June, once again the many developers and designers pack the hall in order to see what the next big thing Apple is doing software wise. A new iOS, a new MacOS and a few hardware surprises. I have been looking over everything and rethinking over and over since it debuted and I think I have reached a point where I have absorbed everything and can thankfully now write my thoughts on WWDC.

Turning It Up to…11?

iOS 11 was shown off…and I wasn’t really moved. Most of these new features are some of the ones that android and even windows already have had built in for a while. Wi Fi Sharing, QR Code Scanning (really?), One Handed Keyboard. I wasn’t really impressed with their new list of “features” of they have already been done.

The biggest new thing is the ability to have a apple pay debit card on your device and share between people. This is something that people have been wanting since apple pay was first introduced, and them following the words of the people is definitely a plus. Apple maps is also something that needed a whole lot lot of love, and apple has taken the best features from WAZE and google maps and integrated them into apple maps which might actually make me use it now.

The new control dock is being set to be able to be customizable but to what end? is there a limit? I also enjoyed having the slide ability between the music and the other controls. I think putting everything into one dock could make everyones phone start to feel like a remote control. Which I have felt about Samsung’s interface cause I have seen many people pop open the control tray and its all these crazy controls and the focus of it gets lost.

Now I do think one of the biggest BIGGEST features is the Automatic Set up. Just having your new iPhone take a picture of a set up code and blam, passwords and the rest of the personal settings are imported. This is beyond awesome and this is the kind of innovation I am looking for in apple.

SurfaceISH???

The new iOS update for the iPad Pro is helping pave the way for the iPad to no longer being just a “bigger iphone” it is giving the user the ability to multi task a lot better than just double tapping the home button. The new update will bring a a task bar which is what every mac user has had for quite a long time. I feel like adding in files and multi tasking will help build the iPad into being a actual desktop device. However, I need to point out that the iPad like this seems like it might become a Surface RT issue. Where you can’t install custom apps that aren’t found in the app store, this might be what separates people from buying a macbook pro vs a ipad pro.

Augmented and VR future?

The new Mac OS update and iOS update featured a very big focus on augmented reality and VR, but I really don’t feel like this is going to become a focus till we don’t have a giant goggles set attached to our head or face.

HomePod

eh. Whatever.

Macbook and iMac

With the new Macbooks and iMacs using the kaby lake processors by intel, I feel like this will definitely overhaul the entire line into the must have computers, the added speed and extra push will make these devices the must haves. The new iMac Pro that they did show off I feel was a weird step, the Mac Pro was always the one that was shown to be the most powerful mac. But with this new iMac being the most powerful thing that apple has and cramming so many gigs of ram I have to wonder where the Mac Pro’s stand now. I do have to wonder what will happen with the iMac line cause making it “space grey” vs actually introvating like the Surface Studio did with adding in the Surface Dial and the ability to go from design mode to desktop mode makes me wonder if apple is going for just style over substance with their desktop computers nowadays.

Conclusion

Apple seems to be taking their hardware in the direction of “if it ain’t broke dont’ fix it.” with their iPad Pro and their new macbook’s and iMacs, they are just upgrading the guts. However the software will be interesting, making the iPad a more Surfaceish device we will need to see how it plays out in the long run. I think eventually Apple will make the iPad a more touch based version of Mac OS eventually like Microsoft did with Windows and making one universal version. You can also expect a review on iOS 11’s beta in the future when I get some more hands on time.

 

See you space cowboy…