WWDC 2019

As I wrote over the weekend, I was simply looking for three things out of WWDC this year. And I got three things out of WWDC. And then some! Which is to say, I thought it was a good event. Yes, it was a tad long, but unlike the previous long events, it didn’t feel too long. Which is more than I can say about Apple’s ability to upload the video of the event in a timely manner.¹

To recap, I was looking for Apple to address:

1. The unchaining of the iPad
2. The “Marzipan” situation
3. The end of iTunes

On point one, early indications are that this is exactly what I was looking for. Not only did Apple unveil a new version of iOS more tailored for the iPad — complete with a new name: iPadOS! — but Apple specifically called out the end of iPhone-tailored sites on the device. Which is to say, we’re seemingly finally getting a real web browser on the device. And yes, mouse support (albeit buried).

On the second point, we got “Project Catalyst” — the apparent heir to “Marzipan”.² This is specifically to turn iPad apps into Mac apps. Which makes sense and is in line with Mark Gurman’s previous reports (one can presume that iPhone app conversion will come down the road). Apple acknowledged that they’ve “learned a lot” from the first — read: bad — version of such apps. And they’re apparently now comfortable enough to open this capability to all developers. And with that, Twitter for Mac was resurrected, once again!

On point three, iTunes is in fact dead. This is long overdue and the tea leaves have suggested this was coming. But it’s still an important milestone. A true end of an era. And Craig Federighi did a bang-up job seeing it out with humor: “If there’s one thing we hear over and over: ‘can iTunes do even more?’”. Well done. And done.

Some other observations:

Apple once again kicked things off with a video and once again that video highlighted the old school MacBooks with the glowing Apple logo. We all clearly miss this version of the MacBook, but I’m starting to wonder if Apple misses it most of all.

‘Hardware + Software + Services’ is the mantra Apple now must spell out on stage each time they take said stage, just in case that wasn’t abundantly clear.

Apple TV

Apple still declined to give specific launch windows for Apple Arcade (“later this year”), Apple Card (“this summer”), TV+ (“this fall”) — even the Mac Pro is still “later this year”. It’s like the have PTSD over the AirPower debacle or something. We did, however, finally get an actual trailer for a TV+ show — For All Mankind from Ron Moore (the creator of Battlestar Galactica — the newer version). It looks solid. Has a very Man in the High Castle vibe. I wonder if Apple thinks this is clearly one of their “winners” in the first original shows batch. Cook noted that he’s “gotten an early look at the entire season”.

Cook also made a rather half-hearted case for the Apple TV 4K as we’re about to enter the age of TV+ being everywhere. The new tvOS looks — fine? Slightly better? The multi-user support is cool, I guess. But it just highlights the fact that this still isn’t on the iPad!

The bigger news is support for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers. This was absolutely necessary before the launch of Apple Arcade. (And part of the reason why I still think Apple should buy Nintendo.) No one was going to use that crappy remote to play games they’re paying good money for. And the other third-party controllers are rather meh. Is there any doubt that Apple is working on their own controller? They could even bundle it with an Apple Arcade subscription…

Oh and new screensavers. Under the sea. Love those screensavers.

Apple Watch

Look, I like my Apple Watch. I’ve worn it every day since it launched all those years ago. And I think it has found its niche (health + notifications). But am I the only one who feels like every watchOS update announcement in the past few years has been the exact same? Kevin Lynch comes on stage and talks about new watch faces, some new bands, and some new health-related updates. I’m not sure he has to do more, but they honestly all just blend together in my brain.

That said, this year we did get bird sounds.

It is cool that you can have apps that don’t require an iPhone counterpart now. And I may actually use Voice Memos. Calculator is fun for nostalgic reasons, if nothing else. When he noted that software updates would happen on the watch now, it wasn’t clear if he meant apps or watchOS itself. If it’s the latter, that’s potentially huge since it still takes roughly 45 days to update your Apple Watch via your iPhone.

Also, I’m not entirely sure this is a “fetch” situation, but Lynch kept calling Apple Watch just “Watch” over and over again…

iOS 13

This just in, for the 75th year in a row, iOS has beaten Android in the latest OS adoption rates. I think there’s a way to highlight why this is important, and Cook almost gets there, but still misses it. Luckily, Craig Federighi appeared on stage with the jokes.

Impressive to hear how much more performance Apple has apparently squeezed out of iOS ahead of new hardware in the fall. FaceID improvements seem especially important. But don’t overlook the app downsizing element — Facebook, an app where people share baby photos and conspiracy theories, should only be about 3GB now instead of the usual 13GB.

Dark Mode, which was the worst kept secret in the world, got its own video! It’s cool, and overdue. I still want to know what it means for apps that build their own dark modes. Double Dark Mode?!

