Tag: WWDC 2022

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The 5 most important announcements from WWDC 2022

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference featured a packed list of announcements that focused on anticipated features and updates. 

To help you recap, MobileSyrup has broken down some of the most important announcements in no particular order. 

Let’s get into it:

M2 chip

Apple’s next-generation M2 chip technology has a big focus on power efficiency. 

It has 20 billion transistors, features an 8-core CPU, and is built on 5nm architecture. Apple says the chip is 18 percent more powerful than its predecessor and features a graphics performance that’s 35 percent better.

More details are available here. 

MacBook Air 

The MacBook Air is one of the first devices to feature the M2 chip.

Image credit: Apple

The much-anticipated device has a 3.5mm headphone jack, two thunderbolt ports, and a MagSafe charger. The Liquid Retina display is also 25 percent brighter than its predecessor and measures 13.6-inches. It will be available in four colours: ‘Silver,’ ‘Space Grey,’ ‘Starlight’ and ‘Midnight.’ The new MacBook Air starts at $1,499 in Canada.

Read more about the MacBook Air’s refresh here. 

iOS 16

Apple’s latest mobile operating system will be available on the iPhone 8 and newer devices in the fall, and they’re a couple of things I’m excited about. 

The first is the lock screen. The new update will allow users to change the font, style, and colour of the clock. Pre-made lock screens, available through the Lock Screen gallery, also offer settings with widgets that users can edit. Weather conditions will also appear on the lock screen, and users can choose to add a rotating photo gallery. 

Speaking of photos, Apple has added a new iCloud Shared Photo Library to iOS 16. The feature allows users to share photo libraries through iCloud with up to six people. All members will be allowed to add, delete, and edit photos and videos.

For messages, users will be able to edit previously sent messages, undo them, and mark threads as unread. iOS will also feature ‘Dictation,’ allowing users to move between voice and touch when crafting a message. The keyboard will remain open while users speak. 

More details on iOS 16 are available here. 

Stage Manager

Apple didn’t reserve all of its newsworthy updates to iOS alone. macOS Ventura has a remarkable lineup of its own. One of the coolest features is ‘Stage Manager.’

Picture this: you’re deep into an important project, and you have dozens of windows open relating to one aspect of the project or another. “Organization” isn’t a term that applies in this case. 

Stage Manager changes this, organizing tabs and giving users quick access to the windows they need. As soon as you activate it, it arranges all windows to the side and puts the app you’re currently using front and center. 

Continuity Camera

Ever wanted to update the quality of a Mac’s webcam? Continuity Camera allows you to do so with the help of your iPhone.

Image credit: Apple

The new macOS Ventura feature will enable users to use their phone cameras as webcams through FaceTime and other video calling apps.

Learn more here. 

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Use your iPhone’s camera for videocalls on your Mac with ‘Continuity Camera’

While talking about the new macOS Ventura at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC 2022), Apple also showed off a useful new feature that will upscale video calls on your Mac. No, it’s not software upscaling, and instead, it adds a new piece of camera hardware to your Mac.

‘Continuity Camera’ is a new feature that lets you prop your iPhone on top of your Mac and use the smartphone’s camera for video calls on the Mac. “With the power of Continuity, Mac can automatically recognize and use the camera on iPhone when it is nearby — without the need to wake or select it — and iPhone can even connect to Mac wirelessly for greater flexibility,” reads Apple’s press release about the new feature.

But a crisper video is not all the feature offers. With Continuity Camera, users would be able to use Center Stage, Portrait mode and a new “Studio Light” effect that illuminates the user, while darkening the background.

Apple plans to release a Belkin stand for users to mount their iPhones on top of their Macs to use Continuity Camera seamlessly, though the stand isn’t an integral part of the feature (it’s also unclear how muchit will cost). Of course, duct taping your phone to your mac to hold it in place should work just fine.

macOS Ventura’s developer beta is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting now, while a wide rollout will take place later this fall.

For all of the Apple news from WWDC 2022, follow this link.

Image credit: Apple 

Source: Apple

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Mobile Syrup

Apple adds new features to Safari and Mail with macOS Ventura

At its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2022, Apple unveiled macOS 13, which the company is calling the macOS Ventura.

The new operating system (OS) is an upgrade from the last WWDC-revealed MacOS Monterey.

For starters, the new desktop OS will help you keep your device automatically organized with ‘Stage Manager.’ According to the Apple, when there are multiple windows open on your device, it makes it difficult to concentrate what you need to work on. With the new Stage Manager — which can be activated from ‘Control Center’ — the app you’re working on comes front and centre, while all other windows collapse to a tab on the side.

macOS Ventura

Image credit: Apple

This helps you cycle through multiple windows, and can even pair two windows together, like Pages and Notepad, making multitasking a breeze.

