WWDC 2018
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Apple introduces the AI phone
At Apple’s WWDC 2018 — an event some said would be boring this year with its software-only focus and lack of new MacBooks and iPads — the company announced what may be its most important operating system update to date with the introduction of iOS 12. Through a series of Siri enhancements and features, Apple is turning its iPhone into a highly personalized device, powered by its Siri AI.
This “new AI iPhone” — which, to be clear, is your same ol’ iPhone running a new mobile OS — will understand where you are, what you’re doing and what you need to know right then and there.
The question now is will users embrace the usefulness of Siri’s forthcoming smarts, or will they find its sudden insights creepy and invasive?
Siri Suggestions
After the installation of iOS 12, Siri’s Suggestions will be everywhere.
In the same place on the iPhone Search screen where you today see those Siri suggested apps to launch, you’ll begin to see other things Siri thinks you may need to know, too.
For example, Siri may suggest that you:
- Call your grandma for her birthday.
- Tell someone you’re running late to the meeting via a text.
- Start your workout playlist because you’re at the gym.
- Turn your phone to Do Not Disturb at the movies.
And so on.
These will be useful in some cases, and perhaps annoying in others. (It would be great if you could swipe on the suggestions to further train the system to not show certain ones again. After all, not all your contacts deserve a birthday phone call.)
Siri Suggestions will also appear on the Lock Screen when it thinks it can help you perform an action of some kind. For example, placing your morning coffee order — something you regularly do around a particular time of day — or launching your preferred workout app, because you’ve arrived at the gym.
These suggestions even show up on Apple Watch’s Siri watch face screen.
Apple says the relevance of its suggestions will improve over time, based on how you engage.
If you don’t take an action by tapping on these items, they’ll move down on the watch face’s list of suggestions, for instance.
AI-powered workflows
These improvements to Siri would have been enough for iOS 12, but Apple went even further.
The company also showed off a new app called Siri Shortcuts.
The app is based on technology Apple acquired from Workflow, a clever — if somewhat advanced — task automation app that allows iOS users to combine actions into routines that can be launched with just a tap. Now, thanks to the Siri Shortcuts app, those routines can be launched by voice.
Onstage at the developer event, the app was demoed by Kim Beverett from the Siri Shortcuts team, who showed off a “heading home” shortcut she had built.
When she tells Siri she’s “heading home,” her iPhone simultaneously launched directions for her commute in Apple Maps, set her home thermostat to 70 degrees, turned on her fan, messaged an ETA to her roommate and launched her favorite NPR station.
That’s arguably very cool — and it got a big cheer from the technically minded developer crowd — but it’s most certainly a power user feature. Launching an app to build custom workflows is not something everyday iPhone users will do right off the bat — or in some cases, ever.
Developers to push users to Siri
But even if users hide away this new app in their Apple “junk” folder, or toggle off all the Siri Suggestions in Settings, they won’t be able to entirely escape Siri’s presence in iOS 12 and going forward.
That’s because Apple also launched new developer tools that will allow app creators to build directly into their own apps integrations with Siri.
Developers will update their apps’ code so that every time a user takes a particular action — for example, placing their coffee order, streaming a favorite podcast, starting their evening jog with a running app or anything else — the app will let Siri know. Over time, Siri will learn users’ routines — like, on many weekday mornings, around 8 to 8:30 AM, the user places a particular coffee order through a coffee shop app’s order ahead system.
These will inform those Siri Suggestions that appear all over your iPhone, but developers will also be able to just directly prod the user to add this routine to Siri right in their own apps.
In your favorite apps, you’ll start seeing an “Add to Siri” link or button in various places — like when you perform a particular action — such as looking for your keys in Tile’s app, viewing travel plans in Kayak, ordering groceries with Instacart and so on.
Many people will probably tap this button out of curiosity — after all, most don’t watch and rewatch the WWDC keynote like the tech crowd does.
The “Add to Siri” screen will then pop up, offering a suggestion of voice prompt that can be used as your personalized phase for talking to Siri about this task.
In the coffee ordering example, you might be prompted to try the phrase “coffee time.” In the Kayak example, it could be “travel plans.”
