Originally published on the Anadea blog: Apple WWDC 2017: New Opportunities for Businesses.
We finally saw what Apple presented this year at WWDC annual conference. It’s definitely one of the biggest and the most innovative Apple’s developer conferences we could see in past couple of years. The most powerful Mac, ARKit, HEVC codec are just few of many cool WWDC announcements. Apple knows how to keep things exciting!
Apple continues to push the technology industry towards the bright future. They haven’t introduced a laser keyboard, neural interfaces, infamous “iPhone parachuting system” and other things people love to speculate about. But they did other great stuff. Apple removed 3,5 mini jack input last year. This year they are eliminating JPG. They showed us the most powerful Mac ever. They showed us the most powerful iPad ever. They made Siri a polyglot and gave ARkit to app developers.
Let’s see how new products and updates unleashed at Apple WWDC 2017 can change the IT industry.
WatchOS 4
We have already mentioned in our articles that the sports industry is expanding the adoption of mobile and wearable devices. With new watchOS updates, Apple is contributing even more to this trend. New achievements system in Activity app allows utilizing various video games reward systems in order to motivate users towards being healthy. Synchronisation of playlists with training time is also quite an interesting feature. Using it with other devices will allow you to control the whole Apple Ecosystem through iWatch. Apart from that, not much things changed since previous watchOS version. But with these updates, sports app developers will definitely impress users with some new exciting features.
ARkit
Yeah, I know that I write a lot about augmented and virtual reality. But hey, it looks futuristic, it is highly innovative and I’m happy that Apple thinks the same way!
Last year I had a talk with iOS developer and I asked him: “These new AR and VR technologies seem to be sweet piece of cake, why Apple continues to ignore them so stubbornly?” The answer was: “Apple understands that these are temporary toys, so what’s the point of working with not serious projects?”
And here we are. Apple has finally admitted these technologies and that’s saying something. Now, thanks to ARkit, we have a green light to develope AR and VR applications for iOS. Who’s now temporary?!
iOS 11
Apart from ARkit, there’s not much to discuss. Most updates are cosmetic and they won’t produce a considerable effect on the industry. But a few updates are really special.
Apple Pay is now available through iMessage. Finally! Google Wallet can do that since 2015. So it’s about time to introduce that feature, Apple!
Siri will speak in 21 languages with male and female voices, it even has the translator feature now. Thanks to machine learning, the assistant will be more flexible and human-like. It will learn about users tastes, preferences and habits for more personified suggestions. And all that is confident! That’s great and with new Homepod it’s a huge step toward the smart home concept. Soon everyone will make apps for the smart home, so it’s a good time to begin to working on your own idea.
Goodbye, JPG! You will be replaced with HEVC. New codec makes photos better and smaller in size. Simple as that. Dear startupers, we need JPG-HEVC converters asap!
Other updates impact design and the look of new OS.
New devices
All Apple computers are upgraded. Macbook and Macbook Pro now have the newest Laby Lake processors as well as huge and extremely fast SSDs. iMacs received the latest Kaby Lake processors, Intel Iris Pro or AMD Radeon Pro graphic chips, 32 RAM for 21,5" version and 64 RAM for 27" version. 27" iMac will also get 2TB SSD storage. These improvements are made to handle VR applications.
I guess, while making these computer upgrades, Apple engineers’ thought was “Not enough power!” And that’s how iMac Pro appeared. 18-core processor Xeon, 16GB VRAM, 4TB SSD, 128GB ECC RAM. You heard me right and it’s too late for April’s fools jokes. It has a spaceship capacity and can be used for creating high-end VR apps… if it won’t melt.
Another cool new device is iPad Pro. 9.7" tablet with A10X Fusion Processor and 12-Core graphic chip. It has the same iPhone 7 camera and 64GB storage memory which makes it ideal for producing photo and video content. With the file system similar to the one in macOS, iPad Pro finally looks like its original device — the one between phone and laptop. It’s really easy to shoot and edit videos on it, so it would be nice to see some handy apps for that.
Wrapping up
Well, Apple couldn’t resist VR trend for long. It’s really great that they are finally making it easier to develop virtual reality apps. We know Apple for habit of taking some existing technology and making it much better — iPhone 7’s double camera is a good example here.
Also, new devices look amazing. The more capacity we have, the more complex and interesting apps will be produced. All this leads to innovations and brings us closer to the bright sci-fi future.
Thanks so much for reading, we hope you enjoyed our view on Apple’s 2017 WWDC highlights. Don’t forget to check out Anadea blog for more IT news and other interesting IT-related articles!
