Apple’s developer conference WWDC 2020 started on Monday June 22, and on the first day Apple always delivers a keynote showcasing the most important upcoming software updates and innovations. Occasionally some hardware is also unveiled, like the the third-generation Mac Pro at WWDC 2019, but the focus is definitely on software and developers.

The keynote is always a tight package, lasting two hours, with lots of rapid fire information delivered. Below you’ll find my summary of the keynote, but I’m also including my detailed notes and comments after the summary. For each product unveiling during the keynote, I give a rating between 0 and 10. A rating of 0 means completely uninteresting to me and 10 means super exciting, IMVHO.

Summary

• Strong intro by CEO Tim Cook, talking about racism, inequality, and justice. Also thanking healthcare people who have worked hard during the COVID-19 crisis.

• iOS 14: Apple claims, once again, that Siri has become smarter, faster, and more accurate. Please let it be true. The new version of Maps seems cool with EV routing and possibility to get navigation that minimizes your carbon footprint. An App Store update called App Clips will make it easier and faster to discover new apps exactly when you need it. CarPlay gets interesting new features and your iPhone can soon substitute your car keys. You’ll be able to change your default email and web browser apps on iOS.

• iPadOS 14: Thanks to the separation from iOS, we’re now seeing design updates that specifically take advantage of iPad’s form factor. Pencil improvements and Scribble, specifically aimed at note taking, make handwriting as powerful as typed text. This inspired me to finally get a Pencil for my iPad. Also, very cool updates to AirPods software, allowing you to seamlessly move between your Apple devices and audio will be routed correctly. Spatial sound support coming to AirPods Pro. Finally, a small thing, but something we’ve waited for a long time: incoming calls will no longer hijack your entire screen (and this comes to iOS too)!

• watchOS 7: New features for fitness and health tracking. The Watch will become better at analyzing your workouts thanks to improved sensor usage and Sleep Tracker and Wind Down were introduced for helping you to maintain your bedtime routines.

• Apple reminded us that privacy is a fundamental human right. Lots of important new privacy features launched, such as possibility to tell apps only your proximate location instead of exact location and recording indicator when mic or camera is being used by an app.

• Home and HomeKit: First they emphasize how important privacy is also in your home, but then they tell that cameras in your house (e.g. door bells) connected to HomeKit will now recognize and announce people you’ve previously tagged in Photos. I would expect this creepy-sounding feature to cause some debate.

• Apple TV+ announced new original content: Foundation based on Isaac Asimov’s legendary sci-fi books is coming in 2021. The teaser video was stunning. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, so this was super exciting for me. Might become the first Apple TV+ show that really gets me hooked (so far nothing on Apple TV+ has caught me).

• macOS Big Sur: The OS gets its biggest design overhaul since the launch of Mac OS X. All apps have been updated and Control Center, familiar from iOS, is now also on the Mac. But while they were showing new OS features, everybody was just waiting for the big chip announcement.

• Apple Silicon: And yes, this was indeed the big Mac announcement of the day. Tim Cook called it a “historic day for the Mac”. Apple is moving from Intel processors to custom silicon that they design themselves.

  • Interestingly, ARM wasn’t mentioned once during the keynote, but I’m assuming that like with iPhones and iPads, the new chips will also be ARM-based.

  • They explained that having a world class silicon team is a game changer and this will allow a tighter integration between silicon and software. It will also optimize performance vs. power and should in theory lift Mac performance to a completely new level.

  • Transition: Xcode will be key (just recompile, they say) and there will be a Quick Start Program for developers. There will also be emulation, i.e. you’ll be able to run old apps on the new chip via Rosetta 2 emulation, which is transparent to users.

  • As the chip architecture is the same across all Apple devices, you can also run iOS and iPadOS apps (as-is) on the Mac without having to rebuild them specifically for the Mac via Catalyst.

  • Timeline: First new systems will be shipped by the end of this year and full transition is expected to take 2 years, but Intel-based devices will be supported for many years. Also, they still have Intel-based Macs in the pipeline, but I’m not sure who would want to buy those, unless you really have to?

