So was this the best WWDC ever? Did Apple blow the lid off of the internet while we were all stuck at home?
I figured after the dust settled is a great time to tackle my WWDC 2020 review. With the dust settled, you can really see what happened during the announcments. Within Apple’s nearly two hour keynote, they announced so many changes and additions coming to all of their platforms.
But did they do enough? Let’s look to see how I rated them on each aspect for my official WWDC 2020 review.
Keynote: B+
There were many questions heading into WWDC this year. How Apple would present to developers? A global pandemic had kept the world at home since March. But Apple announced the conference would still happen in June. Then the virus didn’t go away.
In prerecorded footage (that was socially distanced), Tim Cook went on stage in an empty theater. He discussed matters affecting the world and then he passed it to Craig Federhigi who jumped right into all the technical stuff.
Since everything was prerecorded, Apple managed to move presentations around the campus. A single location would have grown stale. So with video magic, the presenters moved around Apple Park. A drone offered footage panning around the campus. The production values looked great.
This year, in a year of civil unrest, it felt like Apple brought a more diverse group of employees on stage to present projects. In the Steve Jobs days, all you would see on stage were older white men. Things have progressed under Tim Cook, and it was great to see more people from behind the scenes. A trend that started years ago.
However, the entire time, there was only one black man on stage. I don’t want to make this an issue because I feel like this is being worked on, but I’d like to see more.
From everything that developers are saying, they loved this method of delivery as well. Prior to this year, developers had to apply to a large pot of developers and get selected out of a hat and then pay lots of money, not to mention travel arrangements. This way, all developers got to participate, and that seems like a better system. Many developers want this trend to continue.
I hope Apple considers retiring the in-person conference and doing future WWDCs like this.
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) June 26, 2020
The old way had a great run, and still has advantages that online-only will never match.
But for modern needs, and the huge, ever-growing number of developers, this way is better overall.
Gotta admit, I really like the format of this year’s WWDC. They can do things that just aren’t possible in a physical event, like having super-focused 10 minute sessions, or code-along sessions. Going to be weird going back to ‘normal’ next year
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) June 24, 2020
Put up against a wall, Apple delivered. For my WWDC 2020 review, I think the presentation went off without a hitch. I wouldn’t mind next year’s WWDC being just the same.
iPhone: A
The iPhone fell into an interesting place this year. Of all of Apple’s products, it is the one that leads the company. It is the device that excites the masses. It has matured so that new features are getting harder to come by and to excite.
But this year, Apple evolved it with a few simple changes: Widgets, App Library, and App Clips. These aren’t new features, in fact, Android has had most of these features for a while, but their inclusion makes the iPhone feel fresh.
Ever since folders were introduced in 2010, the home screen of an iPhone has remained pretty simple. Each iPhone has pages of every app on that phone. Now, thanks to the App Library, you can rid screens of app icons. Users can also add Widgets to provide information at a glance. Finally, App Clips will allow users to use their phones to do things inside apps without having to download entire apps.
Continuing the trend of revamping the home screen, Apple finally made phone calls and Siri compact. Neither function takes up the entire screen. I have been asking for this for a few months now. Of course, there’s still work to do here. When you invoke Siri on the iOS 14 developer beta, you still can’t interact with your screen or the Siri info will disappear. Apple says this is a design choice, and could still be tweaked.
Apple has added more than just these three features. Features like translate are little bonuses compared to the major features announced. This year’s iPhone announcements got me excited about the iPhone in a way that I wasn’t expecting. So that’s why I give the iPhone WWDC 2020 review an A.
iPad: B-
While the iPhone started strong, I felt the iPad fizzled. It wasn’t that the iPadOS 14 updates were bad, they just didn’t build on last year’s reveal that iPadOS would be a new operating system. When Apple dropped iPadOS in our laps, iPad lovers like myself felt like felt that spinning iPadOS off into its own system would bring more features to the tablet. Heading into iPadOS year 2, expectations were high.
But those expectations didn’t pay off at WWDC 2020. But, remember that Apple did bring pointer support to the iPad just months earlier. If Apple had kept this feature until WWDC maybe my view would be different. However, my WWDC 2020 review of the iPad is based solely on what Apple announced last week.