You record this phrase with the big, red record button at the bottom of the screen. When finished, you have a custom Siri shortcut.
You don’t have to use the suggested phrase the developer has written. The screen explains you can make up your own phrase instead.
In addition to being able to “use” apps via Siri voice commands, Siri can also talk back after the initial request.
It can confirm your request has been acted upon — for example, Siri may respond, “OK. Ordering. Your coffee will be ready in 5 minutes,” after you said “Coffee time” or whatever your trigger phrase was.
Or it can tell you if something didn’t work — maybe the restaurant is out of a food item on the order you placed — and help you figure out what to do next (like continue your order in the iOS app).
It can even introduce some personality as it responds. In the demo, Tile’s app jokes back that it hopes your missing keys aren’t “under a couch cushion.”
There are a number of things you could do beyond these limited examples — the App Store has more than 2 million apps whose developers can hook into Siri.
And you don’t have to ask Siri only on your phone — you can talk to Siri on your Apple Watch and HomePod, too.
Yes, this will all rely on developer adoption, but it seems Apple has figured out how to give developers a nudge.
Siri Suggestions are the new Notifications
You see, as Siri’s smart suggestions spin up, traditional notifications will wind down.
In iOS 12, Siri will take note of your behavior around notifications, and then push you to turn off those with which you don’t engage, or move them into a new silent mode Apple calls “Delivered Quietly.” This middle ground for notifications will allow apps to send their updates to the Notification Center, but not the Lock Screen. They also can’t buzz your phone or wrist.
At the same time, iOS 12’s new set of digital well-being features will hide notifications from users at particular times — like when you’ve enabled Do Not Disturb at Bedtime, for example. This mode will not allow notifications to display when you check your phone at night or first thing upon waking.
Combined, these changes will encourage more developers to adopt the Siri integrations, because they’ll be losing a touchpoint with their users as their ability to grab attention through notifications fades.
Machine learning in photos
AI will further infiltrate other parts of the iPhone, too, in iOS 12.
A new “For You” tab in the Photos app will prompt users to share photos taken with other people, thanks to facial recognition and machine learning. And those people, upon receiving your photos, will then be prompted to share their own back with you.
The tab will also pull out your best photos and feature them, and prompt you to try different lighting and photo effects. A smart search feature will make suggestions and allow you to pull up photos from specific places or events.
Smart or creepy?
Overall, iOS 12’s AI-powered features will make Apple’s devices more personalized to you, but they could also rub some people the wrong way.
Maybe people won’t want their habits noticed by their iPhone, and will find Siri prompts annoying — or, at worst, creepy, because they don’t understand how Siri knows these things about them.
Apple is banking hard on the fact that it’s earned users’ trust through its stance on data privacy over the years.
And while not everyone knows that Siri is does a lot of its processing on your device, not in the cloud, many do seem to understand that Apple doesn’t sell user data to advertisers to make money.
That could help sell this new “AI phone” concept to consumers, and pave the way for more advancements later on.
But on the flip side, if Siri Suggestions become overbearing or get things wrong too often, it could lead users to just switch them off entirely through iOS Settings. And with that, Apple’s big chance to dominate in the AI-powered device market, too.
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Apple introduces watchOS 5
Kevin Lynch from the watchOS team introduced the next version of watchOS at Apple’s WWDC keynote. It’s been a slow and steady rise for the Apple Watch. It’s by far the most popular smart watch, and it’s becoming slightly more useful every year.
This year is no different. There’s a new workout type for yoga, another one for hiking. You can now challenge your friends for a 7-day competition.
But I’m even more excited about automatic workout detection. If you grab your bike and your heart start beating more rapidly, your Apple Watch will track your workout automatically. You’ll also get notifications to end a workout.
As rumored, Apple is introducing a new Walkie-Talkie app for Apple Watch users. You press to record a message, release to send it. Your friend will receive a notification. That could open up interesting professional use cases. Cellular Apple Watches make this feature more useful too.
The Siri watch face is getting more integrations thanks to Siri shortcuts. You can receive a Citymapper suggestion for instance.
When it comes to the actual voice assistant, you won’t need to say “Hey Siri” anymore. You can just raise your wrist and start talking.