Notes and comments

Intro

Brief intro video from Apple Park and then cut to CEO Tim Cook walking into an empty Steve Jobs Theatre. That’s a pretty dramatic scene with all those empty seat rows and complete silence, compared to traditional overhyped Apple events. Due to COVID-19, the entire WWDC week is delivered this year online to Apple’s community of 23m developers.

Tim starts by talking about racism, inequality, and justice, and mentions the killing of George Floyd. He reminds us about Apple’s new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative with a new $100 million commitment.

Also, healthcare workers are specifically mentioned and praised during the intro.

iOS 14

Most of the iOS updates are presented by Craig Federighi, SVP of Software Engineering, or by people actually working with the products being shipped.

Home screen: We all have too many home screen pages and forget what’s behind the first two. New solution is the App Library, essentially intelligent folders for your apps, making it easier to find and use your apps. Rating: 7

Widgets: Have received a new design and they now come in different sizes. Can also be placed on the home screen now and be stacked on something called smart stacks. Rating: 7

Picture in picture: You can continue watching videos in a small window while doing other things on your iPhone. Rating: 9

Siri: New interface design, which doesn’t take up the entire screen anymore when activated. They also claim that Siri has become much faster and smarter, processing 25 billion requests per month and having 20x more facts at its disposal than 3 years ago, i.e. should theoretically be much better at answering questions. Siri can now also send audio messages and faster and more accurate speech recognition is now made on-device. Rating: 9

Translate: Designed for conversations. Looks like an Apple version of Google Translate, but can it be as fast and good? Rating: 8

Messages: Now you can pin conversations and there are some Memoji updates. They also introduced support for inline replies, threads, and mentions in conversations. Much of these are to help group conversations. Pretty boring stuff, especially as I’m not a big user of Messages. Most of my friends and family use WhatsApp, and many of the updates announced for Messenger can already be found in WhatsApp. Rating: 6

Maps: Now tries to help you to discover new places. Also, new ways to get there with less carbon footprint, e.g. take cycling instructions instead. You can also choose if you want a more challenging walk with uphills. Most interesting update was EV routing for getting rid of EV range anxiety. It knows which charging stations work with your vehicle and optimizes route accordingly. Rating: 9

CarPlay: Today 97% of new cars in the US support CarPlay. But what about Tesla? Nothing mentioned here, so probably still won’t be supported by Tesla. New wallpapers mentioned (sigh) and three new CarPlay app categories (Eat, Park, and EV charging). Interestingly, soon iPhone can unlock your car (will be e.g. in 2021 BMWs), so you can leave your car keys at home and even transfer key access to others with your iPhone. Rating: 8

App Store: It’s now 12 years old (remember that the original iPhone did not come with an App Store). New innovation called App Clips, i.e. a small part of an app, or rather a mini version of the real app. Light and fast and easy to discover via QR codes or NFC, for example when approaching a electric scooter. Helps you get the right App exactly when you need it. This seemed very usable and cool for discovering and trying out quickly new services. As expected, there was no reference whatsoever to the recent App Store vs. HEY controversy, which seems to have been resolved just in time before WWDC. Rating: 9

Default email and browser apps: This is a pretty big feature, which they just mentioned on an overview slide briefly shown. Rating: 10

iPadOS 14

UI designs: Lots of design updates specifically for the iPad. For example widgets are now tailored for the iPad and many apps, like Photos take advantage of the iPad form factor. Sidebar introduced as a new thing to several apps, like Files, Music, and Photos. Also Siri on iPad has receives similar design updates as on the iPhone. Rating: 8

Incoming call screen: At last, your entire screen and device won’t be hijacked by an incoming phone or skype call. Will also come to iOS. This is something we’ve been requesting for a long time. Rating: 10

Search: New compact design, and can be initiated from anywhere, i.e. you never need to leave the app you’re working with. Works now a bit like Spotlight Search on the Mac (cmd - space). Rating: 8

