Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 05-06-2018

Apple has unveiled new features across its four platforms with upgrades for iOS, MacOS, Apple TV and WatchOS.

The company wrapped up its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC 2018) keynote on Monday with many excited by the latest enhancements to the Apple product family.

New iOS 12 features

Shared AR Experiences

ARKit 2 enables developers to create innovative AR apps with new tools to integrate shared experiences, persistent AR experiences tied to a specific location, object recognition and image tracking, making AR apps even more dynamic.

Memoji and Camera Effects

New features make communicating with friends and family from iPhone X more expressive with new Animoji® and personalised Memoji characters that are customisable. Create Memoji right within Messages by choosing from a set of inclusive and diverse characteristics to form a unique personality. All Animoji and Memoji now feature winks and tongue detection to capture even more expressions.

Group FaceTime

There is a new group FaceTime capability that as many as 32 people can use at one time. You can also launch group FaceTime sessions from a thread in the iPhone messages app. Participants can be added at any time, join later if the conversation is still active and choose to join using video or audio from an iPhone, iPad or Mac — or even participate using FaceTime audio from Apple Watch.

Siri Shortcuts

Siri Shortcuts delivers a new, much faster way to get things done with the ability for any app to work with Siri. Siri intelligence can suggest an action at just the right time — whether it’s to order a coffee in the morning or start an afternoon workout. Users can customise Shortcuts by creating a simple voice command to kick off the task or download the new Shortcuts app to create a series of actions from different apps that can be carried out with a simple tap or customized voice command.

Photos.

An all-new For You tab surfaces favourite moments in one place, combining Memories and iCloud Shared Albums. A new sharing suggestions feature makes it easier to share photos with friends and friends who receive photos are prompted to share back any photos and videos they have from the same trip or event.

Do Not Disturb, Notifications and Screen Time

New modes in Do Not Disturb automatically end based on a specified time, location or action. To help reduce interruptions, iOS 12 gives users more options for controlling how notifications are delivered. They can instantly manage notifications to be delivered quietly or turned off completely. Grouped notifications make it easier to view and manage multiple notifications at once.

Privacy and Security.

In Safari, enhanced Intelligent Tracking Prevention helps block social media “Like” or “Share” buttons and comment widgets from tracking users without permission. Safari now also presents simplified system information when users browse the web, preventing them from being tracked based on their system configuration. Safari now also automatically creates, autofills and stores strong passwords when users create new online accounts and flags reused passwords so users can change them.

Additional App Features

Apple Books is redesigned to make it easier to discover and enjoy books and audiobooks, and the Book Store tab makes it easy to explore new titles and browse the top charts, curated collections and special offers.

— Apple News is redesigned to make it easier to discover new channels and topics or jump straight to favourites, and on iPad, a new sidebar makes navigation even simpler.

— Stocks comes to iPad and illustrates how the market is moving with easy-to-understand quotes and high-quality news.

— CarPlay adds support for third-party navigation apps displayed right on the car’s dash — joining music, messaging, calling and automaker apps.

— Voice Memos is now available on iPad and adds iCloud support to sync recordings and edits across devices. A new design makes it easier to capture, share and edit recordings.

— Siri translation expands to more than 40 language pairs and brings more knowledge of sports, celebrities, food and nutrition. Siri can also surface favourite photos by person, place, event, time and topic.

— Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch adds support for student ID cards, making it more convenient to access everything on campus.

Apple Watch and Apple TV.

Apple also announced Watch OS 5 and a number of upgrades. These included new fitness features, Siri suggestions and content from third party apps in the Siri watch face. Users can also invoke Siri simply by raising their wrists rather than saying “Hey Siri.”

A new “Walkie-Talkie” feature allows watch-to-watch communication. Apple is also making notifications interactive, including paying for things with Apple Pay. In addition, some limited web content will be available on Apple Watch.

Apple debuted tvOS 12 with more 4K HDR movies and features, as well as support for Dolby Atmos audio. There are some new screensavers and a new cable partner (Charter) added to the list of others in the US and abroad. Apple TV users with iOS12 on the iPhone or iPad also don’t need to enter passwords for their favorite apps on Apple TV, which will be auto-completed.

MacOS Mojave and Safari

The next Mac operating system update is called Mojave. As anticipated, there will be a new “dark mode” as well as a new dynamic desktop that changes throughout the day based on time. The Mac app store will also now look and act more like the iOS app store.

A new desktop feature called Stacks will automatically help users organize messy desktops into neater categories (“stacks”) of files. Finder will have a “Gallery View” that lets users browse files in a more visual way. Quick Actions and Quick Look will enable full-size previews and some actions (light image and video editing) within Finder.

Existing iOS apps, Apple News, Apple Stocks, Home and Voice Memos, will now be available to the Mac. Group FaceTime will also work on the desktop.

The most significant desktop-related announcement was the expansion of Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention to block social media button tracking. Safari will also seek to defeat “fingerprinting” and other types of discrete user identification for tracking and targeting.

Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said these new features overall “will [make it] dramatically more difficult for data companies to uniquely identify your device and track you.” He added that “Like and share buttons and conversation windows . . . can be used to track you whether you click on them or not. This year we are shutting that down.”

Apple chief executive Tim Cook meanwhile told developers the “app ecosystem” developed by the iPhone maker will soon have delivered more than $100 billion to partners.

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143