The coolest announcements at Apple’s WWDC 2018 event
From Memojis to revamped and improved AR, here’s the most interesting and useful new features from Apple.
SAN JOSE, CA - JUNE 04: Attendees wait for the start of the opening keynote during the 2018 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) at the San Jose Convention Center on June 4, 2018 in San Jose, California. Apple CEO Tim Cook will kick off the WWDC th
Big news today if you’re one of the 67% of Americans who own an Apple product. Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) kicked off today with some announcements that’ll surely affect our workflow. Here’s a quick roundup of Big Think’s favorite from today’s big hoorah:
- Your phone will shame you for using it. Too much screen time is something we can all relate to. Simply put: we’re using our phones too much. iOS 12 promises a counter that alerts you to how much you’re using your phone per day. Parents could give alotted screen time, finally putting an end to endless tween Fortnite sessions.
- Make yourself a cartoon. Remember that sweet, sweet day you got your iPhone X and sent an Animoji to all your friends? Ten bucks says you hardly ever used it since. In the latest update, you’ll be able to make an animoji out of yourself… and Apple is calling it a Memoji. The biggest news is that Animoji / Memoji will work with Facetime, too, meaning that you can turn yourself into poo when you want to tell your friends you’re feeling shitty. There’ll also be tongue detection, adding a whole new level to the AR overlay animation.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
- No more Facebook tracking. iPhone users can turn off Facebook’s absolutely Orwellian tracking system (in case you didn’t know — Zuckerberg’s site tracks you around the web, sometimes even when you’re not logged in).
- Screenshots 2.0. If you’re anything like me you take a ton of screenshots on your laptop for work. This new update will allow you to edit the screenshots straight away, kind of like what’s already available on the iPhone, but more in depth.
- Do Not Disturb. A Do Not Disturb During Bedtime feature allows you to just check the time (and not see the 1,383,472 emails you’ve missed out on). ‘Do Not Disturb’ on the whole will be able to be location-based, too, meaning that you can opt out of notifications in certain locations. Like church. Or work. Or wherever you don’t want to be constantly notified about things.
- Siri gets smarter. Siri is arguably not as smart (although not as life-intrusive) as her sisters Alexa and Hey Google. The new app ‘Shortcuts‘, which works with Siri, acts sort of like an ITTT (If That Then This) in that Siri will be able to link together commands from different non-Apple apps and even recognize repeated behaviors within them.
- AR updates. The ability to measure something just by pointing your phone at it is a big move, especially for the Fixer-Upper types who need to know how big a wall-feature is going to need to be. In all technicality, your AR-ready phone already does this anyway with its camera, but now you’ll be able to see the measurements.
- Even more AR updates. Multiple users can use the same AR features on different devices. An easy way to visualize this would be several people being able to see where an AR painting would hang, with each person standing around at different points in the room.
