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Apple WWDC 2022 Keynote Recap

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Today Apple had their World Wide Developer Conference 2022 Keynote. As expected they announced the new versions of most operating systems, iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 16, and watchOS 9. Beyond this, they also announced two new Macs, with the successor to the M1 chip. Let us look at the hardware first.


MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro

Both the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro received refreshes with a whole new chip, called the M2 system-on-a-chip

M2 System on a Chip

Apple M2 Chip Logo

The M2 uses a 2nd generation 5 nanometer process, which allows for even better power efficiency. This means that you can get even more performance for the same energy. In fact, according to Apple, the M2 has 25% more transistors, and can transfer memory at 100 gigabytes per second.

The new M2 processors allow for 25% higher graphics performance over M1, with up to 10 GPU cores, and an overall performance increase of 18%. The M2 also has a new generation of Secure Enclave and Neural engine, which provides 40% more operations per second than M1, at 15.8 trillion operations on the M2. There is also a dedicated media encode and decode portion on the chip with support for Apple's ProRes, H.264, and even support for external 6K displays.

The last big change for the M2 is the maximum amount of memory, it is now 24GB instead of 16. This is a 50% increase and a big change for those who want or need a lot of memory for their workflows.

The MacBook Pro retains the same design as the previous model, just with the new M2 chip. The price for the 13-inch MacBook Pro is $1299, and $1199 for education. The MacBook Air though, is a different story.

MacBook Air

Mid 2022 MacBook Air in Midnight

The MacBook Air has received a whole new design, continues to be fanless. There are still only two ports, but both of them are Thunderbolt 4. However, there is now MagSafe as well. This means that you can charge and keep the two Thunderbolt ports open for other uses.

Included in the box with the M2 MacBook Air is a 35-watt Dual USB-C charger. This means that you can charge another device at the same time. The MacBook Air also supports fast charging, which can give you up to 50% charge in 30 minutes, but this does require a separate 67-watt charger, which you can select at the time that you order your MacBook Air, or you can purchase separately.

MagSafe is not the only change. There is also a new 1080p Camera System that will allow you to look even better during video conference, or when using FaceTime. One other feature with the M2 MacBook Air is that the bezels around the screen have been reduced. This makes the screen itself even larger screen at 13.6-inches. The reduced bezels does mean there is a notch similar to that on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

The MacBook Air comes in four colors, Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, and Midnight. The prices start at $1199 for the M2 MacBook Air. The M1 MacBook Air is still available starting at $999.

The M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro will be available in July. Now, let us move onto some of the new features of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, starting with watchOS.


watchOS 9

Various Apple Watches showing new features of watchOS 8

The Apple Watch is designed to focus on health and fitness, and watchOS 9 continues this with some new features, like Atrial Fibrillation history, a new Medications App, and enhanced workout statistics.

The Apple Watch is capable of detecting Atrial Fibrillation, or AFib, and then alerting you so you can get the medical attention you need. Now, instead of just alerting you, you can see a full history in the Health app, as well as a pattern for possible days, times, and other factors that may point to a pattern. You can share this information with your doctor, if you so choose.

The new medications app will allow you to enter in the medications your are taking, and how often they should be taken. The app can then provide you with notifications and reminders to take your medicine. Beyond this, when you add a medication the app can suggest any possible interactions that you may have with other medications that you are taking. This way, you can be aware of them and consult with your primary care physician.

The Apple Watch is designed to allow you to keep track of your workouts and how you are performing. While you are on a run, you can now view additional metrics like heart rate, and specifically if you are in your target heart-rate range.

There are also four new Watch Faces, Astronomy, Lunar Calendar, PlayTime, and Metropolitan. These watch faces, along with the others, can now support rich complications which will allow even more customizations by developers.

The final big feature with watchOS 9 is regarding Sleep. You will now be able to get some additional insights into sleep, specifically how well you slept in each of the three types of sleep, REM, Core Sleep, and Deep Sleep. You will be able to see graphs of how much of each type of sleep you got over the night.

