While macOS High Sierra brought relatively small changes to the Mac’s operating system, WWDC featured big news for the Mac: new hardware.
Headlined by the iMac Pro, over half of all Mac models received updates, ranging from speed bumps to a full-on introduction of a new desktop model. Although WWDC was anticipated as an iPad-heavy presentation – and delivered on that front – here’s why it was larger than life for the Mac as well.
As its name may suggest, Apple’s latest Mac operating system, macOS High Sierra, was billed today as a performance update for macOS. Packed deep with improvements to macOS apps and system-level functionality, High Sierra brings welcome changes to the Mac.
Additionally, Apple introduced important new technologies in macOS, including support for virtual reality, its new file system APFS, and Metal 2.
Confirming prior rumors, Tim Cook announced today that Amazon Prime Video would be coming to the Apple TV later this year. The news was the first of six main announcements made by Apple at today’s WWDC keynote. Cook included the detail that not only would Prime Video be available on Apple TV, but it will also integrate with Apple’s TV app – welcome news for myself and all who use the TV app regularly.
Prime Video arriving on Apple TV ends the last prominent holdout from a major streaming service on Apple’s platform. And its integration with the TV app leaves Netflix as the single largest holdout that does not yet support the TV app.
The introductory news about Amazon was the only Apple TV-specific announcement made today, which was a disappointment as it was widely expected that Apple would introduce the next major version of tvOS alongside revisions to its other software platforms. Cook did note that we should expect to hear more about developments with tvOS later this year, indicating that a major update may be forthcoming, but simply wasn’t ready in time to show at WWDC.
You can also follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2017 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2017 RSS feed.
Apple is entering the smart speaker space, and it’s doing that with a new product launching this December called HomePod.
Introduced at the end of today’s WWDC keynote, HomePod is a Siri-equipped smart speaker that specializes in music. Rather than solely competing with products like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, Apple is positioning HomePod as a hybrid product that does more. It contains many of the same capabilities of those assistant-equipped speakers, but adds one more thing: high quality audio. This makes it not only a competitor to the Echo and Home, but also to home audio systems like those offered by Sonos and Bose. This latter market is where Apple has so far focused its marketing, as reflected by the title of its introductory press release: “HomePod reinvents music in the home.”
As always, Apple’s WWDC keynote address was filled with a barrage of customer satisfaction figures, performance improvements, and more. Here are some of the most important numbers from today’s WWDC keynote.
Traveling isn’t easy. FlightLogger is designed to take the pain out of air travel by making it simple to search and save your flights, get up-to-date notifications on any changes, share your travel plans with friends and family, and much more.
Too many flight tracking apps are a cluttered mess. FlightLogger takes a clean, minimalist approach that reduces the number of taps and information you have to input. Combined with a clear, easy-to-read interface, FlightLogger is the perfect companion for your next trip.
FlightLogger features:
If that isn’t enough, you can get even more by subscribing to FlightLogger’s premium features like offline-mode for when you don’t have a data connection, enhanced alerts, unlimited flights tracked per month, sharing of location and flight status with family and friends, and syncing with your calendar. Head on over to FlightLogger’s website to learn more.
Our thanks to FlightLogger for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Apple announced today that since it launched in 2008, developers have earned over $70 billion from the App Store.
People everywhere love apps and our customers are downloading them in record numbers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Seventy billion dollars earned by developers is simply mind-blowing. We are amazed at all of the great new apps our developers create and can’t wait to see them again next week at our Worldwide Developers Conference.”
According to Apple’s press release, subscriptions saw a 58% increase year over year, fueled by their availability in all 25 app categories. Games and Entertainment are the App Store’s top grossing categories, Lifestyle and Health and Fitness apps have experienced 70% growth, and the Photo and Video category is up over 90%. Apple’s press release also highlights the addition of iMessage apps and stickers with iOS 10.
The timing of Apple’s press release is interesting coming just days before WWDC, its annual developer conference. Developer earnings have historically been covered as part of the WWDC opening-day keynote. One possibility is that this is a sign that the usual keynote updates are being compressed this year to make room for more product and operating system announcements than usual.
Earlier this week, The Iconfactory released version 1.1 of its iPad sketching app, Linea. The highlight of the release is iCloud syncing for all drawings stored in the app. This is a welcome addition for the sake of having safe backup files in the cloud, but it is also important because of a related app debut from this week.
Alongside Linea’s 1.1 update, The Iconfactory has also released a companion app for Mac called Linea Link. Ged Maheux shares the details in a blog post:
This new app is the easiest way to get sketches drawn on your iPad onto your Mac. Using iCloud sync, your work is instantly available for use in your favorite macOS applications.
Start a new Photoshop document using Linea’s layers. Reference a quick design idea while working in Xcode. Transcribe meeting notes into a Pages document. Or just tap the spacebar to preview Linea documents using Quick Look. Linea on iOS works great to get an idea started, and Linea Link on macOS lets you take the next step toward making it a reality.
Linea Link is a perfect bridge between the iPad and Mac for those who use both devices to get their work done. Third-party app support includes Sketch, Acorn, Pixelmator, Affinity Designer & Photo, and the above-mentioned Adobe Photoshop.
It is still the early days of Linea’s life, but it’s comforting to see continued investment being made to the app by The Iconfactory. As John shared in his initial review, Linea is an excellent example of an app that blends elegance and usability with just the right amount of tools and power needed to get creative work done.
If you have opened your Twitter direct messages to receive messages from anyone, Twitter now separates them into two buckets: an Inbox and Requests. Your Inbox collects DMs from people you follow, while Requests are DMs from people you don’t follow. You can review Requests without the sender knowing you’ve reviewed their message until you accept it. If you accept a request, that person’s direct messages will be delivered to your Inbox in the future.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/869608493548011520
Based on some preliminary testing by The Verge, it appears that the new direct message handling functionality is slowly rolling out to users across Twitter’s apps and website.
