Apple dropped just about every announcement and update possible at its WWDC keynote today, among the most important being iOS 12, which will feature improvements to Siri, performance, communication, enhanced augmented reality tools, and addiction controls.
The Siri fixes will hone in on responsiveness to users, including the ability to trigger Siri with key phrases called Shortcuts.
Siri Shortcuts allow users to set up their own Siri triggers tied to Siri actions. This is better than straight training-the-user in that it’s users doing the doing, rather than developers doing the doing and customers having to train themselves.
During the keynote, Apple Senior Vice President Craig Federighi emphasized performance in iOS 12, the company taking the time to sort out bugs this time around. Apple has stated that iOS 12 will be supported on every device covered by iOS 11, including “iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation, iPad 6th generation, iPad mini 2 and later and iPod touch 6th generation.”
The company also announced improved communications in iOS 12 in the form of more Animoji and Memoji, and Group FaceTime calls. Apple also added a variety of filters and other effects that can be applied live in FaceTime calls.
On the Animoji end, you’ll see four new characters in the form of the Tiger, the Koala, the T-Rex, and the Ghost. The feature is also getting the ability to do tongue detection, and tongues are being added to animations.
With Memoji, users will be able to build Animoji avatars of themselves with a variety of customizations that are a lot like a 3D version of Bitmoji, a popular social networking tool.
Memojis and Animojis alike can then be added to photos, videos, and even live FaceTime calls, as can iOS 12’s new filters.
During the keynote, Apple announced ARKit 2, its newest version of its augmented reality creation tool. The new version will gain shared experiences, the ability for two people to engage with AR content together. During the demo, Apple had LEGO demonstrate a LEGO AR game where players interacted with the same scene, dropping in and manipulating assets both players could see.
Other features include, “persistent AR experiences tied to a specific location, object detection and image tracking, making AR apps even more dynamic.”
Finally, Apple stated that iOS 12 users would see a faster, more stable, more refined, and improved operating system.
iOS 12 and updates to Apple’s other operating systems will be released this fall.
iOS 12 will be released along with its other operating system updates this fall.
Via The Mac Observer