Apple has ported WebKit to watchOS, which opens up a lot of possibilities. You can view web content from your watch. Apple is adding native podcast support and background audio on the Apple Watch too.
Overall, Apple tackled a lot of low hanging fruits. But it’s a compelling pitch and makes the Apple Watch more essential than ever.
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Apple is adding group FaceTime video calls to iOS 12
Apple is adding the ability to FaceTime more people onto a video call, allowing up to 32 people to be on the call — and tapping an increasing interest in group video calling stemming from apps like Houseparty
As far as features go, this was a pretty natural addition to the FaceTime App. Houseparty exposed a lot of interest in this area, allowing multiple friends to spin up a video chat. But it’s also a technically strenuous proposition running multiple livestreams, and Apple does seem uniquely positioned to absorb the technical overhead (and costs) of running multiple FaceTime streams all at once. 
Houseparty allows up to 8 people streaming in a video call at once, though the last significant update we might have heard from Houseparty was some tweaks to notifications in January last year. Houseparty said it had 1 million users in November 2016.
The app spreads out each stream as a series of tiles that will move around based on who is engaging on the call at the time. When someone speaks, the tile automatically gets larger automatically as a way to try to highlight whoever is talking to create a more robust experience. The whole goal is to try to make it easier to video call with a lot of different people all at once in a way that still feels pretty social.
Houseparty, for example, sits at around #10 on the App Store for the social category and still a top-200 app, according to App Annie. It has a 4.4-star rating in the App Store and was last updated at the beginning of June, according to the App Store. So it’s still chugging along, though it does seem like Apple may nullify an app like Houseparty if it hasn’t locked in a huge and engaged fan base. 25 million App Store and Google Play users worldwide have already downloaded the app, according to app analysis firm SensorTower.
The next version of iOS tends to come out around the time of the next Apple event, which usually happens around September. Apple announced a stream of updates to iOS in its next version, iOS 12, including FaceTime group chats.
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Apple adds camera effects like stickers, filters and Memoji to messages
Apple is invading Snapchat’s territory with new effects that let you embellish what you shoot through the Messages camera. Today at WWDC, Apple announced that iOS 12’s Messages camera will offer a variety of sticker packs, style transfers like a “comic book” filter, drawn shapes and both Animoji and the new personalized avatar Memoji.
These effects will also be available in FaceTime, which now supports group video conversations with up to 32 people. That could spell trouble for dedicated group video chat apps like Houseparty and Facebook’s Bonfire, as well as bigger apps that offer it like Snapchat.
These effects could make people who want more visual communication choose Apple’s native messaging app rather than third parties like Snapchat, Instagram Direct or Facebook Messenger. The new features will be available in iOS 12 that launches today in developer beta before a full release this fall.
Stickers were previously only available in message threads where they’d appear on a white background. But now you can overlay them on photos, videos and FaceTime. That opens opportunities for new fashion stickers that let you add sunglasses, hats, mustaches, clothes and more that only make sense when stuck to your selfie.
Apple is starting far behind here. Snapchat’s been adding creative features since 2013, and Instagram joined in with its clone of Stories in 2016, followed by Facebook in 2017. They’re all now equipped with GIFs, color filters, augmented reality and more. Animoji and Memoji are the Messages camera’s biggest differentiators, so Apple may need to aggressively promote the ability to overlay these on imagery if it wants to steal attention from Snap and Facebook.
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With iOS 12, Apple focuses on performance
Apple’s Craig Federighi announced that Apple was doubling down on performance with the upcoming release of iOS 12 at the WWDC event in San Jose, Calif. today.
What’s more, he said, the company would be making these changes to the full range of iOS devices going back to 2013. “And so for iOS 12, we are doubling down on performance from top to bottom making improvements to make your device faster and more responsive. And because we want these changes to be available the full range of our customers, iOS 12 will be available on all the same devices as iOS 11,” Federighi told the WWDC audience.
Perhaps because customers were unhappy to learn about the battery issues with older iOS devices Federighi stressed that Apple has focussed these performance increases on older devices, giving people with older iPhones, the maximum lift. Using the iPhone 6 as an example, he gave some figures about performance increase, stressing that it was still early days. (As an iPhone 6 user, I was listening carefully.)
