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Posts tagged with "WWDC 2016"

2016 Apple Design Award Winners Announced

Each year at WWDC, Apple celebrates developers and the very best apps on its platforms with the Apple Design Awards. These award-winning apps are held up by Apple as raising the bar in design, technology, and innovation. Each app combines rich functionality and high performance, taking advantage of the latest features in Apple’s operating systems to provide unique experiences that enrich the App Store and customers’ lives. As Apple explains it in the WWDC app, the purpose of the Apple Design Awards is to ‘recognize state of the art iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS apps that reflect excellence in design and innovation.’ For the second year in a row, the awards included a special category to recognize the accomplishments of student-developers.

The event, which in recent years has capped off the first day of WWDC, did so again, but this year the ADAs were held in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for the first time, as were the opening keynote and Platforms State of the Union. This year’s award ceremony also marks the first time that the ADAs include Apple TV apps.

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tvOS Updates for Developers

Also included in today’s tvOS announcements was the introduction of several new developer APIs for tvOS apps. These APIs are available for developers immediately through the tvOS developer beta, so users will hopefully be able to start seeing their benefits in various tvOS apps soon after the official release of the new operating system this Fall.

The biggest new features that developers will have access to are the following:

ReplayKit

This one may sound familiar because it came to iOS last year, but now tvOS is picking up the framework as well, which will allow developers to more easily build in support for live recordings of users’ tvOS games. These gameplay videos can then be shared with others after the fact, but the API also allows gameplay to be streamed live while the user is currently playing the game. ReplayKit combined with Apple’s (hopeful) new support for MFi game controller-only games, could start to bring more advanced games and attract more advanced gamers to the Apple TV system. Even more so because the new tvOS also includes support for up to 4 MFi Game Controllers to be connected and playing a game at the same time.

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In New tvOS, Apple Allows Game Developers to Require MFi Controllers→

In Apple’s updated Apple TV developer documentation for the new version of tvOS coming this Fall, one line in particular has stuck out to developers in the document about MFi Game Controllers:

When designing a tvOS game, you may require the use of an MFi game controller, but where possible you should also support the Siri Remote.

This line does need to be taken with a grain of salt since these are the preliminary release notes for the just-released beta, and therefore the rules could be changed at any time between now and the Fall. But with that said, it is striking that the line would make its way back into the documentation if it weren’t going to be there to stay. I say “back” because similar language actually existed in the initial tvOS documentation last Fall, but was changed to reflect that under no circumstances would apps be allowed in the store unless they had some sort of support for the Siri Remote rather than solely supporting MFi controllers.

Polygon covered this topic last year, and discussed that Apple may in the future decide to loosen the reigns on this policy and let some MFi controller-only apps into the store.

We’ll have to keep watching through the summer to see for the sure, but it looks like there’s a new glimmer of hope that games with more advanced controls will be able to get into the Apple TV App Store without needing to neuter their control scheme to support a Remote that is not at all optimized for playing games.

You can follow @MacStoriesNet on Twitter or our WWDC 2016 news hub for updates.

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iOS 10 Beta Allows Most Built-In Apple Apps to be Deleted→

Earlier today, TechCrunch reported that many of Apple’s built-in apps were starting to show up as separate downloads in the App Store. One big implication of this is that it will allow Apple to update these apps independently of full iOS system updates.

With the iOS 10 beta out in the wild now though, and new support documentation for the OS posted from Apple, we can see that not only are those apps available in the App Store, but they are in fact completely removable from the system in iOS 10 (at least, they are in the initial beta).

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Apple Posts WWDC 2016 Keynote Event Video→

For anyone who missed the live stream, Apple has now posted the full two hour video from this morning’s WWDC keynote online.

At WWDC we made lots of major announcements. iOS 10 is our biggest release yet, with incredible features in Messages and an all-new design for Maps, Photos, and Apple Music. With macOS Sierra, Siri makes its debut on your desktop and Apple Pay comes to the web. The latest watchOS offers easier navigation and a big boost in performance. And the updated tvOS brings expanded Siri searches.

We’ll be continuing our coverage of WWDC announcements throughout the day (and the rest of the week), but if you have two hours the keynote is always worth a watch (and don’t worry, this year’s keynote is much tighter than last year’s).

You can follow @MacStoriesNet on Twitter or our WWDC 2016 news hub for updates.

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Apple Introduces the Next Version of tvOS

At today’s WWDC keynote event, Apple introduced the newest features set to come to their tvOS operating system this fall. Among the marquee features of the release are improved Siri functionalities, single sign-on, new developer APIs, a brand new Apple TV Remote app for iOS, and more. During the introduction of the update, Apple’s Eddy Cue also announced that since the introduction of tvOS last Fall, there are now 1300 video channels available for Apple TV, and 6000 total native apps that can be downloaded from the Apple TV App Store.

