Well that was underwhelming. Once Cook came out and confirmed that the event would be all about software, I gave up on a One More Thing hardware announcement and tuned out. I don’t even know how I made it that far - and that was only maybe 10 min into the keynote. Yawn. If I were a developer and paid money to attend this WWDC, I’d be pissed. I’m guessing iPhones in Sept as usual, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they push Mac and iPad Pro updates to Nov.
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Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2018 in Six Minutes
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All good points. I am very disappointed Apple did not update any of the Mac software it developed, but I can almost justify the lack of hardware. If Apple had planned on releasing new hardware, I think that would have been put on hold in light of the keyboard issues. Unfortunately I do think it is a major and widespread problem and the only remedy is a complete redesign. Hopefully, the lack of any information on the TouchBar and the lack of hardware announcements indicate that a new design is under way.
The problem for more knowledgeable users is that Apple's lineup is stale and underperforms in light of what has been released by Intel.
To be fair... the Worldwide Developers Conference is a 5-day event for developers to engage with Apple engineers.
I know you're mad that Apple didn't announce any new hardware in this 2 hour keynote. But even if they did... there are still classes and events for developers. That's the reason WWDC exists.
In other words... if you were a developer and had paid money to attend WWDC... you would be there for software.
In other other words... I don't think there are any paying developers who demanded a refund because Apple didn't announce a new Mac Mini.
Try to look at it from a developer's standpoint... not just a consumer.
And developers want to be there... as evidenced by the fact that they need a lottery system to control attendance.
As Wikipedia says... "The event is used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for software developers. Attendees can participate in hands-on labs with Apple engineers, and in-depth sessions covering a wide variety of topics."
That's what a developer expects from WWDC.
Would it have been nice if Apple announced a new Coffee Lake Macbook Pro? Sure.
But that's not the reason developers pay to go to WWDC.
- 2 sad adults playing with legos and get excited about it...
- a middle-age housewife doing bicycle while speaking to her daughter and to the bored audience...
- Memojis or should we say samsung-jis. Not that anyone cared when samsung presented them at first place.
- A sloppy grouping of notifications in iOS that competitors have had for plenty of years. It could have just been offered with a minor iOS 11 update, instead. iOS still looks aged and insanely limited but nobody seems to care.
- Dark mode in MacOS... another "new exciting feature" that could be made available with a small update.
- new features for appleTV, a device that nobody needs anymore since the smart TVs have their own very capable OS.
- Screen time that every irresponsible social media junkie will be able to dismiss with a tap (parental controls could have a potential, if most parents even knew how to apply them).
- A bunch of even more boring people doing things nobody does with their devices and get so excited about, like they were on drugs or lobotomised or both.
Yeah...anyone remembers when WWDC was not like this ?
- a middle-age housewife doing bicycle while speaking to her daughter and to the bored audience...
- Memojis or should we say samsung-jis. Not that anyone cared when samsung presented them at first place.
- A sloppy grouping of notifications in iOS that competitors have had for plenty of years. It could have just been offered with a minor iOS 11 update, instead. iOS still looks aged and insanely limited but nobody seems to care.
- Dark mode in MacOS... another "new exciting feature" that could be made available with a small update.
- new features for appleTV, a device that nobody needs anymore since the smart TVs have their own very capable OS.
- Screen time that every irresponsible social media junkie will be able to dismiss with a tap (parental controls could have a potential, if most parents even knew how to apply them).
- A bunch of even more boring people doing things nobody does with their devices and get so excited about, like they were on drugs or lobotomised or both.
Yeah...anyone remembers when WWDC was not like this ?
I've only been on the Mac platform for 19 years and can only echo these thoughts. The thing that gets me is that (unlike most of the industry) Apple isn't making a long term bet on the web platform, preferring instead native software. This is fine as long as they are able walk the walk and execute, but like you all I see is the richest company in the world basically phoning in the software with minimal and iterative improvements in the best cases.
Each app seems to have about one or two people working on it at and new features arrive at glacial pace if at all. I understand that features like Memoji and Measure app do not write themselves, but I feel by now their work should be so much more ambitious, meaningful and profound given their enormous resources. The fault seems to be a lack of clear vision or direction and I am afraid it comes back to Tim to either set it or, if it is not his personal strength, to find and empower people who can. And before anyone mentions AR - that is a buzzword not a vision.
