Apple is working on a new whiteboard-style app to enable people to collaborate in real-time. Called "Freeform," the app allow groups to work together via FaceTime. Freeform will be available on iPadsOS 16 "later this year," and will also be available on macOS and iOS.
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iPhone users are walking around with great cameras in their pockets, so why not use that with their Macs? That's the basic idea behind Continuity Camera, a new feature that'll let you plop on iPhone on top of your Mac, and use those mobile cameras to power video chats in FaceTime, Teams and any other conferencing app. While cool, the feature is a bit clunkier than typical Apple offerings, since it requires a phone stand. It's also a slight admission from Apple that its laptop and desktop webcams aren't the best around. (That's something we noticed with the pricey Studio Display.)
The entire Continuity Camera setup works wirelessly, and it also brings over features like Center Stage, which helps the camera follow you around the room. It can also tap into your phone's ultrawide camera to show a top-down view of your desk. Mostly, though, it's a nice way to get better background blur and lighting effects for all of your video chats. The only problem? You won't be able to surreptitiously use your phone while you're stuck in a work meeting.
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If you're an iPad user who always wished your tablet could do more, Apple has you in mind this year. At WWDC, the company just unveiled iPadOS 16, the annual update to the company's iPad software. Naturally, many of the new iOS 16 features are coming here as well, including big updates to Mail, Safari, Messages and more. Oh, and 12 years after the first iPad was released, Apple is finally bringing the Weather app to iPadOS.
For the first time, iPadOS will allow you to have overlapping windows for the first time, through a multitasking interface called Stage Manager that Apple is also bringing to the Mac this year. That said, some of these features will only be available on iPads with the M1 processor. When you use stage manager, you can resize windows, so you can easily tuck away other apps behind the main window. There's also a few on the left side of the display that shows all your most recent apps. Based on the demo we saw during the keynote, windows dynamically resize and adjust their content view based on how big you make them.
The iPad also supports external displays for the first time, as well. Instead of just mirroring your iPad display, it fully extends your iPad experience to the second screen. You can have up to four distinct apps open on each screen at once, so an external display would let you have windows for eight different apps open at once. This is a massive change for iPadOS multitasking, something that people have requested for literally years now.
One big new feature is called Collaboration; when you share a document from an app like Pages, you can immediately make it sometime that everyone can work on simultaneously. Before, sharing would just send a copy, but now you can share a document through the Messages app and everyone you send it to can start editing it. You can also jump right into a FaceTime call directly from the document, as well. Naturally, this will work first with Apple apps, but Apple is releasing a third-party collaboration API as well. Other examples of Collaboration that Apple showed off is sharing a tab group from Safari, and it'll work in Notes as well.
Another collaboration-related feature that Apple has just announced is called Freeform. You can jump into a board from a FaceTime group call and it basically creates a shared notes document that you can type, draw or paste other content into. This feature will be coming to iOS and macOS, as well.
Game Center will also get some SharePlay features, but they're coming later this year. When they do come out, you'll be able to play multi-player games while keeping a FaceTime call going, for example.
This comes a year after iPadOS 15 added some major new multitasking features that made it a lot easier to access different apps in the iPad's traditional split-view setup. That update also included the handy Quick Notes feature, a controversial Safari rdesign that was eventually rolled back, major updates to the Home Screen experience through a new set of widgets and the expected handful of other smaller changes.
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Ventura, the next version of Apple's Mac operating system, will make it easier for you to keep track of all your disparate apps and windows. New to macOS 13 is Stage Manager, a feature that will group all your windows to the side of your desktop, organizing them by app. Whenever you switch between programs, Ventura will move the app and its accompanying windows to the center of your screen. Think of a Stage Manager as a dock for your currently open apps.
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Apple didn't just introduce a new MacBook Air at WWDC — it also unveiled an overhaul of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The new 'entry' pro laptop unsurprisingly uses an M2 chip that promises improved performance and efficiency, including a hefty 20 hours of peak battery life (during video playback) and quicker ProRes video processing. The new model isn't a major redesign like its Air counterpart, and keeps the Touch Bar.
You can also expect "studio-quality" microphones, up to 24GB of RAM and a maximum 2TB of storage. As with its M1 predecessor, then, this isn't a no-holds-barred workstation. You'll need to buy a higher-tier MacBook Pro if you demand a ton of memory or drive capacity.
The MacBook Pro M2 will start at $1,299 ($1,199 for education) when it arrives in July.
