Apple’s WWDC conference has been taking place all this week. And all week long, Apple has revealed — and people have discovered on their own — countless details about what is coming this Fall to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc. I’ve tried to capture some of the highlights in today’s post. I find myself wishing that I could jump to September to take advantage of all of the new features now. You can also get an early taste of the future if you enroll in Apple’s public beta program, which I suspect that Apple will open up before the end of this month, but I virtually always avoid installing beta system software on the devices that I use to get work done every day. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Voice-to-text dictation works differently in iOS 15, and attorneys will especially appreciate what is new. The process now runs on your device, which has at least three advantages. First, it is a little faster. Second, the words you say don’t leave your device and go up to an Apple server, which provides additional privacy. Third, there is no longer a time limit on how long you can speak. California attorney David Sparks has installed the beta and tried it out. He created a fantastic video that shows you how the new and old systems work, side-by-side.
- Sparks also talks about the new Focus Mode coming in iOS 15.
- Attorneys can do a good job of identifying the tiny details that are important. Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories came up with a great list of small details in iOS 15 that are significant, even if they are not yet getting much attention.
- Voorhees also discusses the new privacy controls coming to iOS 15.
- Apple announced the winners of its 2021 Apple Design Awards yesterday. All of the winning apps look very impressive.
- Is this the right time to buy an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.? Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal provides the answers. (As a reminder, if you subscribe to Apple’s News+ service, you can read Wall Street Journal articles by using the steps I noted at the bottom of this post.)
- Earlier this week, I discussed Apple’s addition of spatial audio to the Apple Music service. Micah Singleton of Billboard interviews Eddy Cue of Apple to discuss spatial audio. (You can also read Billboard articles in News+)
- Chris Welch of The Verge wrote a great article about spatial audio and Dolby Atmos and noted that the quality of the track depends upon decisions made by the engineers who create each Dolby Atmos track. He provides examples of tracks that are done well and tracks that are either worse or different, depending upon your perspective.
- Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac notes that in iOS 15, you can choose to simulate spatial audio for stereo tracks.
- There are lots of improvements to FaceTime in iOS 15. In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell provides a good overview of the improvements to FaceTime.
- Dave Hamilton of The Mac Observer does a great job explaining Apple’s iCloud Private Relay service that will be a part of iOS 15 this Fall for folks with iCloud+ (any tier of the paid iCloud accounts). Attorneys and others interested in privacy and security will be interested in this feature, which in some ways offers even more security than using a private VPN. For example: “Where it differs is that a VPN is generally just one server between you and the website you’re visiting. With a VPN, your traffic takes the route of You <> VPN Server <> Website. Private Relay adds another server to the mix, which ensures that no one in the chain—not even Apple—can see the whole picture: You <> Apple’s ingress server <> Content Provider’s Egress Server <> Website.”
- Killian Bell of Cult of Mac describes the new Digital Legacy feature in the upcoming iCloud+ which lets you designate another person who can access your Apple data after you die.
- iOS 15 will provide preliminary support for Matter, a new smart home standard that will allow you to work with a wide range of smart devices, as opposed to the situation today where we have Apple’s HomeKit and many competing standards. Dan Moren of Six Colors provides an overview of Matter.
- Chance Miller of 9to5Mac points out that AirPrint is improved in iOS 15.
- If you watched the WWDC Keynote video earlier this week, every presenter was wearing an Apple Watch. And if you pay close attention, you can see that every single one of them said that the time was 10:09. Why? This article from Steve Tweedie of Business Insider (written back in 2015) explains the most likely theories for why Apple always uses 10:09 on the Apple Watch. It is an interesting attention to detail.
- Alex Guyot provides a great overview of the new features in watchOS 8 in an article for MacStories.
- If you are in the market to upgrade the Wi-Fi in your home or office, I’m a big fan of the eero. I reviewed the eero Pro last year, which sells for $499 for three units. But there is a big sale on Amazon on all eero devices right now, so you can get the system that I still use and love for only $349 right now. That’s an absolute steal for a fantastic system. Many other eero devices are also on sale.
- Here is an interesting commercial for the Apple Watch in Japan.
- And finally, the Apple TV+ service has some great shows coming soon including fan-favorite Ted Lasso. Here is a short preview of what is coming soon: