Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose on Monday and threw a lot of new stuff at us, including a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR, iOS 13 with a dark mode, MacOS Catalina and an operating system for the iPad called iPadOS.
DARK MODE
Probably the single most anticipated change, and the biggest visual update Apple’s made to iOS since it introduced the current software design in iOS 7, iOS 13 is finally offering a
true, system-wide dark mode.
NEW SWIPING KEYBOARD
While Apple has offered support for third-party keyboards on iOS for years, it’s updating its own default keyboard with a new feature: a swiping function that should be familiar to
anyone who’s used SwiftKey, Swype, or Gboard over the years, which Apple’s calling the “Quick Path” keyboard. It’s not a huge upgrade, but it’s nice to see Apple finally getting
with the times.
REMINDERS
Long overdue for an update, Apple is redoing the Reminders app entirely in iOS 13, adding new “Today,” “Scheduled,” “Flagged,” and “All” filtering options for sorting your
tasks, along with a whole new visual look. Apple’s also pushing big AI integration here — you can type and Reminders will automatically suggest when you’d like to be reminded, and
you’ll be able to tag contacts and be reminded when you open up their thread in Messages.
Also gone is the weird, paper-like texture that had been a mainstay of the old skeuomorphic iOS design since the original version of iOS.
UPDATES TO APPLE MAIL, NOTES, AND SAFARI
Apple’s also tweaking a few of its core applications on iOS 13. Apple Mail is set to get new desktop formatting. Safari is getting per-website preferences, and Notes is getting a new
gallery view for looking at all your notes at once.
APPLE MAPS
Apple is completely redoing Apple Maps with iOS 13. The company says that it’s rebuilt the app from the ground up, with more comprehensive map data and a new mode that’s... basically
just Google Street View. The new map will be available in select cities and states to start, and will roll out across the US by the end of 2019 and internationally in 2020.
PRIVACY
As is expected for Apple, privacy is a big part of the announcement here: now, you can choose to give your location data to an app “just once,” preventing it from constantly being
able to ping your location when you’re using it.
Apple is also launching a new “Sign in with Apple” feature, which it’ll be making available to developers for logging into apps and services. Users will be able to log into Face ID
and create a new account for a service “without revealing any personal information.”
Apple accounts will also be able to automatically create new, private email addresses on a per-app basis that forward to your real email, preventing apps from getting access to your
email or spamming you.
iPadOS
The iPad gets all the changes you find in iOS 13 for the iPhone, but Apple has been adding so many features specific to the iPad, it has decided to give it its own name: iPadOS.
If you’ve been hoping that iOS 13 would make your iPad into a better laptop replacement, you’ll be thrilled with the new iPadOS. You can pin widgets to your home screen, and easily
browse and swipe through multiple slideover apps.
Split view gets huge improvements, including multiple split-view “desktops” that you can see in a new App Expose view. You can even run multiple windows of the same app—Apple
demonstrated multiple Mail windows and two Word windows side-by-side.