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Somehow, it's already been almost four years since Apple redesigned the MacBook Air with a Retina display. That laptop got a big performance upgrade in late 2020 as one of the first computers to ship with Apple's M1 silicon, but lately the device has started to feel long in the tooth. As expected, Apple is refreshing the MacBook Air today with the just-announced M2 chip inside and a larger, 13.6-inch display. It also includes MagSafe for the first time in years, just like the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro that Apple released last fall. It also has two Thunderbolt ports (now you don't have to give one up for charging) and a headphone jack.
The M2 chip comes with an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU and up to 24GB of RAM — though the base model will certainly come with less. The new Air has a little notch, just like the MacBook Pro, and that notch holds a 1080p webcam that Apple says has twice the resolution and twice the low-light performance of the previous MacBook Air camera.
Its design is also reminiscent of the new MacBook Pro, too, with a slightly more squared-off body — and for the first time, the MacBook Air isn't a tapered wedge design like all the previous models. It's still extremely thin and comes in a 2.7 pounds, just slightly less than the old model. Colors have been tweaked as well, although we're unfortunately not getting the bright, iMac-style colors that were rumored. Instead, we're looking at silver, space grey, "starlight" and "midnight."
The MacBook Air is, unfortunately, more expensive than before. It starts at $1,199, $200 more than the old model. There's no word on exactly when it'll ship, though — they said it would ship next month. And the old M1-powered MacBook Air will stay in the lineup at $999.
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You won't need an Apple Watch to access the company's Fitness app anymore. With iOS 16, Apple is bringing the software to iPhone, the company announced during WWDC 2022. Like its watchOS counterpart, the app will allow you to set daily activity goals, with a "Move ring" there to motivate you to stay active throughout the day. Your iPhone will use its sensors to track your steps and workouts and then convert that information into an estimation of the calories you've burned. At any time, you can share your Move ring with friends and family to push them to achieve their activity goals too.
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Apple is at last promising better sleep tracking for Apple Watch as part of watchOS 9. The Sleep app will add a sleep stage function. It will be able to detect the REM, core and deep sleep stages and track those over time. Those who participate in the Apple health research program will be able to submit their sleep stage data to researchers for a new study.
One of the more notable health features for watchOS 9 is that it will show how long a wearer is in a state of atrial fibrillation (AFib) if they have been diagnosed with the condition. The new feature will show the time of day or week that AFib is most active.
You'll receive weekly notifications to help you gain a better insight of AFib frequency. The Health app will show a detailed history, along with indicators of lifestyle factors that may impact the condition, such as exercise, sleep and alcohol intake. You'll be able to download a PDF that includes your aFib history and possible lifestyle factors to share with your healthcare professionals.
Apple Watch's electrocardiogram (ECG) tool can look for signs of an irregular heartbeat or AFib. The US Food and Drug Administration just granted Apple approval last week for an ECG history feature.
In addition, Apple is introducing a Medications app to help users keep track of when to take their meds.
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Almost two years since the launch of Apple's M1 chip — the first ARM-based "Apple Silicon" hardware — we finally have a successor: M2. While the M1 chip was notable for showing what Apple could accomplish with a more efficient mobile design (a dramatic departure from Intel's power-hungry x86 processors), the goal of M2 is more about refinement rather than breaking new ground. This time, it's all about efficiency.
But given how far Apple has scaled the M1 — to the point where it basically fused two chips together to create the mighty M1 Ultra on the Mac Studio — it'll be intriguing to see how far Apple can take the M2's design (we've yet to hear about an updated Mac Pro, don't forget).
The M2 chip supports up to 24GB of unified memory, compared to just 16GB with the M1, as well as double the memory bandwidth (1000 GB/s). And once again, it offers 8 cores (4 high performance, 4 high-efficiency). Apple claims the efficiency cores are vastly improved, and overall you can expect an 18 percent increase in multithreaded performance over the M1. The M2 chip can be equipped with up to 10 GPU cores, which are up to 35 percent more powerful than the M1 at their greatest power state.
Video editors may benefit the most from this new chip, as the M2 includes support for ProRes encoding and decoding, along with 6K external displays. The chip's neural engine is also 40 percent faster, which will significantly speed up AI tasks.
The M2 chip will arrive first in the redesigned MacBook Air, which loses that line's iconic wedge shape, as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
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As expected, Apple has introduced watchOS 9 at WWDC. The new Apple Watch platform includes a big upgrade to fitness features with distance and time intervals. You'll know when to slow down for a recovery, for instance. There are also heart rate zones (for both sleep and workouts), and personal bests can help you improve performance over time. You won't always need the wristwear, though— Apple has also promised to offer fitness features on the iPhone.
You'll also see some interface tweaks such as banner notifications. Apple has both revamped existing watch faces (such as Astronomy) and introduced new ones like Lunar and Playtime.
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