Apple, at WWDC today, announced the rollout of their latest mobile platforms, essentially called iOS 12.  While iOS has been growing rapidly, today’s announcement marks some of their biggest additions to the software platform to date.  Here is what you need to know about the latest additions.

Performance increase:

Of course there would be performance upgrades.  Trying to make the OS work better for legacy products, Apple announced that the new OS would perform significantly better on said devices than ever before.  One of the biggest changes is in how the processor handles intensive tasks.  According to Craig Federighi who presented the product in the keynote, the processors will ramp when necessary and slow down after the task is finished.  This should help keep the phone zippy while saving battery in the process.  Of course, we will know more once we get our hands on the product.

AR is here to stay:

The future of AR is coming down to a slugfest between Google and Apple and Apple just made their biggest play yet.  The company is co-developing an extension/standard with Adobe called USDZ that will supposedly make AR universal.  Adobe, to take things one step further, is even developing a WYSIWYG editor that should allow for the simple creation of AR apps.  This could be a big boon for Apple to win over AR developers concerned about development time.

Further, Apple is updating ARKit in the latest iOS to ARKit 2.  The big update adds improved face tracking and realistic rendering among other things.  In a demo, Federighi was able to custom build a Fender guitar and have it appear right before him on the screen.  Lego showcased a promising app that allows Lego builders to interact with their play sets.  Using a Lego designed app, more than one person can interact with the set while both users share the same experience.  Apple calls it “shared experiences.”  Think of it as multiplayer AR.  The demos were impressive, but like many before it, we have yet to see this technology applied in the wild.  Hopefully this time will be different.

Photos, thy name is search:

Now this feature is much anticipated by me.  Photos is getting a search feature.  You can search by places, people, categories,  business names, etc, and find exactly what you are looking for.  According to Apple, Machine Learning knows where you are and can help identify certain photos that you have taken based on context.  Further, the Photos app will give you suggestions, for example photos that you may want to share with friends because other friends were there snapping photos as well.  It will even suggest what photos to put in albums.  While I certainly can’t wait to have this organize my photos, the concept is potentially unnerving from a privacy perspective.

Siri is getting smarter:

Who here would like a smarter Siri?  Anyone who uses Siri regularly should have raised their hand to this.  The company announced that Siri is getting smarter through “Shortcuts.”  A “shortcut” is a tool that you can create that will allow you to get Siri to execute a command.  One example might be to ask Siri to order a pizza.  Siri will know, because you taught it, that it should open your favorite pizza app and place the order.  Think of it as a skill, like in Alexa.  The major difference here is that, while app makers can build in shortcuts, you can make your own with a Shortcut app.  It’s almost like Apple’s Automator but for the iPhone.  Let’s see how this plays out but it does look like a really good idea.

New apps:

Both Apple’s News app and Stock are getting refreshes.  Apple News is getting a simplified refresh with a browse and favorites tab.  Meanwhile Stocks is getting charts and real-time news from the investment world.  These are both welcome additions in my opinion.  iBooks is also getting updated with a new simplified design.  You’ll be able to preview where you left off and a browse books in a new store design.

CarPlay:

Finally, third-party navigation in CarPlay.

Phone addiction:

Finally, Apple added some new features to combat phone addiction.  Do Not Disturb is getting an update where you will see a blank screen at night.  When you wake up, your notifications will start appearing in spurts so as not to overwhelm you.  This is much appreciated.  Notifications will now be grouped together on the lock screen and Siri will alert you to notifications from apps that you may not be using anymore.  And if you have kids, you’ll appreciate Apple’s new Screen Time feature.  This feature will let you control how much time you spend on your device or in a given app.  It will literally lock you out of something if you’re spending too much time in it.  Of course, you have to set these settings.  And this setting can also be applied to children as well.  But this is Apple’s first step in giving people back control of how they and their loved ones use these devices.