To say that Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, which concluded early this morning, was jam packed with announcements, would be an Apple Park-sized understatement. Apple made its long-awaited foray into mixed reality headsets with the Vision Pro, launched a new 15-inch MacBook Air, and updated the last remaining Pro desktops to Apple Silicon chips. Not to forget announcing significant upgrades across its watchOS, iPadOS, iOS, macOS and tvOS platforms that will hit a device near you this September-ish. As I start to delve deeper into the software updates, here's my quick breakdown of what was announced and what in particular caught my eye.
That Apple reserved its "One more thing…" to launch the Vision Pro towards the end of the keynote speaks volumes about how much potential Apple foresees for its mixed reality headset. And the hype that has preceded this announcement over the past year. In its essence, the ski-goggles-shaped headset has a pair of 4K displays, one in each eyepiece, nearly a dozen cameras and sensors that accurate track your hands and the environment for input and 3D image capture. All of this is powered by an Apple M2 chip and a companion R1 chip.
Slipping the Vision Pro on, you’re presented with visionOS, a boundless three dimensional interface that’s designed from the ground up for what Apple calls ‘spatial computing’, or the ability to make apps float anywhere in the environment, while leaving the wearer aware enough of the environment say when others are around. The mixed reality interface can work independently to play games and run apps and watch movies in what can only be described as a personal movie theater.
However, it can as well be coupled with a Mac to have an expansive display for everyday computing. A twist of the Apple Watch-esque digital crown lets the wearer control how present or immersed they are in the environment and an external screen appropriately shows your eyes or hides them when they’re plugged in. Definitely gives off some Black Mirror vibes, but very cool nonetheless.
Consumption is only one half of the Vision Pro story, as the three-dimensional cameras let users capture and relive memories with Spatial Audio or take part in spatially enabled FaceTime calls (with photorealistic personas). It can be powered by plugging directly into a power source, or last up to two hours of use with its external wired battery pack. There’s even the provision to add corrective lenses for folks with spectacles. If it sounds futuristic, it pretty much is – the headset was only on display at the event, with US availability only in early 2024 for $3,499 (no information on when and if this will launch in India).
While the Vision Pro might have been the announcement for the 1%, the announcement and next-week availability of the 15-inch MacBook Air will likely appeal to the remaining 99%. Apple’s taken everything that worked well in the existing 13-inch MacBook Air, including the refreshed Pro-inspired design that we saw on the M2 Air last year. Apple has further supersized it into a 15.3-inch display form factor with a slightly longer 18-hour battery life. It’s being billed as the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop at 0.45-inches thick and 1.5kgs in weight. The new MacBook Air comes with a new six-speaker sound system for Spatial Audio along with a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, MagSafe charging, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. It is available to ship starting June 13th starting at Rs. 1,34,900.
Apple’s transition away from Intel chips may have taken a bit longer than initially planned. However, with the Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra chip, that transition for the entire Mac lineup to in-house Apple Silicon is complete. Sure, it shares the same cheese grater design as the previous generation. But with its 24-core processor and 76-core graphics and up to 192GB of memory, the Mac Pro (starts Rs. 7,29,900) is a claimed three times faster. There are seven PCIe slots for the expansion needs of pro users. The Mac Studio (starts Rs. 2,09,900), on the other hand, takes last year’s small form factor desktop and upgrades it with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips and a higher bandwidth HDMI port that supports 8K resolution and 240Hz refresh rates.
iOS by far offered the most interesting lineup of features, from prettying up the incoming call and call contact interfact with contact posters, to live transcription for voicemail so you can attend the call if it’s important. Messages have far more powerful sticker functionality and voice notes get transcription. You can even do location-based check-in with friends, ensuring you get notified when they reach home. FaceTime now has missed call video messages, you can share your contact information over AirDrop simply by bringing your iPhones (or an iPhone and an Apple Watch) together (appropriately named “NameDrop”).
Siri now gets support for back-to-back commands without having to repeatedly invoke the "Siri" keyword and autocorrect includes sentence-level correction as well as predictive text to complete your sentences faster. A new Journal app in iOS 17 lets you document your activities and thoughts with location, music and photos, while new mood tracking in the Health app can help you identify medically relevant emotional changes. Turn your iOS17-running iPhone into landscape orientation and the phone becomes a smart display through the StandBy feature, which shows useful info on widgets and dims the display if it's charging overnight.
With watchOS 10, Apple Watch will see its first interface revamp, including smart stacked widgets for timers, music and any other content that you can quickly switch between by spinning the Digital Crown. Cyclists will dig the bike sensor support as well as heart rate and power data, while off-the-grid hikers will like the automatic waypoint creation for emergencies as well as topographical maps (including trail searching) and 3D waypoints. A new addition to the health tracking capabilities is the ability to track your mood and see how factors like sleep, exercise and other metrics have contributed to your overall mental health score.
While a lot of the iPadOS updates were playing catch up with iOS (interactive widgets, Health app), the big announcements were around the Notes app now supporting collaboration and annotating PDFs. iPadOS 17 uses machine learning to identify fields in a PDF so that users can quickly add details, such as names, addresses, and emails from Contacts. The Journal app makes it over from iOS as well.
The annual macOS refresh adds Apple TV-style video screensavers and iOS-style interactive widgets on the desktop as well (as opposed to just the control center where they resided earlier) that can sync with your iPhone apps for glanceable updates. Folks using video conferencing tools can now enjoy a Presenter Overlay, which places a presenter on top of the content being shared, and Reactions, which enables fun gesture-triggered video effects in cinematic quality.
Safari sees new anti-tracking measures and the ability to turn your favorite websites into web apps, and there’s a new Game Mode, which prioritises performance to games with smoother and more consistent frame rates, by ensuring games get the highest priority on the CPU and GPU while reducing latency with AirPods or connected controllers. Apple showed off early previews of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding Director’s Cut and the gameplay/visuals was far beyond what one has seen on Mac gaming thus far.
Apple TV got a handy upgrade with tvOS 17 users getting the ability to have FaceTime calls on the TV using an iPhone, so the whole family can gather around the TV for the family call when tvOS 17 releases this fall. The second generation AirPods Pro is also getting a new Adaptive Audio feature that adjusts active noise cancellation and transparency modes based on the ambient noise in the environment, and even automatically lower the volume when you start speaking to someone else.
(Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar.)