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Apple Starts Decorating Moscone West for WWDC 2016

Apple has started decorating Moscone West in San Francisco for WWDC, kicking off this year on Monday, June 13.

Every year, Apple decorates the convention center with different sets of banners: the ones matching the event’s tagline and graphics already available on the WWDC website, and others showing the official (and previously unseen) logos of new versions of iOS and OS X. For the first time, Apple will hold this year’s opening keynote at the Bill Graham auditorium, with technical sessions and labs to be held as usual at Moscone during the week.

Apple is expected to introduce iOS 10, watchOS 3, tvOS 10, and the next version of OS X, likely to be renamed “macOS”. While rumors have been scarce, previous reports indicated Apple could bring Siri to the Mac, introduce a Siri API for developers, and redesign their Music app.

Apple has begun decorating Moscone West with its logo earlier today, and, like every year, we’re documenting the process with photos from San Francisco. With preparations now well underway, Apple will continue to decorate Moscone West with new banners in the next few days, possibly showing the official logos for iOS 10 and OS X 10.12.

We will update this post with more photos throughout the week; new updates will be listed in reverse chronological order below.

You can follow @MacStoriesNet on Twitter or our WWDC 2016 news hub for updates.

Our thanks to the Workflow team for providing us with photos from Moscone West in San Francisco.

June 11, 2016 9:00 AM

June 10, 2016

Apple Updates WWDC App for WWDC 2016 with tvOS, iPad Multitasking Support

Apple updated their official WWDC app earlier today in preparation for the upcoming WWDC 2016.

The app, now at version 5.0, has received a new dark icon and a tvOS version to stream and download videos for WWDC 2016 on the big screen. It’s also possible to watch videos from previous conferences from the Apple TV. Live streaming is now possible on iOS and tvOS, and the iPad version also supports iOS 9 multitasking for Split View and Slide Over.

In addition to a dark interface, the update has brought a preliminary list of sessions that developers will be able to attend during the event. As it’s been the case for the past few years, Apple hasn’t included the real names of the sessions yet as they would reveal the company’s announcements beforehand. This year, Apple has opted for Swift-inspired session placeholders such as ourLips = sealedOnThisOneToo and aWatchedPot != boils. The full schedule of every technical session will be announced after the opening keynote on Monday, June 13.

You can get version 5.0 of the WWDC app from the App Store.

iOS 10: Wishes and Concept Video

iOS 10 concept.

iOS 10 concept.


(Full-res)

I almost can’t believe there was a time when the iPad didn’t have Split View. Or that, for years, I thought Apple would never bring split-screen multitasking to iOS.

More than any other iOS update before, iOS 9 has fundamentally reinvented the role of the iPad in my computing life. As I’ve written in my iOS 9 review and look at the iPad one year after my decision to stop using my Mac, iOS 9 and its multitasking improvements have catapulted the iPad away from the old limitations of iOS into a different league.

With iOS 9 and the iPad Pro, the list of tasks I can’t perform on my iPad is down to a single item.

I’ve never been happier with an iOS device and operating system than I am with the iPad Pro and iOS 9. Getting my work done is faster; using apps in Split View is a treat compared to iOS 8; and the software keyboard (despite some problems) continues to impress me with the addition of trackpad mode and the Shortcut Bar. The iPhone 6s, too, has been a pleasant surprise thanks to its superior performance and 3D Touch.1

There’s never been a better time to be an iOS user. But that doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect. When it comes to iOS, happiness is often a fleeting moment – a temporary satisfaction with the current state of things before the inevitable longing for something deeper. Such is the constant pursuit of the future.

Every year, I put together a list of the changes I’d like to see in the next version of iOS. I’ve been doing this for several years now. This year, I wanted to prepare something bigger. The tenth version of iOS due to be released later this year will be a major milestone for Apple and iOS users. It only felt appropriate to celebrate the occasion with a different take on my annual iOS wish list.

For the past few months, I’ve been collaborating with Sam Beckett (author of a fantastic Control Center concept we linked to a while back) to visualize my iOS 10 wishes with a professional concept video and static mockups. Sam and I discussed my ideas for a couple of months, and he was able to visualize2 what I would like to have in iOS 10 – both for the iPhone and iPad – with a style and attention to detail I’m extremely happy with.

Below, you’ll find a collection of my iOS 10 wishes, organized in tentpole features (the ones also shown in the video) plus additional sub-sections. Some of these wishes have been on my list for years; others are a consequence of the features Apple shipped with iOS 9.

Let’s get started.

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  1. I use 3D Touch heavily every day. Peek previews for tweets and links in Tweetbot, Home screen actions, keyboard cursor control, and channel shortcuts in Slack are gestures I intuitively perform daily. ↩︎
  2. He was also very patient. As you can imagine, I sent him a lot of ideas and comments before signing off on the final version. I can't recommend working with Sam enough. ↩︎