Pencil: Improvements to note taking, making handwriting as powerful as typed text. Introducing Scribble, i.e. you can handwrite in any field and your input will automatically be transformed into typed text. Now also auto detection of shapes when making notes (for making your notes more pro looking). You can also select handwriting just as selecting typed text. This is interesting and can lift note taking with a pencil to a totally new level. Rating: 9

AirPods software: Now you can seamlessly move between your Apple devices while having your AirPods in your ears. Based on what you’re doing and on which device, audio will be automatically routed correctly. Also, spatial audio coming to AirPods Pro, replicating movie theater experiences through smart filters and other crazy tech, enabling sounds to appear as they come from any direction. Very cool updates strengthening even further this category of wearables and making me consider if I should upgrade to AirPods Pro. Rating: 10

watchOS 7

Rich Complications: More personalisation and richer watch faces. Easier for users to change complications on watch faces and make your watch face more suitable for your needs. You can also share watch faces with your friends with a feature called “face sharing”. Yes, that’s the name they gave it. Rating: 6

Maps: The Watch will apparently be better at giving you directions, but I’m almost always navigating with my iPhone, so not sure how important or useful this could be. Rating: 7

Workout: New types of workout added, like dance, and thanks to smarter sensor usage, the Watch will now better understand and analyze the effects of your workout. Nice but not stunning. Rating: 8

Health: Introducing Sleep Tracker. Finally! So far we’ve been using third party apps for sleep tracking, so let’s see what Apple’s own tracker will turn out to be. Also, a new feature called Wind Down, which minimizes distractions and creates a personalized routines for the evenings, making it easier for you to maintain your bedtime routines. Oh, and the Watch has now a sleep mode, which I’ve also longed for. Rating: 10

Automatic detection of hand washing: Thanks to sensors like microphone and accelerometer, the Watch knows when you’re washing your hands, and then it tells you to keep washing long enough so that all germs are removed from your hands. Interesting considering COVID-19. Rating: 9

Privacy

Apple reminded us that privacy is a fundamental human right. They talk about privacy enhancing concepts like data minimization, on-device intelligence, security protections, and transparency and control. Good example is Sign in with Apple (200m accounts have now been created), which helps app adoption but also improves privacy. They will now make it easier for users to upgrade an old account (e.g. on Kayak) to Sign in with Apple.

Location data: You can choose to tell apps only your proximate location instead of your exact location. Rating: 10

Recording indicator: Indicates with an orange dot in the status bar when your mic or camera is being used. Rating: 10

Tracking control: You will get info and know better how your apps track you. Rating: 9

App privacy: Like nutrition facts on foodstuff, developers will now have to add a similar fact sheet to apps, disclosing the highlights of what data is collected and shared about you. Will be interesting to see how developers take this update. Rating: 9

Home

Importance of privacy was accentuated in this segment too. Apple Home and your smart devices should also respect your privacy.

HomeKit: Easier to add new devices like lights and HomeKit will now suggest useful automations automatically (e.g. light, thermostat, or garage routines). Adaptive lighting will change light colors according to different times of the day, e.g. brighter in morning and more relaxing in evening. I’ve selected to put all my smart home devices on Google Home, so HomeKit is really not my thing. Rating: 7

Camera: You can now define areas for what’s being filmed by surveillance cameras, in order to minimize false alarms. Also introducing smarter face recognition, i.e. faces you’ve tagged in Photos will automatically be recognized by surveillance cameras or doorbells (with cameras), and you’ll get announcements with names. Sounds a bit creepy. Rating: 7

Apple TV and tvOS 14: This is every year so boring. I didn’t notice anything of interest here. Rating: 4

Apple TV+: But here, new original content was announced. Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov’s legendary sci-fi books, is coming in 2021. The teaser video was amazing. For me as a sci-fi geek, this was one of the most exciting announcements (at least emotion-wise) during the entire keynote. Rating: 10

macOS Big Sur

The update to Catalina is called Big Sur and, once again, Craig Federighi couldn’t resist joking about Apple’s “crack marketing department” that takes extensive trips and whatnot in order to come up with amazing product names. OMG.

