeing major upgrades related to smart homes but it's rather vague atm

  Quote

  MacOS 13 will supposedly include a revamped System Preferences pane more in sync with iOS’ settings, not to mention some redesigned default apps

  Apple TV owners, meanwhile, should anticipate more (if unspecified) smart home features.

   

• watchOS 9
  So this appears to be the one with the biggest upgrades over the previous version. A better low power mode seems to be on the horizon and better navigation too.

  Quote

  Bloomberg’s Gurman has hinted that watchOS 9 may receive some of the largest changes. You could see a low power mode that extends battery life without limiting you to basic timekeeping (as with the existing power reserve mode). More recently, the reporter claimed the new Apple Watch software will have tangible navigation improvements You might also see more robust health tracking that brings more running stats, better sleep tracking and a “burden” feature that detects how long you’re in a state of atrial fibrillation.

   Hardware

• New Macs
  New redesigned Macbook Airs seem to be the hot hardware topic this time around for WWDC, and the unveiling of M2. I would usually expect a Mac Pro, but it seems that won't be coming this year. That said, I highly doubt this'll happen.

  Quote

  Gurman previously said Apple was testing nine or more Macs, and planned to launch a redesigned MacBook Air using the M2 at the conference.

  As Jon Prosser and others have claimed, it’ll supposedly have a more squared-off design reminiscent of last year’s 24-inch iMac, and come in multiple bright colors with a white keyboard. It’s not clear if the camera notch will carry over from the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, but there’s a chance you’ll see a MagSafe power connection and more Thunderbolt ports. Sorry, the SD card reader and HDMI port from the newer Pros might not make the cut.

  M2? Don’t expect a giant leap in performance. The new system-on-chip is still believed to use eight CPU cores, and would bump up the GPU from a maximum of eight cores to 10. Any other speed boosts are more likely to come from minor architectural changes.If a new MacBook Air does premiere at WWDC, there’s no guarantee it will ship in a timely fashion. Apple’s supply chain (like many others) has been affected by COVID-19 shutdowns in China.

  An ARM-based Mac Pro still looks distant, and Gurman doesn’t expect any other M2-based refreshes until later in 2022. With that said, be prepared for surprises — Apple launched the M1 with three Macs.

• AR/VR
  So, this is one I seriously doubt will happen, I feel it's far more likely for apple to introduce this at another event where it can be the star of the show and it seems others agree.

  Quote

  There’s a mounting volume of hype surrounding Apple’s long-rumored AR/VR headset, but we wouldn’t bet on a WWDC debut. Although the company appears to be registering trademarks and otherwise gearing up for an introduction, Gurman and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo have both voiced doubts. The technology doesn’t appear ready for a public debut; late 2022 or 2023 appears more likely

Overall this wouls seem to be a really mundane event but that could do a 180 if new hardware is to be released.

What came to be:

• iOS 16:
  -New (customisable) lockscreens, (image ref)
  Spoiler

  

  

  

  -Focus mode now extends to the lock screen
  -Messages got an edit, an undo button AND ability to mark threads as unread! (Woo!)
  -Update to Dictation - On-device processing, keyborad stays open during dictation and Emoji detection
  -App intents API, basically easy siri setup
  -Live Text now works on Video (you gotta pause it first tho), quick actions + an API for devs and uhh, you can pull dogs out of images and put them into other apps (There's a lot more to that last one). Ref images:
   

  Spoiler

  

  

  

  -Apple wallet updates: Authentication support for other apps using IDs. And, apparently key sharing. There's also Apple Pay Later which allows you to split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments with no interest and no late fees and Apple Pay Order Tracking that enables merchants to deliver receipt and order tracking to your Wallet. .
  -Maps, rolled out to more countries, more 3d view regions and multistop routing to plan up to 15 routes in advance. Can plan routes on your Mac and send to iPhone, can add stops with Siri.
  -Sports, Stuff happened (Sorry)
  -Family sharing, New parental controls for sharing, and new device setup for kids just one-touch now. Can approve screen time requests right from Messages. And you can adjust all parental control settings in a new feature called Family Checklist.
  -Photos, iCloud Shared Photo Library, a new kind of iCloud Library that up to six people can participate in. Smart upload filters, and a new switch in the camera that sends photos to the shared library right away.
  -SafetyCheck, it can manage app access, passwords, and more — you will know who has your passwords and information. It was apparently designed for people in abusive relationships.
  -Home, FINALLY GETS A UI UPDATE! New interface that's easier to use. Rooms and favorites in the main tab of the app. New categories for climate, lights, security, and more. They also added Matter support (Great news!). Ref images:

