The E-ink Companion For Your Favorite Tools
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.”
The video of Apple’s WWDC keynote address, which was held earlier today at the San Jose Convention Center, is now available on the company’s website.
The nearly two-and-a-half hour keynote featured a wealth of information. Apple introduced new iPad Pro models, new iMacs and MacBooks, its first entry into the smart speaker market with HomePod, and the latest updates and improvements to iOS, macOS, and watchOS.
We’ll have full details on all of today’s announcements throughout the remainder of the day and as the WWDC conference continues over the next several days.
You can also follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2017 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2017 RSS feed.
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.
I’ve been on a little bit of a retro arcade shooter binge lately. I’m not sure how this started, but sometimes you just want to shoot lasers at something. No Stick Shooter delivers with an intense, frenetic game that’s like Missile Command turned up to 11.
During his research for a Wired feature on Apple Park, Steven Levy met David Muffly, the arborist who planned the tree species planted at Apple’s new headquarters. On his Backchannel blog, Levy tells the story of how Muffly and Steve Jobs planned the trees that would be planted at Apple Park, including Muffly’s recollection of the first time he saw the mockups of the building:
Jobs took him to a room that had foam-core renderings of the proposed new Apple headquarters — a verdant space with lush greenery (80 percent of the space is landscaped) dominated by a huge ring-like building where 12,000 people would work. “I was like, whoa, this is crazy,” recalls Muffly. “And I’m looking at it and my brain is like, it’s the mothership!”
Muffly was impressed with Jobs’ extensive knowledge of trees native to Silicon Valley:
Jobs knew his trees, too. “He had a better sense than most arborists,” says Muffly. “He could tell visually which ones looked like they had good structure.” On a visit to Jobs’ house in 2011, Muffly saw this in action. They were in Jobs’ backyard garden, and in a neighbor’s yard there were two varieties of trees that Muffly wanted Jobs to choose between. “There was a kind of tree that I wanted to use and one that was more common,” says Muffly. “I asked, Steve, which of those two trees do you prefer? He liked questions like that. And he looked up and he pointed to the one I wanted. I said, Thank you, Steve. That was a good answer.”
Like other aspects of Apple Park, the scale of the landscaping is immense with roughly 9,000 trees planned. What I like most about Levy’s piece though, is that it adds a face, personality, and story to those huge numbers.
Apple announced in a press release today that its Swift Playgrounds app for iPad would soon be able to connect with and control real-world devices.
Apple is working with leading device makers to make it easy to connect to Bluetooth-enabled robots within the Swift Playgrounds app, allowing kids to program and control popular devices, including LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3, the Sphero SPRK+, Parrot drones and more. The Swift Playgrounds 1.5 update will be available as a free download on the App Store beginning Monday, June 5.
Since the primary purpose of Swift Playgrounds is education, today’s announcement serves as a solid next step toward making coding fun and interesting for children. And the timing is fitting too. Expanding the capabilities of Swift Playgrounds with a 1.5 update Monday is a perfect kickoff to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where the app was first introduced last year.