Design: Apple says they’re introducing the biggest design changes to the OS since the launch of Mac OS X. Familiar but new, and yes it looks very cool. All Apps have received a touch up. Rating: 9

Control Center: Familiar from iOS and now also on the Mac. Rating: 8

Widgets, Messages, Maps: Yeah, they look better and have some nice new features. Nothing spectacular here. Rating: 6

Mac Catalyst: Updates that make it even easier to create Mac apps based on iOS apps. Could potentially be important and nice, but I’m still not fully convinced about the usability and quality of Mac apps that have been made via Catalyst. Rating: 7

Safari: Faster, more privacy features like cookie blocking, intelligent tracking prevention, privacy report toolbar telling you how sites track you. Better password management. Safari Extensions updates, allowing e.g. certain privacy related rights only to be used for a period of time. More intelligent tabs and yes, icons on the tabs have color now. Looks good, but I’m still using Chrome and will probably continue using Chrome on all my Apple devices. Rating: 7

Apple Silicon

So this was the biggest announcement of the day. Tim Cook called it a “historic day for the Mac”. Apple is moving to custom silicon that they design themselves. This was of course widely speculated beforehand and I wrote about this in an earlier blog post.

They’ve done similar chip changes before. For example, at WWDC 2005 Steve Jobs announced the move from PowerPC to Intel on Macs. Now Intel, who really hasn’t been able to live up to expectations, will be ditched for Apple Silicon.

Will this be a huge leap forward for the Mac? At least Apple thinks so, and they do have excellent results to show from iPhones and iPads, which have been running on powerful Apple-designed (ARM-based) chips for a long time. In fact, they’ve shipped already 2 billion Apple-designed chips.

Johny Srouji, SVP of Hardware Technologies, explained that having a world class silicon team is a game changer and this will allow a tighter integration between silicon and software. It will also optimize performance vs. power and should in theory lift Mac performance to a completely new level.

Interestingly, ARM wasn’t mentioned once during the keynote, but I’m assuming that like with iPhones and iPads, these new chips will also be ARM-based.

Regarding the transition: All Mac apps made by Apple are already ready for Apple Silicon. For third party developers, Xcode will be key for the transition. It should be easy to recompile your apps and Apple said that typically “just a few days of work is needed” in order to make your app run on Apple Silicon. There will also be a Quick Start Program for developers, including docs and sample code, private dev forums, support, and a Developer Transition Kit (DTK = essentially receiving a temporary Mac Mini with A12Z SoC, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, macOS Big Sur Developer Beta + Xcode).

Emulation: Apple will provide Rosetta 2, which means that precisely as in the PowerPC to Intel transition, you will be able to run old (x86) apps on the new chip via emulation transparent to users.

Apple said that big names like Microsoft and Adobe are already far in making their most popular suites like Office and Creative Cloud optimized for Apple Silicon.

Interestingly, as the chip architecture is the same across all Apple devices, you can also run iOS and iPadOS apps (as-is) on the Mac without having to rebuild them specifically for the Mac via Catalyst. Seeing Calm, one of my favourite iOS apps, run on macOS was fun.

Timeline: First new systems will be shipped by the end of this year. No info was given if these will be laptops or desktops. They expect the full transition to take 2 years, but Intel-based devices will be supported for many years. In fact, Apple said that some new Intel-based devices are still in the pipeline and coming out later this year. Hm, I don’t know if I would buy an Intel-based Mac after this announcement, unless I’d really have to. All other software announced during the keynote will be available in fall.

And of course, they had to replicate the Steve Jobs trick from WWDC 2005, i.e. all the macOS Big Sur demos shown during the keynote were done on a computer that actually ran on an A12Z Apple-designed (iPad) chip. It’s still a good trick.

My overall rating of Apple Silicon: 10