WWDC 2019: Highlights from the Keynote Robot Presentation

In contrast to the previous WWDC, where the main focus was on speed and small improvements, today they presented everything at once: a new Mac Pro, new services and long-desired features for developers. Someone says that this is the best WWDC since 2014, when they introduced a new programming language, Swift. We mc_murphy , bealex and vani2 telegraph with WWDC and figure out what's really going on.

iOS

Apple at each presentation talks a lot about security, notes that it does not store our personal data in the clear, and so on. Minor changes were made to requests for permissions to use geolocation: iOS will warn you of suspicious applications in the background, if such are installed.



In just a few years, Apple managed to change the world of payments using Apple Pay - online purchases became so convenient that it instantly became the standard in the industry. It is time to fix another pain of ours, authorization in services, using Sign in with Apple. Now you do not need to remember passwords from facebook or google, when you are already logged in on the device with your Apple ID. For security reasons, Apple will create a random e-mail address for a specific site, and you can block the address at any time if you have started to pester you with spam. If you use authorization through third-party services in your applications, it's time to think about adding authorization through Apple, since it will become mandatory.

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It looks like the most awaited feature of the new system is Dark Mode. It is unlikely that it will be possible to adapt all existing applications to a dark theme in one click (and not the fact that it is needed), but this solution itself simply suggested itself: popular text editors, book readers and instant messengers have already had dark themes for several years, and since the iPhone X installs an OLED screen, which is ideal for black interfaces.

iPadOS

Two years ago, our working tools changed with the advent of the iPad Pro - and this was the beginning of a big change in iOS. Last year, many features appeared only on the iPad, and today it stands out in a separate operating system, iPad OS. I think that over time, most laptop users will switch to tablets, and the vital infrastructure for this appears before our eyes.



On the iPad, it is possible to attach widgets and customize the desktop, launch several windows of the same application, work with external drives, archive files. Added new gestures, improvements in the launch of several applications simultaneously. We rewrote Safari so that everything works as if it were on a desktop, and Sidecar was added - a mode where the ipad acts as the second screen of the mac.

Developer Tools & Frameworks

SwiftUI, a sweet tooth , is a declarative approach to creating an interface on all Apple operating systems. In open-source , there is already an attempt to implement this approach on Swift (Google, for its part, introduced Jetpack Compose ), but Apple went even further: you can watch the changes right away without rebuilding the application, the usual Interface Builder drag & drop elements are available. Everything looks so simple and beautiful that I want to try it right away: transition animations, for example, are made literally in 2 lines of code. Let's see how cumbersome the UI will look from real applications, but it’s already clear that this will speed up and simplify the development of UI. It seems it's time for designers to switch from Sketch to SwiftUI.



It also uses the Combine framework, which is the implementation of the reactive programming paradigm. For a long time, developers have been using third-party open-source Rx frameworks, and now the base is available out of the box. At first, beginners will have to spend some time to understand the ideology, but in the future, you can predict more understandable code and shorten the lines of code in applications.



In ARKit 3, we added the function of defining people and even maximizing their contours, so that in multiplayer games, everything looked much more realistic. Also, the determination of the posture and position of the limbs of everyone who came into view of the camera is now automatically made.

macOS

The iTunes application (which, by the way, is already 18 years old!) Ceases to exist and falls into three services: Music, Podcasts, TV. This is an example of using Project Catalyst (formerly called Marzipan), a framework that allows porting iOS applications to mac. There are very few details so far, we will understand this week.



The system presented a full voice control, control of all functions using voice. In fact, now the user without the possibility of using the controller can be fully-fledged, use a browser, applications, write programs.



Rewrote the service Find My iPhone, now it is called Find My. The most interesting thing about it is that a lost macbook sends beacon-signals, they are caught by any iOS device that is in access, and helps to detect it.

Mac pro

The previous Mac Pro was introduced in 2013, and it was not very successful. Beautiful outside, he did not expand at all and remained unchanged throughout all these years, receiving only slight accelerations. To date, those who edit video, audio, professionally engaged in photography, had to collect a powerful windows-machines. Even iMac Pro, introduced two years ago, and released at the end of 2017, could only partially meet the needs.



This fall (or rather, for Christmas) a new, fully updated Mac Pro will appear. It will suit everyone who needs to process large amounts of data, video, photos, audio, three-dimensional graphics (that is, quite a few people), and this is just a monster:

• Intel Xeon processor up to 28 cores
• up to one and a half terabytes of RAM (up to 4 terabytes of SSD on this background looks even somehow modest),
• huge graphics power, including up to four Vega II processors and special FPGA expansion cards to help decode video in huge resolutions,
• Connect up to six 6K monitors,
• 1.4 Kilowatt power supply (maximum allowed in the US)
• cooling system capable of cooling it all.

This is a very cool computer for very, very resource-intensive tasks: mixing thousands of tracks in Logic Pro, editing in real time several streams of uncompressed 8K video, realtime ray tracing in 4K quality.



Together with him introduced a new monitor, which also meets the highest requirements: 6K, 32-inch diagonal, extreme contrast and customization options. Monitor - a dream. Not OLED, but better than him in the market is not even close.



Everything is great with both Mac Pro and the monitor. Only the price, let's say, bites. Not everything is known about it, but Mac Pro itself will cost from $ 6000 (basic configuration with an eight-core processor, 32 GB of memory, ridiculous 256 GB SSD and a basic video card), and a more or less adequate configuration will reach eight to nine thousand.



More interesting: the monitor costs five thousand dollars, but if you want a matte, then it will be six. And if you want a beautiful stand for him, then seven. Seven thousand. For the monitor.

In total, Mac Pro and Pro display XDR stand like a car. However, for those for whom they are intended, this cost is not a problem.

watchOS

WatchOS updates to version 6 began with new dials. For years, developers are waiting for the API to create their own dials, but Apple has its own vision, so you have to use the built-in ones.



The main step forward was the possibility of developing independent standalone applications for watches. This is especially true in countries with eSim support (Russia is not included in their number) on models of watches with mobile communications. It seems that Apple aimed to promote the Apple Watch as a device without binding to the iPhone (so far, they could not work separately). Now applications can be downloaded in the new App Store on the clock itself. Convenience is dubious, but it’s interesting how you can efficiently find the right application in 2-3 clicks, pay and download. Apple opened streaming audio in the new version of the operating system API, expanded the possibilities for the Health application and training. Minor can be considered that the application added noise meter, voice recorder, calculator.



In general, the presentation was impressive: Apple usually presents approximately two times fewer updates at conferences and events than today. And this is the beginning. Let's see what will happen in the fall.