  Spoiler

  

  

   

• Carplay:  Integrated with many more car controls, incl HVAC, the speedometer, etc. All apparently customizable with different skins. Allegedly, No matter what screen shapes or layouts you have, CarPlay will work. Ref images:

  Spoiler

  

  

  

  
   

• watchOS 9:
  -New rich complications, new Siri UI, and new banner notifications, four new watch faces. Active apps get pinned for quick access.
  -Podcast stuff (Not sure, whay you'd have it on a watch tho?)
  -Workout, Three new running form metrics to track how efficiently you run- running form, stride length, and ground contact time.
  -Heart rate zones to get a sense of your intensity level at any time. One can set up distance and time intervals that you can quickly repeat as well as heart rate zones. Haptic and voice feedback to tell you when to switch modes while working out.
  -New workout type for triathletes that can auto-switch between cycling, swimming, and running.
  -Fitness app is now available to all iPhone users, using the iPhone motion sensors.
  -Sleep app, which is going to add Sleep Stage in watchOS 9. REM, Core, and Deep sleep stages can be detected.
  -They're adding features to help people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. watchOS 9 can now track the amount of time your heart spends in A-fib, can identify the time of day or week your A-fib is most active. They expect to receive FDA clearance for this feature "soon"
  -Medications, it can log when you take medications, can get notifications for when you need to take your meds. Now, You get alerts for bad drug interactions when you add them to your list.

• New Macs!
  -M2 Announced, M2 is "2nd-gen" 5nm, 20 billion transistors, 20 percent more than M1. 100Gbps memory bandwidth, up to 24GB of unified memory. µArch improvements, new cores. 18 percent greater performance than M1. 1.9x faster performance than "latest 10-core PC laptop chip. M2 has 25 percent more GPU performance than M1 at the same power level, 35 more more at the max power. New neural engine and secure enclave, new media engine that supports 8K video. Systems with M2 will play back multiple streams of 8K and 4K video.

  Spoiler

  

  

  

  

  

  

  - New MBA:
   -More block shaped design (basically, a thinner and smaller 14" MBP Design), 11mm thin and 1.2kgs (No, I reuse to speak in Freedom units). It's got Magsafe, two Thunderbolt ports, "High-impedence" Headphone jack. (Thankfully it's not the 12" MB). 4 Colous: Space-grey, Silver, Starlight and Midnight (I personally really like the Midnight colour, thankfully it doesn't have the iMac-esque design). A Notch (!?), 13.6-inch Liquid retina Display, 500 nits of brightness and supposedly the panel supports 1 billion colors. MBPs 1080p camera comes to the Air. New mics and speakers, with beamforming mics and Atmos support. 20 percent faster than M1 Air and 5x faster than last Intel Air at photoshop filters. Silent design, with no fan. Same 18-hour video playback battery life. New power adapter with two USB-C ports, supports fast charge to get to 80 percent in 20 minutes.
  Starts at 1199 USD. Ref images:

  Spoiler

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  -MBP 13", Just a processor refresh, no design changes. Starts at 1399 USD
   

• macOS Ventura:
  - Haha, everyone thought it'd be macOS mamoth
  -Stage manager, basically a single app mode, ya click a button and everything goes to the side of a screen. I just want who asked for this? Seriously, I want ot know if anyone finds this useful?
  -Spotlight, Now you can do quick actions right from Spotlight like starting a timer. Richer results in Spotlight and live text support.
  -Mail, it's getting a bunch of smart features like reminders and scheduled send. SO basically taking some of the best features of gmail. That's good news. New search features, autocorrect and typo corrections.
  -Safari, supports new web standards now. Shared tabs and tab groups. Passkeys (basically biometric replacements for passwords), Read:FIDO Alliance.
  - Metal 3, MetalFX upscalling (FSR but Apple)
  -Continuity, Factime Handoff, Camera Continuity (use an iPhone as a webcam), I'm just gonna say that this did exist in a form before, there is NeuralCam live and DroidCam. Centrestage, Portrait mode support, Silmultaneous top-down view using ultra-wide
  

• iPadOS
  - Weather comes to iPad,
  -Collab, basically "share with x" stuff
  -Free Form, basically a whiteboarding app
  -Reference colour mode
  -Virtual memory swap that allows apps to address up to 16GB of memory.
  -Stage Manager window management coming to iPad, along with full external display support.
  -Windows can now be resized, slid off to the left. Can have overlapping windows

Ho boy, that was a lot of stuff. I can see why now one's done WWDC for a couple years now. All in all though, this was indeed a rather good event. I will admitedly not be using a lot of the features listed here, but there are few. And there's ofc the new MBA which is looking real compelling except I'm a little miffed by the 200USD price jump. Also 256GB starting storage in 2022!?