What Apple did bring to the iPad looks interesting, if not a little boring. During the announcement, Craig told the audience that the iPad would be getting everything that the iPhone was getting, but that’s not really true. At least, it isn’t true yet. Unlike the iPhone, widgets can’t be placed anywhere on the home screen. In iPadOS 14 developer beta 1, widgets are still confined to the left of your first home screen. The widgets will be the new widget style and will offer the same info as well as smart stacks, but they can’t be placed anywhere. The iPad doesn’t get the App Library either.
But the iPad did get sidebars and drop-down menus. Sidebars aren’t exciting, but it does bring the iPad closer to being Mac-like. I don’t see this a bad thing. It might mean more complex apps on the iPad in the future.
By far the coolest features coming to the iPad are the updates to the Apple Pencil. When handwriting with the pencil, the iPad will now allow the user to highlight and edit that writing as if it were text. Users can even change the color with the color picker and more.
With Scribble on the iPad, users will be able to use the Apple Pencil to handwrite inside a text box and the iPad will then translate it to text. Users can even copy the handwriting over to another app and it will copy as typed text. Users can also write in address bars and message fields with the pencil and it will be converted to text automatically. Now you won’t have to put your pencil down when someone messages you while your drawing or taking notes.
The iPad is one of my favorite devices. My excitement over year two of iPadOS grew high, only to flatten out during the keynote. Because of the quick nature of iPad features, restricted versions of iPhone features, and the most exciting feature being launched in May, my WWDC 2020 review of the iPad falls as a B-.
AirPods: A
I love the announcements of the new features coming to AirPods later this year. I didn’t expect them to bring out new AirPods features at this event.
While I think the spatial sound coming to AirPod Pros are cool, my favorite feature has to be the automatic hand-off of your connected device. This allows you to listen to automatically transfer the audio from whatever device you are using to the AirPods. I can’t wait to use this in practice.
Right now, it’s not terrible having to go to the control center and change the output, but this will make things much better.
Plus AirPods will be getting a couple of other features not mentioned on stage like battery notifications. My least favorite aspect of AirPods is when I pick them up to use but find out that the battery died. Now my iPhone will notify me before they die.
So AirPods get a WWDC 2020 review of an A. I was surprised that AirPods showed up on stage for a software update at all, but the features coming are welcomed changes.
Apple Watch C+
I felt very underwhelmed with the Apple Watch portion of the keynote.
Of course, I’m not really sure what I would add or change about my current Apple Watch. I mean, I would like some adaptive Watch complications, and it looks like we are getting something kind of like that with Shortcuts on the Apple Watch, but we didn’t get the adaptive complications.
We did get sleep tracking as the headlining feature for watchOS 7. I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use this feature since I charge my watch at night and don’t really like to sleep with it on my wrist. There are many people out there asking for sleep tracking though, and it’s good to get it.
A few new exercises are coming to the Fitness app which is always a good thing. Other than that, there were a few more features that I’m not sure I’ll use. Apps will be able to create multiple complications now, so users can have a watch face with multiple complications from the same app. I didn’t realize that currently, Apps could only have 1 complication. Having more could be a great thing, but it could also get cluttered.
Finally, users will be able to share their watch faces. I think this will be cool, especially since companies can offer Watch Faces. This is the closest thing to a custom Watch Face store that we’ll get. But to me, this all felt underwhelming.
Luckily, through the week and developers getting the beta, we are seeing some more cool stuff coming to the Apple Watch that didn’t get announced. For example, the Shortcut app is coming to the Watch. One Shortcut I’ve seen is to change your watch face at a certain time of day. It’s not smart complications, but it could be the next best thing.
My WWDC 2020 review of the Apple Watch is a little lower than I expected it would be before the event though. I don’t feel like much time was spent on the Watch during the keynote and all the cool stuff is really coming out from the developer sessions and beta use.
Privacy: A+
Apple leads the industry in privacy. I loved that Apple focused on Privacy during the keynote. They are doing more to keep their users private than any other company out there.
I love that they are going to hold developers accountable for what their apps share with other companies. I hope that it doesn’t scare off developers but instead makes those developers more responsible. Allowing devices to share approximate locations instead of the exact location is great too.
Safari will be hitting privacy hard as well. It will put web trackers on edge since it will display what is tracking you as well as allowing you to block cross-traffic tracking.
Apple excels in privacy, and here is no different. My WWDC 2020 review score for Privacy is an A+ and I hope that trend continues for years to come.
