General Interface
Starting off with the general look of the operating system and the company has organized apps much better. The app categorization is done smartly with the help of app libraries. Users have the ability to actually hide pages which have apps they may not frequently use. All-in-all, a more user-upgradable experience to say the least. The next major update is the inclusion of widgets. Finally! Apple listened. The company did introduce widgets before but it was purely restricted to a side page on the notification pane. Now though, people can have them on the home page. These are more user friendly and can display more useful information. Perhaps with the developer kit, developers would be able to play with them better. AI would play a major role here in organising them, for example, smart stacking. The iPad has had picture-in-picture support for quite some time but it did not follow in the iPhone. Now though, the iPhone would have support for it. Users can zoom in into videos and even have audio play in the background.
Siri
Coming to Siri now, we are now a couple of years into Siri’s development. Now, Siri is actually a good competitor to Google AI. Siri can now instantly open apps for you and you do not even have to have it dictate messages. Now, we know that not all of the people out there have perfect accents and speech-to-text recognition cannot be the best. Siri would now let you send audio messages, supported for people on iMessage. Users can now use Siri dictation while being offline as well. They are also offering an app that translates speech or text from one language to the other. This too would be working offline as well using the hardware tools on the device. Perhaps it would work great in real-time with the current A13 processor and the upcoming A14 chip as well.
Messages
The Messages app would be seeing a big upgrade as well. Just like in WhatsApp, users will be able to pin conversations and have their top ones…well, on the top. Apple has worked on many new Memojis which are relevant today as well. The group’s portion of messages has been tweaked too. Users will be able to reply to specific messages like on WhatsApp and have to be notified only when they are mentioned.
Apple Maps
There have been changes done to the maps app as well. Here we see new maps coming to the iOS with the inclusion of the UK, Ireland, and Canada. These would include integration for other stuff. This includes finding good places to shop, to eat. Traffic warnings and even driving/cycling experiences for the users. There is EV routing too for electric cars which are now becoming quite common around the globe.
CarPlay
CarPlay has been extended further into the system. We see new wallpaper options and even better, distinct modes. The big highlight of the presentation for this portion was the BMW integration with the new BMW 5-series. Users can use their phones to lock and unlock their cars using the NFCs on the phones. People can even share these keys with other trusted people so they may not even have to carry those keys. These may come with restricted driving modes.
A New Take on The App Store
Finally, coming to the App Store. The introduction of App Clips is quite revolutionary. Users can actually have a small demo of the app to make sure they want to use it or not. Developers would be able to make these on Xcode. These would be less than 10mb and would be available in the browser too. People can even share these over messages. Once taken a look at, users would have the option to install or even purchase said apps. These work with other items too which require side apps to be loaded. Scanning through Apple Pay would make sure the process goes smoothly as well.