Sources:

What happened:
Apple
TheVerge

Expectations:

Apple

Engadget (Quoted)

Engadget (Apple Watch 8 and watchOS 9)

Bloomberg (WatchOS 9, watch 8)
Twitter (iPadOS- resizable multi-tasking)
Bloomberg (iOS 16)

[williamcll]

As Usual, Apple is hodling their developer conference, which is mostly software focused and occasionally introducing new hardware.

This thread will update as more features are announced.

 

Quotes

Quote

Join developers worldwide from June 6 to 10 for an inspiring week of technology and community. Get a first look at Apple’s latest platforms and technologies in sessions, explore the newest tools and tips, and connect with Apple experts in labs and digital lounges. All online and at no cost.

 

My thoughts

TBA

 

Sources

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/

[TVwazhere]

Sorry @williamcll, J-from beat you to it. 

 

*moderator wizard powers*

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

M2? Don’t expect a giant leap in performance. The new system-on-chip is still believed to use eight CPU cores, and would bump up the GPU from a maximum of eight cores to 10. Any other speed boosts are more likely to come from minor architectural changes.

If that really is the case I wonder if Apple is mostly going for die area reduction, these current M1's are certainly on the big side so can't be all that cheap. Other parts of the SoC could have been a focus for improvements too like the Media Engines and Neural Engine, storage is probably getting an upgrade. PCIe 5.0 coming too?

[TetraSky]

Expecting more of the same things, but newer. 

The only new thing they might show is the AR thing, but I'm not expecting much from that.

Maybe they will sell another $999 charging stand for the AR glasses thing, that would certainly fit with the Apple vision of bending over their customers.

[SavageNeo]

18 minutes ago, leadeater said:

PCIe 5.0 coming too?

they will charge extra 1000 dollrs for that

[Commodus]

The lock screen upgrades in iOS 16 are huge in themselves. Somewhat overdue, but they're actually more advanced than many Android implementations. Reminds me more than a little of the Apple Watch UI. Probably setting up the framework for always-on display features on the iPhone 14 Pro.

[captain_to_fire]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

If that really is the case I wonder if Apple is mostly going for die area reduction, these current M1's are certainly on the big side so can't be all that cheap. Other parts of the SoC could have been a focus for improvements too like the Media Engines and Neural Engine, storage is probably getting an upgrade. PCIe 5.0 coming too?

I think the M2 is more likely a 5 nm++ (aka tock cycle) because of supply chain issues in China and the chip shortage. Chances are that the M2 in the MacBook Air will have the same core count (4E + 4P) but with an extra GPU core plus optimizations with power consumption and single threaded performance. It's also likely that it will still be an ARMv8 chip which is not a big deal considering the target audience of the MacBook Air and Mac mini. Perhaps the ARMv9 version will come to the M2 Pro and M2 Max.

[captain_to_fire]

M2 chip

• slightly larger die than M1
• Better power efficient performance
• Gen 2 5 nm ++ (20 billion transistors)
• 50% more memory bandwidth than M1
• 8 cores (4 performance + 4 efficiency)
• 1.9x faster than the 12th gen Intel chip in the Galaxy Book Pro
• 2.3x faster graphics than the integrated Intel graphics
• Newer media engine 8K HEVC, H.265 encode/decode

[DildorTheDecent]

TIL the Apple Campus is just various sets.

[WhitetailAni]

@J-from-Nucleon iOS 16 is supposed to drop support for A9 and A10 iPhones, or the 6S, 6S Plus, 7 and 7 Plus.

6S/Plus I was expecting, 7/Plus I was not.