Unfortunately as things stand my prediction is they won't see the web platform coming until it is too late and that has a potential to disrupt their business model by massively de-emphasising (if not completely eliminating) the importance of the OS and native frameworks. And while that might sound laughable to many now, web applications and technologies are progressing along at a far more rapid pace than Apple's native applications.
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I'm cool with these minor updates as long as we can get rid of all the dang bugs in OS and iOS. Hopefully that's what Apple is doing here. We're long overdue for a tock cycle.
I've noticed it's the first time that local Apple websites (.de, .it, .fr,...) don't have their own localised page on the new iOS and MacOS versions, but they redirect to Apple.com. They also kind of hide the WWDC news, instead than putting them upfront as in past years.
Actually that makes a lot of sense for the limited functionality siri shortcuts has, it's all stuff it should be able to figure out automatically.
Alexa and Google support a webhook API where you can make voice commands run a command with parameters that can then be used to do anything you want, like use a cloud IoT service. They really do offer limitless possibilities.
The closest siri comes is to use it to send a text message to a service that will interpret the text message and generate the webhook for you. It's clunky to set up and clunky to use siri to send a text message rather than a simple 5 word command.
Stinks to need a new laptop by next year. I hate to buy anything new until they fix the two big ones - Meltdown and Spectre - in hardware. Until then we have to keep running software fixes that slow down processing. Intel has some fixes but not going into shipping hardware soon enough. I plan to stick with the hardware I can until at least a chunk of this is fixed in the hardware.
The new updates don't interest me except for the device support list. Usually, there are three years of bug fixes after an OS is released and then third party programs start dropping support. Mojave is dropping a lot of devices which saddens me. The remaining A1278 and A1342 MacBook Pros and MacBooks are dropped. Those were the last laptops considered user upgradable.
What makes this WWDC so disappointing for me was the $100 billion stock buyback. I can think of dozens of areas Apple could have invested that money to improve the software. iWork, iLife, Mail, etc. They’ve basically abandoned the server market which sucks because macOS Server was a great tool for small businesses. I get the sense that someone high up is ignoring a lot of what made Apple so awesome. The AppleTV is a huge missed opportunity to be a decent gaming console. I do like Apple’s focus on privacy but I do feel like they’re loosing a lot of what made people fall in love with their products.
If you are going to partner with AT&T for Apple TV's and Directv Now, Why don't you get a single sign-on to work with Them? Apple is not driving Apple TV sales, Directv now and Sling are, and they better get the clue soon, or lots of other companies are going to finish off Apple TV.
The scary part is that Apple's management couldn't think of a better use for the money. Not one thing.
The old Classic macOS as in before 10, had uninteligent "shotcuts" for their voice command which you could attach apple scripts too. This is just the same idea with a better UI and voice algorithm. This Siri "shortcut" thing is an old idea and is a brick. If I set up a shotcut to do several actions and I label it "Off to the Shops" that is ok. But what if I say "Going to the shops" or what about "Mall time"? Will a slight change in how I say the same thing be picked up by Siri. (Beta testers please inform), but my guess is it wont. Well, not nearly as diverse as a command as "Is it going to rain today", to "will I need an umbrella".
I dont want to have to remember two douzen specific phrases (even ones I have made), thats what voice control was like in the late 90s and it sucked! The promise land with the pre-aquired Siri and virutal assistants in general is that the AI will be smart enough to detect what your saying, the different ways you can say it, and link it to the proper service. Dont be fooled. Shortcuts is looking back to a two decade old solution to brute force functionality into an AI assistant that is years behind the competion.
I dont want to have to remember two douzen specific phrases (even ones I have made), thats what voice control was like in the late 90s and it sucked! The promise land with the pre-aquired Siri and virutal assistants in general is that the AI will be smart enough to detect what your saying, the different ways you can say it, and link it to the proper service. Dont be fooled. Shortcuts is looking back to a two decade old solution to brute force functionality into an AI assistant that is years behind the competion.
Exactly this, if you need to micro manage your assistant, what's the point of an assistant?
So Mac-iTunes will finally go back to dark mode again, -but with all the permanent (and way too much) working over, the incurable jumping songs/albums remains (probably), and this does rather blacken out the function than the optics will. And AppleCare is giving a s.h.i.t. on it: 2 years of an unsolved problem now: My whole 1000 albums-content, migrated from XP to OS X in 2007 did run properly for years, and now ... -other black theme might be the outdated mini and its more'n'more lame finder. All'n'all Apple and its religious-like cult start to be a pita to me.
ITunes is running well on iOS though ...
ITunes is running well on iOS though ...