Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicked off on Monday in San Jose, California, the first time it’s been in the city since 2002. Not only did Apple have the pressure of putting on the conference in San Jose, they also had to release great updates for developers and consumers. They delivered on all counts.
Before I get to my favorite parts of the keynote, I have to say a few words about WWDC in San Jose. I’ve talked to a lot of developers and journalists this week and the one thing everyone keeps saying about this year’s WWDC is that it is more relaxed. It’s true.
There’s a very chill feeling about the conference this year. From the front plaza where they have tables and chairs for developers to eat, work and chat with friends, to the surrounding area of restaurants and bars, everything seems happy and relaxed. The hustle and bustle of San Francisco is gone, replaced with a clean, warm, and relaxed atmosphere.
Okay, let’s look at what Apple did during the keynote.
Apple had a busy keynote day, unveiling a lot of new software and hardware products. Two of my favorites were the iMac Pro and iOS 11 for iPad.
Any doubt that the Mac is important to Apple should be gone now. We all wondered what was going on with the Mac earlier this year, but the company delivered yesterday.
For many pros, the iMac design is perfect, but it needed more power—workstation-class power. That is exactly what the iMac Pro delivers. A 27-inch 5K display and up to 18-core Xeon processors will give you all the power you can handle.
Of course, there are still going to be pro markets that require the modularity of the Mac Pro, and Apple has promised to deliver on that too.
iMac and MacBook models did get updated yesterday, bringing faster processors and graphics performance, so anyone that was waiting for an update to the regular iMac can now get one.
We all expect software updates at WWDC, but I was very impressed with the attention Apple paid to the iPad in iOS 11.
iOS 11 makes multitasking on iPad even more powerful with a new customizable Dock that provides quick access to frequently used apps and documents from any screen, and a redesigned app switcher makes it easier to move between pairs of active apps, used in Split View and now Slide Over. The new Files app keeps everything in one place, whether files are stored locally, in iCloud Drive or across other providers like Box, Dropbox and more, and with Drag and Drop available across the system, moving images and text is easier than ever. Apple Pencil is more deeply integrated into iPad with support for inline drawing and a new Instant Notes feature opens Notes from the Lock Screen by simply tapping Apple Pencil on the display.
That is very impressive. It says to me that Apple is getting more serious about the iPad as a computing device. Changes needed to be made to iOS so people could take advantage of what the iPad is, and they did that. Will they do more in the future? I think they absolutely will.
Mac OS High Sierra is not full of brand new features, but it’s difficult to say it’s not an important release. The introduction of an all-new files system is enough to make this a great release. Apple will include some other changes in the OS that will make it better to use on a daily basis. I’m good with that. To be honest, these are some of my favorite types macOS releases—clean up and make it better.
I love my 9.7-inch iPad Pro, but I have a feeling I’m going to like the 10.5-inch even more. I use the iPad quite a bit, but I switch between the 9.7-inch and 12-inch models. At first glance, I’m thinking the 10.5-inch may be the perfect size and give me the Tru-Tone display. I’ll need to spend some time with it to see though.
Apple had a lot of balls in the air for WWDC and as far as I’m concerned, they pulled off a great keynote, with a lot of significant updates for developers, consumers and pro users.
IOS 11, macOS, High Sierra, iMac Pro, MacBook, iPad—it was a power packed day.
Ever the skeptic, even I saw many things that these guys are going forward with that make sense.
My only disappointment with macOS High Sierra is I was hoping to see some of the features of iOS’s Messages ported back to macOS this year. I guess we’ll have to wait at least one more year.
What I’m not seeing mentioned a lot are the two things that really stood out – the emphasis in a lot of places on machine learning and the tools they’re giving developers to make that possible and more efficient and the AR/VR tools. Not the games etc (though those looked great) but the dev stuff.
I was also impressed by the secrecy. No one that I heard talked at all about the iMac Pro for example. There wasn’t even the hint of a rumor.
The AR/VR stuff isn’t being talked about in the general media because it means little to the average consumer at this point. Except for that article out there about Apple “scrambling” to catch up in the AR/VR world. Which they’re not, but it makes good headlines, I guess.
I can tell you why there wasn’t a hint of a rumor about the iMac Pro: Because Apple already said they were going to produce it. As I’m sure you remember, Apple talked about the next gen Mac Pro and also mentioned that they will have a Professional level iMac as well. So everyone knew they were going to build one and we knew it was going to be released late in 2017 (per the original article), it was just a guessing game on when they would talk about it and most people suspected that it wouldn’t be until later in the year when they’re close to releasing it, per Apple’s usual announce/release.
However, most leaks these days are coming from the manufacturing side, not from Apple internal (like days past). So, if they’re not to the point of manufacturing the computers yet, there’s nothing for someone at Foxconn to yap about. I suspect any early models of the iMac Pro were built in US facilities (I recall there’s a plant that Apple has used in the past to build iMacs before in the US) which would give them tighter control over any leaks.
Also, talking about the iMac Pro at this point, even though it’s not shipping for 6 months isn’t an issue for Apple because it’s not going to affect current product sales. If the iMac Pro were lower priced (oh, say starting at $3k instead of $5k) then some purchases of the iMac might be held off, but I’d suspect the higher entry price makes it easier for people who think about upgrading the high-end iMac to just go ahead and buy.
Given all of that, I’m surprised we’ve had rumors about the HomePod, but I suspect that early versions (test version even) of that may have been manufactured by Foxconn, or even getting the lines tooled up for them, which is why rumors leaked about it but that it’s not shipping until December as well. I wonder, however, if the leaked rumors pushed up Apple’s decision to talk about the HomePod this early. It now gives competitors a six-month lead to produce competitive products, but maybe the integration of Siri and/or developer APIs for it will be discussed during WWDC so developers can have products ready when it launches.
Substantial improvements to software and hardware, and continued opportunities for developers. What more could anyone ask of an Apple WWDC?
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Huh, I’d totally forgotten that the April briefing mentioned a new iMac. Still a little surprised that now one pegged it as being part of WWDC though.
ON the AR/VR side… it will be interesting to see how the more informed Mac/tech sites talk about this. Gruber, in his Talk Show stream last night, hit on something that also struck me – the VR demo wasn’t about playing the game but about authoring in the VR environment. That kind of thing strikes me as far more important than the end user experience at this point (and of course was totally in keeping with this being at WWDC).
I’m interested to see what the various dev blogs talk about next week and following – those folks are all still at WWDC so reactions will be delayed.
Your remark about the change in file system in High Sierra being enough strikes a chord with me.
I actually hadn’t looked at it quite this way, but you’re (both) right. APFS is not only enough to make a major release on its own, but it’s almost something I’d want in a major release on its own. That and (maybe) some new frameworks, deep optimizations and bug fixes, but no unnecessary changes to existing frameworks? Sounds good.
This is not iOS where you can slip that into a minor release and nobody is going to notice.
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