[captain_to_fire]

Two reasons I can think on why the M2 chip is an incremental upgrade

• It only uses a gen 2 5 nm++ node
• Bringing huge performance gains to the M2 chip will cannibalize the MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max so they nerfed it

[8tg]

I liked typing out my reply only for the thread to get merged into another and my entire reply to be deleted.

thanks

 

tldr whats the audio specs, if they note “high impedance headphones”, to what extent are they going?

is this an integrated amp for more power hungry headphones, and an integrated dac for native DSD playback?

or are we talking the same specs my decade old thinkpad has, 192khz 24 bit audio and enough power to drive more demanding iems?

[Roswell]

4 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Two reasons I can think on why the M2 chip is an incremental upgrade

• It only uses a gen 2 5 nm++ node
• Bringing huge performance gains to the M2 chip will cannibalize the MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max so they nerfed it

You can't expect radical architectural advancements every cycle, nobody does that.

 

Apple historically doesn't care about lower end SKUs outperforming higher end ones either. M1 debuted on the low end, if they were concerned about it, they would have started with 16 inch MBPs, Mac Pro, iMac Pro, etc... but they didn't.

[williamcll]

I'm surprised at myself to think they would have made any innovations in software but no it's just them catch up to what Microsoft, google and tencent has done already.

[DildorTheDecent]

Poor choice of game trying to show off that player drop-in feature or whatever it was. Nobody plays NBA 2K22.

[Imbadatnames]

I can see a beta or two coming soon in my life 

[Roswell]

8 minutes ago, williamcll said:

I'm surprised at myself to think they would have made any innovations in software but no it's just them catch up to what Microsoft, google and tencent has done already.

Such as?

 

Nothing I saw them talk about really has any meaningful equivalent on PC.

[williamcll]

1 minute ago, Roswell said:

Such as?

 

Nothing I saw them talk about really has any meaningful equivalent on PC.

Collab-> Google docs/Office 365
Apple gaming -> Steam/EGS/GoG Galaxy

Literally only came to watch the stream to see if there's any good new hardware. Sucks there's no mention of Mac Pro.

[Roswell]

6 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Collab-> Google docs/Office 365
Apple gaming -> Steam/EGS/GoG Galaxy

Literally only came to watch the stream to see if there's any good new hardware. Sucks there's no mention of Mac Pro.

So out of the two hours of new software developments, you came to the conclusion that Apple is playing catch-up with the entire industry because... they're releasing a real-time whiteboard app? What? Kind of a weird thing hinge a flawed statement on.

 

Also, Apple has had gaming and gaming distribution services forever, not sure why you're even bringing that up.

[captain_to_fire]

Good to know that my 6th gen iPad with an A10 Fusion chip will still get iPadOS 16

 

Same goes for my iPhone Xr

 

Intel Macs with Skylake chips have reached the short end of the stick but hey at least macOS Ventura still supports Kaby Lake unlike Windows 11

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by captain_to_fire
chips

[Cyrus]

Still only one external monitor... MacBook Air with M2 chip - Tech Specs - Apple

[Commodus]

9 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Collab-> Google docs/Office 365
Apple gaming -> Steam/EGS/GoG Galaxy

Literally only came to watch the stream to see if there's any good new hardware. Sucks there's no mention of Mac Pro.

Mac Pro wasn't expected at this event; sounds like Apple didn't want to replace the Mac Pro until it had a newer architecture (or just needed more time to nail the upgrade).

 

As it stands, the new MacBook Air is pretty hot. I may need a new laptop soon, and a maxed-out Air might be a better buy for me than a 14-inch Pro (I don't really need a 120Hz screen). I don't need an SD card adapter that badly...

[captain_to_fire]

11 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Mac Pro wasn't expected at this event; sounds like Apple didn't want to replace the Mac Pro until it had a newer architecture (or just needed more time to nail the upgrade).

I think the Mac Pro will only be released when Apple will start using TSMC's 3 nm node and when Apple decided to use the ARMv9 instruction set which is important for the Mac Pro and its target audience like data scientists.

[WhitetailAni]

31 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Good to know that my 6th gen iPad with an A10 Fusion chip will still get iPadOS 16

They went with A9 and up for iPadOS

31 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Good to know that my 6th gen iPad with an A10 Fusion chip will still get iPadOS 16

Same goes for my iPhone Xr

But only A11 and up for iPhone (rip my iPhone 7)

31 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Intel Macs with Skylake chips have reached the short end of the stick but hey at least macOS Ventura still supports Kaby Lake unlike Windows 11

Ventura requires a T2 chip.