Typing-by-swiping was mentioned as a total aside, which makes sense given that Apple is something like a decade behind the ball here.

I’m glad Reminders was re-written from the ground up. I use the app, but it’s way, way, way too basic, as is. I would have liked to see Notes get a new icon.

Apple continues to push the Maps improvements — also nearly a decade after messing them up so badly — but it’s still clearly just playing catch up to Google Maps. This was made even more clear this year when they unveiled… Street View, er Binoculars, or whatever. And then immediately took a shot at Google, to boot: “there’s no need to flip a switch to respect your privacy”. That said, locking down location sharing with apps is the right play and call here.

Mainly I just want to know if Search is even just 1% better in Maps. Can they, say, know that I’m unlikely to be searching for some restaurant in Iowa if I’m in San Francisco and a restaurant nearby has the same name…

Sign in with Apple! John Gruber and I correctly predicted this without knowing it a few weeks back. This was a legitimate surprise. And a great new feature. Yes, it’s weird if Apple is going to make apps use it — they should make it so good that users demand that apps use it. Because I think they would! I’m really happy they’re doing this.

The most interesting thing about the HomeKit security camera element is that apparently the HomePod — the HomePod — can process the videos so they don’t have to go to the cloud. That’s cool! That may be the most useful feature of the HomePod! I kid, but also I don’t!

HomeKit enabled routers from Amazon-owned Eero? Sign me up. But also remind me why on Earth Apple dropped the ball so badly with this business?

All I got from the Messages portion is that Apple has some real Bitmoji envy. (And who doesn’t?) And the new Memoji stuff looks good! Love that you can now add AirPods to your avatar — savvy move, Apple. The beauty influencers bit was sort of funny too!

The new updates to Photos also look good but again just highlight how far behind Google they have been. Basically, all of these features are a key part of Google Photos. And Google does ML better, at least so far, so… we’ll see!

Speaking of, the Siri updates seem fine. Responding to messages via AirPods is great if it works as well as it did in that video. Audio sharing via AirPods is also great. Basically, AirPods are great. I’m less clear about Siri. Her new, more human-like voice, does sound good, literally. I’ve long wondered why Apple’s “Alex” voice sounds so much better than Siri. She’s getting closer…

And live radio! Wait. What? Is Apple’s telegraph service coming next?

HomePod can now recognize who is talking. Which is great for both of the users of the HomePod.

I feel like Apple should have done a lot more to play up the phone call message spam issue they’re addressing! It seems like everyone on the planet has this issue. And it’s only getting worse. I worry Apple’s solution isn’t all that good, which is why they’re downplaying it…

iPadOS

Where to begin? This was undoubtedly my favorite part of the keynote because I use the iPad so much. And undoubtedly as a result, I’m beyond frustrated with certain things about the iPad — namely, the fact that Safari on the device largely operates as it does as if this were a big iPhone. That is finally changing, it seems.

Also changing: the silly way that Apple has embiggened the app icons on the iPad and spaced them out more to take up the screen. Now app icons appear to be the same size that they are on an iPhone. Which makes sense, your fingers do not get larger when using an iPad, so you don’t need the bigger touch target.

As a result, you can also fit more apps on the screen — 6x6 versus 4x5. And this means that when you rotate the device, the apps are in the same general alignment. Funny that.

The fact that you can pin widgets on the home screen also makes widgets roughly 100% more interesting.

The different ways you can switch between apps and run them side-by-side seems… a little more confusing than it was. And it was already confusing. But I suppose this is all power user stuff, so I’m totally on board.

Files have become more file-y. Thumb drives now work. Camera imports work better. It’s almost like they’re making iPadOS a lot more like a cross between iOS and macOS. And again, I’m totally on board.

Speaking of, back to Safari. Federighi called it “desktop-class browsing” on the iPad. Which is amusing because why on Earth didn’t Apple do this years ago?! Clearly, the iPad has been powerful enough for a long time to run “desktop class” apps, and it’s not like Safari is the most complex app of all time. It is a web browser. The fact that I can now, say, edit and publish on a site like Medium on my iPad just as I could on my Mac is a funny sentence to write in 2019. Yet here we are. Finally.

Custom fonts. Download managers. You can now move the cursor with your finger, like you should have always been able to! Previously, you had to be a wizard that knew a special kind of ninja move to execute such devilry. Speaking of ninja move devilry — you can now copy and paste with a gesture! And you no longer need to run the risk of throwing your iPad through a window in order to undo an action.

I could go on and on — shrink the keyboard with a pinch to use it with one hand! — but I’ve already basically given a play-by-play of this portion of the announcement. Again, the iPad is becoming much more Mac-like both in style and substance. And I’m thrilled about this.