“Now on that device, iOS delivers a number of improvements. Across common operations you’ll see that apps launch up to 40% faster, the keyboard can come up to 50% faster and you can slide to take a photo at up to 70% faster,” he said.
But he said, the biggest focus, and one all iPhone users can appreciate, is that they are working to optimize performance when it’s under load. As Federighi said that’s when you need performance the most and where iOS 12 really shines.
“We put iOS 12 through our stress tests and we saw in those conditions share sheet coming up twice as fast, and apps launching twice as fast. These are big, big improvements,” he stressed.
Lastly, Apple also optimized iOS 12 at the chip level working with the chip team to optimize performance, while taking battery life into account. If you keep the power pedal to the metal for too long, you suck battery, but Apple is trying to find that perfect balance of power and battery life in iOS 12.
“CPUs traditionally respond to an increased demand for performance by slowly ramping up their clock speed. Well, now in iOS 12, we’re much smarter. When we detect that you need a performance lift when you’re scrolling and launching an app, we ramped up processor performance instantly to its highest state delivering high performance and a ramp it down just as fast to preserve battery life,” he said.
All of this will be available when iOS 12 is released later this year.
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Apple introduces iOS 12
Apple announced the next version of iOS at its WWDC developer conference. While iOS 12 won’t be available before the fall, it’s always interesting to get a sneak peek at the next version of iOS.
Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi first talked about some numbers. 81 percent of iOS users are currently running iOS 11. 6 percent of Android users are currently on the last version.
“For iOS 12, we’re doubling down on performance,” Federighi said. iOS 12 is going to be available on all devices that currently support iOS 11.
It’s interesting the Federighi talked about iOS 12 on the iPhone 6 Plus. Apps launch 40 percent faster, the keyboard comes up 50 percent faster and opening the camera is 70 percent faster.
You get the idea, the big new feature of iOS 12 is performance and optimization.
But it doesn’t mean that Apple didn’t think about new features. Apple has created a new file format for augmented reality called USDZ. Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis talked for a couple of minutes to announce that Adobe apps are going to support USDZ.
Apple is launching a new app to educate people about augmented reality. This app is called Measure and works pretty much like popular third-party app MeasureKit. While Apple says USDZ is a file format for augmented reality, Federighi also showed a USDZ 3D file in the middle of an Apple News article.
And the company is also updating ARKit with multiplayer augmented reality. You can get the same augmented reality experience with multiple devices. The company invited Martin Sanders from Lego to talk about ARKit. You can point an iPad at a Lego set to add virtual buildings and objects, and recreate a tiny little city.
“Over a trillion photos are captured on the iPhone each year,” Federighi said. Apple is updating search with iOS 12. While you’ve been able tp search for objects or categories, such as cars, dogs, beach and hiking, it’s been hard to find. Apple is going to add suggestions to improve discovery.
Apple is reusing an Apple Music idea and adding a “For You” tab. It’ll show you old albums, memories, photos with people you care about and more. For You can also suggest you to share photos with friends and family members. When you share them, it looks like it creates a link that you can send in iMessage. The other person will also get a suggestion to share photos back. It’s like shared albums, but a bit refined.
As for Siri, Apple is introducing shortcuts. It’s not just for voice, Apple is also adding shortcuts on the lock screen or in the search screen for instance. If you’re running late for a meeting, you’ll get a suggestion to send a text to the other person. Shortcuts on the lock screen are like app suggestions, but with more specific actions.
Apple will open up shortcuts to third-party developers to store information or set up shortcuts. Developers will be able to put an “Add to Siri” button in their apps. For instance, you can store your flight details under the “flight to Portland” shortcut. So if you ask Siri that phrase, you’ll get your flight details.
The Workflow team has been working on the Shortcuts app. It’s just like the automation app Workflow that Apple acquired a couple of years ago. But you can also configure connected devices using Shortcuts, and trigger shortcuts using the HomePod. So there you go, Apple is back in the voice assistant game with this new ecosystem of shortcuts.