WatchOS will be compatible with Apple Watch Series 4 and newer, as well as Apple Watch SE.

watchOS brings a lot of new features, all of which you can see at apple.com/watchos/watchos-preview/. Next, let us turn to iOS.


iOS 16

iOS has a slew of new features available for it as well. The biggest of these is an entirely redesigned Lock Screen. The Lock Screen will now allow you to put various widgets right on your Lock Screen. This can be battery levels, weather, or any other third-party widgets that are available through your apps. You can have multiple Lock Screens that can integrate with Focus Modes so you can have different apps and show just what you want for each different screen.

There are two new features in Messages, inline editing a message and marking a conversation as unread, so you can easily fix a typo in a message. You can also mark a thread as unread, so you can get back to it later.

Another big feature with iOS 16 is a new feature to Continuity, in particular you are able to use your iPhone as a camera on your Mac. This will work not just in Apple's apps, but all video conferencing software, like Zoom, Teams, and WebEx.

Mail has gotten a few changes, including scheduled sending, undo sending, and follow up suggestions, including the ability to remind you on a specific date and time to follow up on a Mail message.

There is another feature for Families, in particular Family iCloud Library. This means that you can add individual photos, add by default, or based on date. Any edits will be automatically synchronized to everyone, including favorites, captions, and keywords too.

iOS 16 will be on iPhone SE (2nd Generation or newer), and any iPhone introduced in 2017 or later, so iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X or newer.

All of the features for iOS 16 can be previewed at the dedicated preview page, available at apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview/.


macOS Ventura

Three Macs showing macOS Ventura on their screens

macOS is a mature operating system, but there are still some new features, including ones already covered, like Continuity Camera, Handoff for FaceTime, Family Photos Library, changes to Messages, and Mail changes.

Spotlight has some new changes including enhanced image search, by finding images in Photos, Messages, Notes, Finder, or even the web. You can also use Spotlight to start a timer or create an alarm. iOS and iPadOS also get these changes as well.

The biggest change to macOS is a new feature called Stage Manager. Stage Manager will allow you to easily group up to four apps together in a group. You can then easily move apps together and all of the apps will be put off to the left, so you can stay focused on the task at hand, but will allow you to easily get to any other app quickly.

macOS Ventura will be available on iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro 2017 and later, Mac mini and MacBook Air 2018 and newer, the 2019 Mac Pro and later, and 2022 Mac Studio and later.

Apple has a preview of the features available on macOS Ventura can be seen at apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/.


iPadOS 16

iPad showing iPadOS with Stage Manager

The iPad has received a lot of the features that have been already mentioned, like scheduled mail, mail follow up, Family Sharing iCloud Library, and message editing. The biggest addition is one that is also on the Mac, Stage Manager.

Stage Manager on the iPad allows you to easily switch apps, however, you can now also more easily pair apps together by dragging them with the current app. This is well beyond SplitView, because the iPad can now have overlapping windows with the ability to resize windows, individually. This means that you will be able to position the windows where you would like, so you can easily switch between the apps and rearrange as needed. Stage Manager is a mode that you can toggle as needed through Control Center on iPadOS 16.

When you are using an iPad with an M1 chip, you may want to have more screen real estate, this is now possible with improved display support. There are two different options. The first is to change the display size, to provide more space. When you do this, you can get more information on the screen at once.

The second option is to connect an external monitor. When you do this, you can use it as a second monitor and you can easily move apps between the external monitor and the iPad Pro.

Beyond Stage Manager, the iPad now has the Weather app which is designed using SwiftUI specifically for the iPad and adapts as necessary.

iPadOS 16 will be available on iPad mini (5th generation or later), iPad (5th generation or later), iPad Air (3rd generation or later), and all iPad Pro models.

You can preview all of the new iPadOS features by going to the dedicated preview page, available at apple.com/ipados/ipados-16-preview/.


Closing Thoughts

This year's operating systems, iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and watchOS 9 all add a variety of new features. Developer betas are available today with public betas arriving sometime in July, with the final releases in the fall. The items outlined above are just scratching the surface of all of the new features, so be sure to check out the links above, or even the Apple Newsroom source links below.

Sources:

All of the links below are for Apple Newsroom articles

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