WWDC 16: first impressions from the scene

A month ago, Google I / O was held, where the most interesting announcements concerned data services and smart systems. Now Apple's time has come: let's see what new things have been prepared for consumers and developers by a company that does not recognize compromises. Keynote was not held at the Moscone Center, as usual, but already at the Bill Graham Auditorium, a historic building in the middle of the San Francisco Civic Center. Usually, the company’s consumer news is presented here, but this time they invited developers. As always, the first place in the line should be taken one day, and two hours before the presentation, you can get up somewhere in the middle of a crowd of 5,000 developers.



In this report, I ( mc_murphy ) gathered information from two presentations: Keynote and Platform State of the Union, to talk about all the announcements of the first day.

tvOS

Perhaps the least updates in tvOS, in fact, the platform simply repaired what irritated users from the very beginning:

1. Finally, they added Single Sign-On for applications, so that you did not need to constantly log in to the browser on the desktop or enter passwords
2. In the interface you can activate night mode
3. Applications purchased on the AppStore on other devices will automatically download on AppleTV
4. Siri will learn to search inside some applications, for example, YouTube
5. The changes will affect games, where it will be possible to connect up to 4 external controllers and require their availability
6. Remote application on iPhone promises to bring to mind and repeat the interface of the native controller Siri Remote
7. From the console, it will be possible to control smart home devices connected via HomeKit, and the piece of iron will serve as a hub for the iPhone and iPad while the user is outside the home network

watchOS

The corporation does not know what to do with the watch, but has done serious work on the bugs.

1. Applications will finally launch instantly. Of course, this applies to those services that the system has identified as priority and prepared in advance, but the speed is impressive - especially compared to the 5-10 second launch on watchOS 2.
2. The button on the side will now show not a meaningless circle with friends to whom you can send your heartbeat, but a full-fledged Dock with applications, similar to the story in iOS. The system will keep all these applications in a “hot” state, and screenshots will always provide relevant information. This will also be a replacement for Glances, which with their speed and outdated data only annoyed.
3. But instead of Glances, there will be only the Control Center, everything is like in an iPhone
4. Scribble will now be available for text input, reminiscent of the failure of Apple Newton (1993). The idea is clearly not new, and the implementation looks doubtful. But there’s nothing to do, it’s not always the same to say during hours to dial SMS.
5. Apple took seriously wheelchair users and added hand movement recognition to the chair. Now all this will be in Activity.
6. Well and number 1 on senselessness - the Breathe application. Helps with breathing meditation. So what’s past the checkout, is to talk about this at a conference for developers.

macOS

OS X was renamed to macOS. This is not to say that it was a secret, and the full name is macOS Sierra. If in the mobile sector the movement is nose-to-nose, the desktop macOS is now ahead of the rest. This can be said about usability, and about design, and about integration with wearable devices.

1. The theme continues with Continuity: now the poppy will automatically unlock if the user comes up with an iPhone or Apple Watch.
2. Clipboard will work between all devices. Looks especially cool with copying images.
3. iCloud Drive will now work for all applications, not just signed from the Mac appstore.
4. As more and more users pay for cloud storage, Apple came up with the Optimize Storage mode - this is when the system itself decides what to put in iCloud and what to store on disk for now. Frees up the place pretty well.
5. ApplePay is now fully included in macOS. You can pay for purchases on the Internet, and operations through Siri. And security is provided by the TouchID on the nearest iPhone or the presence of AppleWatch.
6. MacOS introduced system tabs. They promise that they will work in general in all applications not only from Apple itself, but also from third-party developers. If you used NSDocument, then even adaptation is not required.
7. For video, the Picture-in-Picture mode will become available, like on an iPad
8. And, of course, the main news is Siri on the poppy. Able to do the same as on iOS, and even work with files and documents: search for them, filter, and so on.

iOS 10

The largest number of updates, traditionally, in iOS. It can be seen that here the most intense struggle for the client leads to useful improvements and curious services.

1. For the first time since the announcement of iOS7, something has apparently changed in the interface. Now notifications look and work like adults, they support third-party application interface components. The lock screen and toolbar have been updated, and system applications can be removed and reinstalled from the app.
2. Siri is now open to developers, it will be possible to order uber by voice command. Unfortunately, there is not much information yet, but, apparently, there will be no magic - this thing works only for pre-trained domains (ordering services, sending messages, fitness, etc.), and you can only customize it within very narrow limits. In general, a full-fledged AI with machine learning will not be available to us, the developers only set the dictionary and provide their own visual interface.
3. There is growing concern that Apple will miss the “next revolution” in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Unlike Google, they often rely on hardware and usability. However, this time some of the news looks quite modern: Siri is now integrated into the keyboard and can give smart tips, analyze applications and display contextual actions - in general, it behaves almost like Google Now.
4. Photos application now does what Google Photos does. Recognizes plots, faces, and objects. A lag of about a year.
5. Now you can add your own components to the system application of cards: for example, ordering a taxi, flowers and anything else. This is done using the familiar NSUserActivity and AppExtensions, just like Spotlight, Siri, and many other places in iOS 10.
6. My favorite feature is the ability of VoIP applications (Skype, Viber, etc.) to integrate into system dialing dialogs, contacts, call history, etc. As messengers replaced SMS at the time, VoIP will replace voice calls through telecom operators.
7. Apple could not resist and also stuffed a bunch of everything into its iMessage. I won’t tell in detail, but there were stickers, animations and full-screen effects, emojis and auto-replace with emojis, formatting and pre-opening links. But the most important thing is the ability to embed your applications. Yes, through Extensions. For example, you can send money via chat or choose a restaurant together. All this looks much better and more mature than Facebook Messenger or Telegram, as it is done completely natively. And here lies the main minus: on Android this was never announced. This, of course, is a sentence.

Developer Tools & Frameworks

There is still a lot of news for developers on Swift, tools and Xcode, new frameworks, etc. Apple has developed its AFS file system, completely redesigned the application signing system during assembly (it was a pain!), Made a simulator for developing applications in iMessage, tried to bring Swift Package Manager to mind and much more.
But most of the facts to be learned this week.