Home: B+
I was surprised that Apple focused on Home as much as they did, but I liked that they slotted it with the privacy section. The home is the most private place, and no one wants someone to be able to see what they are doing. I think the design changes to the Home app are good but need some refinement. The quick action section at the top of the Home app is nice to see what is happening in your home, but it could use some more detail. Lights are just called lights. Users aren’t able to see what room the light is from, so there’s not much detail you can glean from that.
I have Hue light bulbs and the iOS 14 developer Beta, and I can’t figure out how to set Adaptive lighting inside the Home app. Adaptive light is supposed to set your lights to the right shade and intensity for the right time of day. I’m curious about this feature though. The Hue app for lights will let me fade lights in when they turn on and off, but I can’t do that from the Home app. I’m wondering if Adaptive lighting will solve that issue, but I can’t figure out how to set it yet. It might be a feature still in the works.
Apple also added facial recognition to it’s HomeKit cameras which I think is awesome. Even better, it doesn’t send anything to the cloud to determine who it is recognizing. HomeKit uses the faces that you’ve tagged in photos and matches them with the person in the camera. That’s pretty amazing and safety focused.
Also, Apple added in suggested automations when you add a smart home device which will help many new smart home device owners get started.
The best news out of this section was the announcement of the Smart home alliance between Apple, Google, Amazon, and smart home device makers. Hopefully this will bring more HomeKit enabled devices to market.
Overall, my WWDC 2020 review of the Home features coming to iOS and macOS is a very positive with a B+. I would have liked to see more features displayed and how to set up the adaptive lighting.
macOS 11 Big Sur: B+
Apple finally updated macOS from macOS 10 to macOS 11. macOS 10 started back in 2001. Every version since then has been a 10.x update. Finally, they have rolled the number up to 11. Apple says that since they were moving on to a new chip architecture and getting a new look, it was time to start a new chapter for macOS.
The macOS 11 Big Sur started off discussing the new design language. Mac is getting the biggest visual redesign since OS X 1. This new design language brings the Mac closer to what iOS and iPadOS look like. I haven’t gotten my hands on it, but I think this is a good move for most people, but that many long time Mac users probably won’t be thrilled. This change though will make users that have bought a Mac because of the iPhone more comfortable.
Apple has also updated the Maps and Messages app, bringing over a Catalyst version of those apps. Messages is by far the more exciting update for me. I hardly use Maps on my Mac. But messages will finally be in step with the iOS version. That means users will be able to send Memoji, screen effects, and use apps inside messages. I love it, especially since I’ve been using my Macs more because of stay at home orders.
Since iPadOS and macOS is starting to merge design-wise, it was nice to get an update on Catalyst (the system to bring iPad apps over to the Mac).
The Mac got some good stuff during the keynote, but the best was yet to come. Still, for the WWDC 2020 review of the Mac, I’d give it a B+. The visual redesign is nice and bringing more feature parity between the ecosystem is always great, but nothing really stood out from the presentation. Of course, most of the Mac focus was on what would come next
Apple Silicon: A
The last little bit of the keynote dealt with a game changer for the Mac: Apple is ditching Intel.
Apple’s chips have been getting better and better with every device. The chip inside the iPad has already eclipsed most other laptops, and people have been asking for Apple to do the same with the Mac chips. During the Keynote, they finally gave us what we’ve been asking for. Apple will be designing and using their own chips!
I think this will have a major impact on the Mac. Sure users won’t be able to use Bootcamp to install Windows on a Mac, and it also makes users of Intel chip Macs wonder how long they can count on being included in updates, but I think the advantages outweigh those needs. I think the Apple-designed Silicon will be best in class and will allow the Mac to do things that the iPad and iPhone have been able to do. This change should bring faster Macs with better battery life, better security, and smarter operating systems.
Oh and Macs with these chips will be able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively. A little comment just thrown out at the end. This is huge for the Mac ecosystem.
I also loved that the announcement was very similar to the way Steve Jobs announced the transition to Intel. I’m embedding the video below if you’d like to compare.
I’m sure this change was a long time coming, and I’m a fan.
This was one of the highlights of the keynote for me. I can’t wait to see the first Mac to come out with these chips inside. So for the WWDC 2020 review, I’m giving this an A
Overall WWDC 2020 Review grade: A
This was a great WWDC from beginning to end. The WWDC 2020 review has been interesting, as some of my favorite Apple devices didn’t fair too well in the review. There was a lot packed in to this years keynote, and lots of stuff coming that will make most users happy.
What did you think about WWDC 2020? Would you give your WWDC 2020 review a different grade than me? How and way? Let me know in the comments below!