Mac Pro

Speaking of — Tim came back to talk about the Mac. “We love the Mac!,” he said in a way that implied most people think they do not in fact love the Mac. And that’s at least partially Apple’s own fault, with years of missteps and neglect. And so it’s no surprise that the company decided to devote a large portion to something they don’t typically do at WWDC: hardware. Yes, the new Mac Pro.

The thing looks fantastic. It’s both elegant and alien. It looks more like the cheese-grater Pro of old than the trash can Pro of new, but it also just looks different. It definitely looks “Pro”.

And the specs seems decidedly pro. The loudest gasp was after the mention of the 1.4kW power supply. Apple finally has remembered who the audience is for such an event! I mean, the thing has optional wheels. Well done, Apple.

I didn’t count how many times the company mentioned that this new Mac Pro was expandable, modular, flexible, configurable, expandable, expandable, expandable, and expandable, but it was at least two dozen times.

If there was one misstep, it was that they should have saved the reveal of the new monitor for after they went through the Pro specs. It would have been a killer one-two punch. Instead, we could all see the “Pro Display XDR” in plain sight before it was mentioned.

It was smart to compare this screen to the $40k reference monitors. It takes some of the sting out of a $5k monitor. Not quite enough out of the $5k monitor plus the $1k stand (WHAT ON EARTH?!), but almost. When the price of the stand was revealed, there were laughs in the audience. Those were either because people thought it was a joke or because it was just “so Apple”. It was, of course, so Apple. Assuming you want the stand, the Pro Display XDR — come on, Apple, you could have done better on the name, Cinema Display was great back in the day! — will cost you the same as the entry-level Mac Pro.

MacOS Catalina

Tim came back to bring Craig back.³ It was time for macOS Catalina.⁴ And he didn’t beat around the bush: it was time to kill iTunes. It was a nice moment (see: up top).

Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV makes a lot more sense in 2019 than iTunes does. I’m not entirely sure we need a dedicated podcasts app for the Mac, but it fits in nicely with the move towards Catalyst apps. According to Federighi, Apple Music is “blazingly fast” which sounds great compared to iTunes which was constipatedly slow when you wanted to do one most important thing that the app was supposed to do: play music.

The most amazing part was when Federighi revealed what will now happen when you plug your phone into your computer. Which is: nothing! Huge cheers. (Instead, it just goes into Finder, as it should.)

Sidecar is great for someone like me who often carries around a Mac and an iPad. I like the notion of setting up my command center in the coffee shop.

Voice Control is one of those amazing, only-Apple-can-pull-this-off-to-this-degree type things. Really well done.

“Find My” is, in fact, a silly name. But conceptually, it makes sense. Almost as much sense as Apple finally allowing you to find devices that are offline. Leveraging the huge network of Apple devices to do this too is very clever.

Project Catalyst may end up being the most important announcement of the event — or a footnote in history. If it fundamentally changes the nature of what a Mac app is — that is, an app designed for iOS, but that slides gracefully into a Mac app — many OG Mac people will be annoyed. But given the scale of the iOS ecosystem versus the Mac ecosystem, this also just feels inevitable. Of course, if such ports remain not very good, it may ultimately mean very little. But Apple clearly thinks they’ve made this situation a lot better.

I honestly have a hard time getting too excited about the ARKit stuff. It always strikes me as making for a fun demo, but little in terms of practical usage, at least in our current world.⁵ But there’s no question that Apple is improving the state of the art quite rapidly, as you can see just watching the demos over the years at WWDC. Minecraft Earth was legitimately well done.

The fact that 450,000 apps are built using Swift already seems rather incredible. As does SwiftUI for developers.

With that, Tim was back on stage to announce the launch of all the betas today and the public betas in July (with final versions in the fall, per usual). Then he thanked all the Apple employees that worked on all of this stuff. And rightfully so, this was a well executed event with important announcements. While almost everything leaked ahead of time, it was still vital for Apple to showcase their commitment to the professional audience.⁶ And to kill iTunes.

¹ Inexplicably, it took them 10 hours or so to upload the keynote video this year. For those of us who were at work and couldn’t attend the event or watch live, this was painful. For those of us who try to go on media blackout until we can watch it, this was brutal.

² Is it really as simple as ‘Catalyst’ being for Catalina while ‘Marzipan’ was for Mojave?

³ The presence of Federighi on stage at these events only continues to rise. And rightfully so, he’s by far the best of the presenters. Because he’s not trying to be Steve Jobs on stage, he’s being Craig Federighi on stage. Which is, a guy who can elevate dad jokes to levels previously unheard of because he has a very good sense of comedic timing.

⁴ Am I the only one who feels as if these California names are a little too random? The cat nicknames were fun because there were clear bounds to them. With these names, Apple could pick a near infinite amount of places to name the OS after. MacOS The East Cut, anyone?

⁵ The world before Apple launches their AR glasses next year or in 2021.

⁶ They’ve had to do this a lot, recently.