Additionally, you can click on your desktop to send all open windows to the tab on the side and focus on files on your desktop.

Next up is an update to Spotlight. Performing quick actions, like setting a timer, alert, reminder and more are easier now. You simply type what you want to do in Spotlight, and it launches that app for you. Additionally, the feature will also help users look up photos and files just by typing them out. The updated Spotlight experience is also coming to iPhone and iPad.

Mail is also getting a few new features that would make searing for information easier. But first, similar to the new un-send feature in iOS 16, you can now un-send mails, allowing you to redact an email before sending it out again. Users would also be able to schedule emails and set reminders to reply to received emails. Additionally, Mail search now supports autocorrect, making it easier to find those emails that you forgot about. The new Mail features are also coming to iOS and iPadOS.

macOS Ventura Spotlight

Image credit: Apple

Apple also introduced a new feature for Safari that would make collaborating with your friends easier. Safari, which Apple says is the “World’s fastest browser” and the “most power-efficient” on the new OS, now features “Shared Tab Groups,” allowing you and your friends to share a group of tabs and collaborate.

Once on a shared tab group, you’ll be able to see what tabs your friends are viewing/working on in real-time, whereas your friends would be able to add new tabs of their own.

Lastly, Apple envisions a “passwordless future,” and to make that idea a reality, the Cupertino, California-based company unveiled “Passkeys” as a replacement for traditional passwords. “Passkeys use powerful cryptographic techniques and the biometrics built into your device to keep [your] account safe,” said Darin Adler, VP, internet technologies at Apple, during the keynote.

To create a passkey, users would need to use Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate, and that is it. Once a passkey is created, a unique digital key is created that only works for the site it was created for. “Passkeys cant be phished since the passkey never leaves your devices, hackers cant trick you into sharing it on a fake website.

Passkeys can’t be leaked because nothing secret is kept on a web server,” said Adler.  Passkeys are securely synced across all Apple devices, including your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, and even work across platforms.

For all of the Apple news from WWDC 2022, follow this link.

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Mobile Syrup

Capcom confirms Resident Evil Village coming to Mac later this year

Capcom has confirmed that Resident Evil Village is coming to Mac later this year.

The announcement came during Apple’s WWDC 2022 keynote, in which the tech giant was touting the power of its Apple Silicon. Apple claims the processor has “changed everything” when it comes to gaming on Mac, and to demonstrate that, the company brought out Masaru Ijuin, Capcom’s advanced technical research division manager.

According to Ijuin, Silicon has allowed Capcom “to render amazing high-resolution visuals” for Village. On a MacBook Air M2, users will be able to play the survival horror game in 1080p, while the Mac Studio will support up to 4K resolution.

Resident Evil Village will come to Mac sometime “later this year.” The game was originally released in May 2021 on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Google Stadia.

More to come…

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Mobile Syrup

Apple adds M2 chip to MacBook Pro

Apple is bringing its M2 chip to the 13-inch MacBook Pro alongside its new MacBook Air.

The move will provide the device with an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU.

Working with raw images and apps like Affinity Photo will also be up to 40 percent faster than the last generation, says Apple. It’ll be three times faster if upgraded from a model that doesn’t have Apple silicon. Graphic intensive games, like Baldur’s Gate, will also be 40 percent faster.

There’s also support for ProRes encoding and decoding, allowing for video conversation to be three times faster than before.

The new MacBook Pro will also have an active cooling system and 24GB of unified memory along with 50 percent more memory bandwidth. The battery life allows for 20 hours of video playback

The MacBook starts at $1299 USD (roughly $1633 CAD). It will be available in the U.S. next month but it’s unclear when the laptop come to Canada. MobileSyrup has reached out to Apple for more information regarding Canadian pricing.

More to come…

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Apple adds new Watch Faces, sleep monitoring and medication tracking to WatchOS 9

At its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2022, Apple unveiled WatchOS 9 with a range of new features to keep you fit and healthy.

For starters, Apple showed off four new watch faces coming with WatchOS 9, including ‘Metropolitan,’ ‘Playtime,’ ‘Lunar Calendar and ‘Astronomy face.’ Additionally, the front-end bring a new Siri UI and banner notification for some of your favourite apps with WatchOS 9.

