On Monday, June 02, 2014, Tim Cook and Company took the stage at Moscone Center in San Francisco to open the annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). Many new features and solutions were announced and will be available shortly. Below is a summary of the announcements made.
Introduction
- Tim Cook takes the stage
- 25th anniversary of WWDC
- Over 1,000 engineers on-site
- Attendees from 69 countries
- Youngest developer in attendance is 13 years old
- More than 9 million registered developers
- "We're here to talk about OS X and iOS"
- PC industry shrunk by 5% while the Mac grew by 12%
- Current Mac install base is over 80 million
- Since October, Mavericks has been installed by more than 40 million users (51%)
OS X Yosemite
- Craig Federighi takes the stage
- "Over the years, OS X has evolved to the refined look that it is today"
- Window toolbars refined to be cleaner and include translucency
- "Your Windows take on the personality of your Desktop"
- Focused on concise and consistent typography throughout the OS
- New "dark mode" helps to reduce the amount of bright colors for those that like focus
- Refined Notifications Center includes a new "today" view showing your calendar, weather and more
- Spotlight has a new interface starting with the search field in a prominent location (middle of the screen)
- Spotlight alsto searches more than just local hard drives... searches online resources
- New iCloud Drive allows quicker access to online storage (similar to Dropbox)
- iCloud Drive content is accessible from Mac, iOS and Windows
- Mail in Yosemite is more efficient and cleaner with more stable syncing
- Mail also includes "Mail Drop", allowing you to send large files via email... up to 5 GB
- "Markup" allows you to add annotations to images and PDFs right in Mail
- Safari smart search field now includes your favorites and Spotlight recommendations
- Sharing is more powerful with the new Safari
- New tab view gives you a bird's eye view of your browser tabs
- Up to 2 hours longer battery when streaming Netflix video at 1080p, thanks to improved HTML5 support
- New "Continuity" features
- AirDrop now works between iOS and Mac (yay!)
- "Handoff" allows you to begin working on an email or document on one device then seamlessly continue on another device
- "Instant Hotspot" makes using your iOS device for Internet connection easier than ever
- Text messages (SMS) now work on your Mac (yes!)
- You can also make and receive phone calls on your Mac (awesome!)
- Yosemite will be available to the public in the Fall for free
- Public beta program available this Summer
iOS 8
- Sold over 800 million iOS devices to date, generating records in sales
- Many new iOS customers are switchers from Android, "looking for a better experience"
- Overall iOS 7 satisfaction rating... 97%
- 99% of mobile malware targets Android
- Notifications Center has been refined and includes interactivity
- New tab view and sidebar in Safari for iOS
- Mail for iOS now allows you to begin a message, swipe down to access another email, then resume the initial email
- Spotlight now searches online resources (including App Store, iTunes Store, Wikipedia, etc)
- "QuickType" is predictive typing for iOS (can even complete your sentences based on your personality)
- Messages now allows you to rename a conversation thread
- You can "silence" noisy threads (Do Not Disturb)
- "Tap to Talk" allows you to quickly send audio/video messages to others in a conversation thread
- iOS for enterprise has been enhanced with extra security and enterprise-grade features
- New HealthKit platform allows developers to develop health-centric apps (lots of potential)
- "Family Sharing" is an easy way to share calendars, reminders, photos and more between family members (up to 6)
- Family Sharing also allows you to share apps and iTunes content amongst family members (finally!)
- Family Sharing works with others who share the same credit card info, and can even ask a parent if it's ok to purchase content
- New Photos app/service allows you to access every photo you have ever taken, right on your device
- New Photos app also has great image editing built-in (lighting, straightening, etc)
- Photos for iOS and Mac OS X will feature full-res images and access to videos
- Begin using Siri by saying "Hey, Siri"... no touch required
- Improved support for Chinese maps, lunar calendar, etc
- Time Cook takes the stage to discuss developer updates
- App Store now has over 1.2 million apps available; more than 300 million unique visitors each week
- More than 75 billion apps downloaded to date
- "We're making great strides to greatly improve the user experience in the App Store"
- App Store will allow you to purchase app bundles
- App Store will allow developers to create short videos to show off their apps
- App Store will allow developers to offer app trials via "TestFlight"
- Latest SDK is the biggest release since the initial launch of the App Store
- iOS will be available to the general public in the Fall for free
Xcode 6
- Craig Federighi takes the stage
- "Extensions" in iOS 8 is huge news for developers
- Developers are now able to develop widgets for Notifications Center
- Ability to install system-wide 3rd-party keyboards
- Touch ID will be available on ALL iOS devices with the release of new iPads
- 3rd-party apps can now take advantage of Touch ID
- Touch ID is still completely secure and safe
- New Camera APIs, allowing greater granular control
- "HomeKit" is a new platform for home automation aggregation, simplifying the space
- HomeKit offers secure pairing and Siri integration
- "Metal" is a new 3D graphic standard with improved 3D processing power
- "SceneKit" is a 3D scene render designed for casual games
- Xcode 6 (the tool used for Mac and iOS development) has been upgraded with many new tools
- Xcode includes support for a new coding language called "Swift", developed by Apple
- Swift is much more efficient that Objective-C" (developer crowd goes wild)
- Swift eliminates many common programming errors
- Swift and Objective-C can coexist in the same application
- Xcode 6 will be available in the Fall for free
Tim Cook closes the keynote by thanking the thousands of Apple employees and countless 3rd-party developers for all their hard work.
All in all, it was 2 hours packed with lots of great information, especially for developers. If you were hoping for hardware updates/releases, you will probably be disappointed. This announcement was focused on software advances.
You can watch the keynote in its entirety here.
