Last week was WWDC 2022. It would be impossible to write all the awesome things that happened, but I summarized some of the most important things I learned below. Otherwise, our head of developer relations Rob Hedgpeth also did amazing recap videos with the Bitrise team after day 1: you can watch them on-demand on our Youtube channel.
Now, let's recap WWDC 2022!
Keynote highlights
Apple started the event with a keynote from Tim Cook, the CEO of the company, with a welcome speech and talked about the upcoming announcement for the WWDC community with what they need to do their work effectively.
The first announcement was that Apple opened a brand-new Developer center across from Apple Park, where developers can engage with their engineers.
Additionally, they introduced the first online tech talks for developers to learn more about Apple's new technologies and directly connect with Apple engineers in live sessions and one-to-one office hours.
And as we know, Apple developer's academies teach students the fundamentals of coding as well as the other necessary skills to find and create jobs in the app economy, currently, there are 17 academies around the world including the academy in Detroit that was founded in October, and in Saudi Arabia, Apple launched the first developer academy for women in February.
In this ongoing effort, all developers are equipped with the tools, technologies, and inspiration they need to change the world for the better.
Lastly, Tim mentioned that Apple's developer community has grown to over 34 million.
After that, Craig Federighi – the SVP of Engineering at Apple, started talking about the announcements that related to Apple products.
Now let’s talk about iOS
As we expected before the WWDC, Apple announced iOS 16 the new release of iOS with new sharing and communication features
The top features include:
- The all-new Lock Screen: with new ways to make it more personal, beautiful, and helpful
- Notifications: the new notifications roll from the bottom of the Lock Screen as you received them, and you can choose to hide them throughout the day
- Live Activities: makes it easier to stay on top of things that are happening in real-time right from your Lock Screen and the developers from iOS 16 can use the Live Activities API to create these compact and glanceable experiences.
- Focus: with iOS 16, you can now choose photos and widgets to be tied to a practical Focus mode
Also, they announced a new API for developers, its Focus filter API, which can help focus on your apps as well.
- Messages: comes in iOS 16 with 3 different features, you can edit any message you just sent, undo send so immediately you can recall a recent message, and finally, you can mark any thread as unread if you don’t have time to respond at the moment.
- Shared With You: Apple announced Shared With You last year, which takes things like links, photos, and music, and they announced SharePlay this year, for real-time sharing of TV shows and music, and now they support Facetime for using this feature.
- iCloud Shared Photo Library: with iOS 16, you can easily share photos and videos with up to five other people, allowing everyone in the family to collaborate on the collection and enjoy more complete memories.
- Mail: they introduced new features such as undo send a message, schedule send, follow up, and ddd rich links.
- Live Text in video: this feature allows you to pause a video on any frame containing text to perform familiar actions such as copy, translate, look up, share, and more; this comes with the Live Text API for developers. Additionally, they announced new features and enhancements related to dictation, Translate Camera.
- Visual LookUp: by removing the background from an image, you can easily isolate the subject.
- Passkeys: Apple introduced a new way to sign in that is end-to-end encrypted and protected from phishing attacks. This makes passwords stronger than other two-factor authentication methods. They are also compatible with non-Apple devices.
Wallet:
- ID cards are presented in apps to securely verify users in your app by integrating with the new IDs in the Wallet feature.
- Apple introduced Apple Pay Later, which lets customers split a purchase into four equal payments over six weeks, with no interest or fees. Since Apple Pay Later uses the Mastercard network, merchants do not need to integrate Apple Pay Later.
- Order Tracking: Apple Pay receipts and order tracking information is now displayed in the Wallet.
Maps
- Multi-stop routing: you can plan multiple stops along your route ahead of time, or you can easily access previous routes in Recents. Maps also sync between devices, so you can look up directions on your Mac and see them on your iPhone when you're ready to leave.
- Transit cards and fares: without leaving Maps, you can add new transit cards to your Wallet, check low balances, replenish your card, and see the total cost of your trip.
Apple also unveiled a reimagined Home app, a new Medications feature in the Health app, and the ability to create accounts for children with the right parental controls.
CarPlay
Bringing an immersive iPhone experience to your vehicle, CarPlay will bring a fully integrated, seamless experience with vehicle announcements coming in late 2023.
watchOS
Apple announced WatchOS 9 including the following features:
- New Workout Views
- Heart Rate Zones
- Introducing Running Power
- Distance and time are on your side
- Race a Route. Repeat it and beat it.
- Customize your workouts
- Enhanced Workout Summary
- Know on the go with Running Form Metrics
Mac
The next generation of Apple Silicon for the Mac, M2, builds upon the breakthrough capabilities and performance of M1. However, this year's announcement was about the MacBook Air, rather than the Mac Mini as it was last year.
New MacBook Air powered by M2
This will take everything the users love about Air to the next level with a new design of four colors, MagSafe for dedicated charging, an audio jack with support for high-impedance headphones, and the magic keyboard with TouchID.
macOS
Venture is the new release of macOS that will help us to focus on our work without distractions and easily move between tasks with the new feature StageManager which will automatically arrange all the new windows for us off to the side and put the apps that we are currently working with front and center.
macOS 16 will also include all other features that are announced in iOS 16 such as mail, Passkeys, Share, search, Safari enhancements, and more.
Apple devices working together with Continuity
For me this is one of the interesting features at WWDC, the Continuity Camera now gives Mac customers the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam, and unlocks new capabilities that were never possible before on a webcam.
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.
Desk View also allows you to see your desk on the camera and keeps you in the picture, it's amazing! Looking forward to trying it.
iPadOS
This year, iPadOS 16, Apple had a big release starting with all the features that we heard about in iOS and macOS like Share Photo Library, Shared Tab groups, passkeys in Safari the updated in the Mail and Stage Manager.
Additionally, Apple announced the following features in iPadOS 16:
- Desktop class apps and API: to manage your tasks throughout the day
- Freeform: Invite collaborators in real-time, share a link, and begin working together immediately. You can see changes on the canvas as others add their thoughts.
- Enjoy full-screen maps and beautiful animations on the large iPad display with the Weather app on iPad.
- Redesigned Game Center dashboard
- With Metal 3, developers will be able to take their games to the next level
I hope you have enjoyed this year's WWDC, as it has been filled with exciting announcements that will significantly improve our app development processes.
Part 2 will summarize the Platforms State of the Union session and highlight key features of the development tools and technologies.
Stay tuned!
Thank you for reading!
Bitrise Developer Relations team