On the fitness side of things, Apple revealed that three new running form metrics are coming to the Workout app, which makes use of the Apple Watch’s accelerometer and gyro to establish your running form, ground contact time and stride length to determine whether you’re wasting energy while you’re running or not. In addition to the running form, the watch will also be able to detect your heart rate and categorize it into zones to determine your running intensity, and whether you need to slow down, take a rest or pick up the pace.

The fitness app will be available to all iPhone users running iOS 16, so you can track steps, flights climbed, estimate your total calories burnt and even you can share your results with friends without owning an Apple Watch.

To help keep you healthy while you’re not working out, Apple has also updated the Sleep app to help users learn more about sleep stages. The Watch uses the heart rate sensor and the built-in accelerometer to determine which sleep stage you were in at what time at night, including REM, Core and Deep sleep stages.

Additionally, Apple is also adding features to help people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFIB). With WatchOS 9, users would be able to track the time your heart shows symptoms of AFIB, time spent in AFIB, the time of day or week when AFIB was most active and the ability to share a PDF of your AFIB history directly with your doctor. According to Apple, it expects to “receive FDA clearance for AFIB soon.” It’s unclear when or if the feature will make its way to Canada.

Bolstering the Watch’s ability to keep you healthy, with WatchOS 9, users will now be able to keep a record of their medications, with alerts to notify you when you need to take a specific medication.

More to come…

Image credit: Apple

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Mobile Syrup

Apple reveals M2-powered MacBook Air with new design at WWDC 2022

During its annual developer conference keynote, Apple finally revealed its often-rumoured M2-powered MacBook Air.

The long-rumoured MacBook Air is poised to be a significant step forward for the iconic lightweight laptop line thanks to its powerful M2 chip and sleek, more squared-off design. The new laptop is 2.7 lbs and just 11.3mm thin. Regarding ports, it features a 3.5mm headphone jack, two thunderbolt ports and similar to the most recent MacBook Pro, the return of the MagSafe charger.

The laptop’s 25 percent brighter Liquid Retina display measures in at 13.6-inches thanks to its reduced bezels.

The new MacBook Air will be available in several colours, including ‘Silver,’ ‘Space Grey,’ ‘Starlight’ and ‘Midnight.’

We’ve reached out to Apple for the new MacBook Air’s official Canadian pricing and availability. MobileSyrup will have more on the new MacBook Air in the coming days.

More to come…

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Mobile Syrup

Say hello to Apple’s ‘power-efficient’ new M2 chip

Following months of rumours, Apple finally revealed the next-generation of its proprietary chip technology, the M2.

The successor to the M1 will offer a number of notable new features, with an emphasis on “power-efficient performance.”

The chip features over 20 billion transistors and is built on 5nm architecture. The M2 also features an 8-core CPU, including four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, says Apple. It’s GPU features 10-cores alongside a larger cache and higher memory bandwidth.

Apple M2 Chip screenshot

The chip is overall 18 percent more powerful than the M1. Graphics performance comes up to 35 percent better than the M1.

Image credit: Apple

More to come…

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Apple CarPlay gets a new look and new features at WWDC

Apple revealed a new version of CarPlay at WWDC that looks to push the phone-based infotainment system to new heights.

The new version can connect to your car and then adapts to cover all screens. This includes your instrument cluster, A/C controls, standard infotainment and everything else.

During the presentation, Apple showed off a bunch of screenshots of the new CarPlay, and it looks incredible. For years traditional automakers have struggled to keep their infotainment software looking modern and now Apple has decided to take things into its own hands.

Users can even control radio playback!

There are no vehicles currently on the market that support this new system, but Apple and automakers will announce what vehicles will support the new in-car software standard next year. That being said, Apple did show a list of approved automakers that plan to work with the new CarPlay. Interestingly, Polestar is on this list, and it currently uses an in-car system built on top of Android.

The new CarPlay is incredibly ambitious since it still plans to run the system from a phone. This is unlike the new Android Automotive infotainment backbone. I’m hesitant to say that it will be more widely adopted because of this but that remains to be seen. Now that Apple has a full in-car infotainment/control software system it might be even close to releasing the Apple car.

More to come… 

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Apple refreshes Home app with new design across iPhone iPad and Mac

During its WWDC 2022 keynote, Apple revealed a refreshed Home app with a new user interface.

Along with what seems to be a more user-friendly design, Apple confirmed that the app now supports Matter, a burgeoning smart home connectivity standard. Google made a similar announcement regarding its smart home efforts and Matter at I/O 2022.

The refreshed app is set to feature a new way to access security cameras and seems to be pushing toward smart home devices better understanding what users actually want their devices to be doing rather than just blindly following commands.

More to come…