WWDC 2021: Thoughts and Observations
I’ll give my overall musings on the updates to each platform, then some specific thoughts about new features.
tvOS:
Didn’t get a ton of love, but there were a couple nice improvements.
The one thing it did get, though, was Spatial Audio. That’s not a small deal, because it sounds incredible, but it’s not a huge deal because most people don’t watch TV with headphones.
You can now use two stereo-paired HomePod Minis as a Home Theater setup, so they’ll handle all of your Apple TV’s audio by default. That’s a great move.
watchOS:
This was not a very big year for watchOS.
They didn’t seem to update sleep tracking in any meaningful way, so that’s a big disappointment.
Only one new watch face, and it’s very basic, even if visually enjoyable.
They didn’t spend much (or any) time talking about Assistive Touch, but I’ve tried it on the watchOS 8 beta, and it really is impressive.
The Mindfulness app seems like a step in the right direction for a larger focus on mental health, but it’s still quite basic.
They’ve added new Find My apps for finding items (AirTags) and finding devices. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have just rolled that into the existing Find My app that was just used for finding people on the watch. Would’ve been a lot less clunky than three separate apps.
They talked a lot about the photos app, but who is using the photos app on Apple Watch? Maybe it’s a chicken and egg situation, but I just can’t see anyone spending a ton of time looking at photos on a screen smaller than a matchbook.
They’ve finally revamped how text input works. You can now combine scribble with dictation and emojis, and you have a chance to review the message before it sends (unlike with dictation before, when it would often send the message automatically, whether it heard you correctly or not).
iOS:
I think iOS 15 has some significant improvements. Probably nothing that will be as culturally exciting as widgets were last year, but some good updates that everyone will appreciate.
Facetime got several cool improvements. It’s a bit “better late than never,” at this point, but still. And it’s pretty exciting to see FaceTime Links, which will let anyone (Android and Windows!) join a group FaceTime call, which is still end-to-end encrypted. Take that, Zoom.
The Health app got some attention. I’m not sure the features they added will be used by many people, but they’ll be very important to those who do. And I’m fine with that.
Live Text is incredible. It works pretty well in the first beta.
The ability to analyze photos and provide relevant information like plant species, book titles, dog breeds, etc, is so cool.
No update to the Music app, it’s as frustrating as ever.
They really made good use of their Dark Sky acquisition in the weather app this year. New precipitation notifications and radar views really beef up the out-of-the-box Weather offering.
No lockable photo album, again. Sigh.
They didn’t spend a ton of time talking about Siri and she certainly didn’t get the update I’ve been hoping for for years, but moving the speech processing on device should make her a bit snappier, and it looks like they did try for at least a little bit more conversational continuity.
I like some of the Safari updates a lot. Some of them seem unnecessarily complicating, though. For example, the gestures to reload and switch tabs are great, and I love the new tab overview and Tab Groups, but the lack of a visible share button is insanity. They buried buttons that people use all the time, seemingly for aesthetic purposes only, and it was the wrong move. I may write more about how I think they could keep the good and fix the bad with this version of Safari.
No updated Cash card with a bank account.
Speaking of Wallet though, they did announce some great new features. Car keys was probably the worst update (as far as I’m aware, the only car manufacturer that supports it is BMW, and it’s only available on their brand new cars; some company should really come up with one of those little dash plugs that could bring this to older vehicles), and it didn’t really get any super meaningful updates over what it could already do. Home Keys is a feature that I didn’t see coming, but one that is very welcome. Hopefully you’ll be able to get a compatible smart lock that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Also new to wallet: ID cards. This was a complete surprise, and it totally blew my mind. It’s something I’ve been desperately wanting Apple to do for years, but I’d almost written it off as a possibility because of the fractured nature of states controlling their own systems for drivers licenses and IDs (we need a national ID card). I’m sure it will take several years before most states adopt this, but I’m so excited that they’re giving it a shot.
iPadOS:
We didn’t get as much here as I’d hoped. Or maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way because we just didn’t get the overhaul I was hoping for: after all, there were some significant improvements to the existing system.
Quick Notes is a cool feature, and Apple made it a lot more useful than it otherwise could’ve been by giving it string contextual awareness of what’s going on when you summon a new note.
Widgets did show up, as expected. But as I said a few days ago, I don’t think Apple necessarily deserves credit for turning in their homework a year late.
There were some improvements to multitasking, but I don’t know that they’ll really make a meaningful difference. The biggest thing is that you can now add any app to Split Screen or Slide Over, not just apps from the dock. That’s not nothing. The Shelf also seems like it'll be helpful for letting you quickly switch back to a window pair you had been using before, but it still just seems like even more complications to smooth out kinks in the current system, not a rethinking of it. Time will tell, and I hope I’m wrong.
The Safari updates are trash. The new tabs are so difficult to use. They’re tiny, and they’re never in the same place. I hope they just go back to how it was before.
macOS:
I feel like this WWDC was fairly light for macOS. Most of the Mac features were also available (and perhaps more natural) on other devices.
Universal Control seems pretty incredible. If your workflow involves an iPad and a Mac, this could be huge for you.
Shortcuts coming to Mac is something.
The ability to use a Mac as an AirPlay display is big, and it’s not something I ever expected to see. It’s another good example of the garden walls coming down a little.
Ditto my point about Safari under the iPadOS segment.
Find My & AirPods
Find My actually got several improvements, and AirPods Pro continue to justify their high price tag.
AirPods Pro now work on the Find My Network, which means you can actually find them now.
iPhones can now transmit their location even when turned off and if they’ve been erased. This could really deter theft.
You can now get separate notifications any time you leave something behind, whether it’s your iPhone, AirPods, or an AirTag, or another device.
Conversation Boost for AirPods Pro users is really cool. As someone who doesn’t have a diagnosed hearing disability but does seem to struggle with poor hearing in noisy environments, I’m excited to try this.
Privacy
They had a whole segment dedicated to privacy, and it was glorious. We got several meaningful updates.
The app tracking reports are nice. Most customers wont look at them, but those who care will, and they’ll quickly out the shady developers who abuse the data we give them permission to use.
Private Relay is very interesting. It’s not quite a VPN service, but it’s pretty close. The biggest downfall is that it only protects your internet traffic through Safari. I’ll be sticking with my ExpressVPN subscription for now, but I’ve got a feeling we could actually see a full fledged VPN from Apple within the next year or two.
The ability to generate email addresses that can be disabled is nice, and I’m glad Apple is taking action against spy pixels in emails.
Overall, I think this was a pretty big WWDC. When you dig into the specifics, there were a few let downs, but there were also several big surprises. I’m excited to see how these OSes evolve over the beta period.