Apple is also redesigning Apple News and the Stocks app. There’s a new sidebar in the News app to improve navigation. You’ll also get a sort of Yahoo Finance in the Stocks app with share prices, headlines, after-hour pricing. The Stocks app is coming to the iPad too.
As for iBooks, rumors were right. Apple is adding audio books to iBooks (and removing them from the Music app). And the company is also rebranding iBooks to Apple Books. Finally, Apple is adding support for third-party navigation apps in CarPlay.
After this quick rundown of Apple’s new apps, Federighi presented the other pillar of iOS 12 — smarter notifications, do not disturb improvements. If you turn on Do Not Disturb at night, you won’t get a wall of notifications if you want to check the time in the middle of the night. You can also set Do Not Disturb until you move to another place.
And developers cheered like crazy when Federighi presented grouped notifications. It’s a good way to stack similar notifications from the same app. You’ll be able to configure your notifications directly from the home screen.
Many accused Apple of not paying attention to the addictive aspect of smartphones. With Screen Time, your phone can give you an overview of things you do with your phone so that you waste less time mindlessly scrolling through feeds. You can also set up a time limit to receive a notification when you’ve been on Instagram for a while for instance. Obviously, Screen Tim means better parental controls. You can limit some apps, track your kid’s usage and more.
But let’s talk about the most important feature of iOS — animojis. Apple is adding new characters — a ghost, a koala, a tiger, a T-rex. Your phone will now track your tongue.
More importantly, you’ll be able to create your own Memoji. Apple is basically copying Snap’s Bitmoji (or the Xbox avatars or Nintendo’s Miis…). You can create your own avatar, add accessories and change clothes.
In Messages, there are new camera effects that work a bit like Instagram’s or Messenger’s filters, blending your Memoji on top of your face.
Switching gear a bit, Apple is overhauling FaceTime. You can now create a FaceTime group with 32 people. You can now switch from an iMessage conversation to a video chat without having to open another app. This is long overdue, and Houseparty is not going to be happy. It’ll also work on macOS and on the Apple Watch for the audio part.
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How to watch the live stream for today’s Apple WWDC keynote
Apple is holding a keynote today at the San Jose Convention Center, and the company is expected to unveil new updates for iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS and maybe also some new hardware. At 10 AM PT (1 PM in New York, 6 PM in London, 7 PM in Paris), you’ll be able to watch the event as the company is streaming it live.
Apple is likely to talk about some new features for all its software platforms — WWDC is a developer conference after all. Rumor has it that Apple could also unveil some MacBook Pro update with new Intel processors.
If you have the most recent Apple TV, you can download the Apple Events app in the App Store. It lets you stream today’s event and rewatch old events. Users with old Apple TVs can simply turn on their devices. Apple is pushing out the “Apple Events” channel so that you can watch the event.
And if you don’t have an Apple TV, the company also lets you live-stream the event from the Apple Events section on its website. This video feed works in Safari and Microsoft Edge. And for the first time, Apple says that the video should also work in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
So to recap, here’s how you can watch today’s Apple event:
- Safari on the Mac or iOS.
- Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
- Maybe Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
- An Apple TV gen 4 with the Apple Events app in the App Store.
- An Apple TV gen 2 or 3, with the Apple Events channel that arrives automatically right before the event.
Of course, you also can read TechCrunch’s live blog if you’re stuck at work and really need our entertaining commentary track to help you get through your day. We have a big team in the room this year.
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Live from Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote
It’s that time again. This morning kicks off Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. It’s a week of programming focused on developers, but this morning’s big event has a little something for everyone. Here’s a quick break down of what we can likely expect when Tim Cook takes the stage this morning.
The keynote will most likely be focused on announcements surrounding iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 — in fact, we got a bit of a preview of the latter over the weekend. WatchOS and HomeKit will probably get some love, as well, along with ARKit, which took center stage at the event, this time last year.
As for hardware — expect Apple to throw us a couple of bones on that front, as well — though the really big announcements around iPhone, iPad and the like, are probably being saved for another day. Beyond that, the sky — or the San Jose Convention Center ceiling, at least — is the limit.
We’ll see you right here at 10AM PT/1PM ET/5PM GMT
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