WWDC 2017 : 9 Huge Announcements of Apple

Apple's annual WWDC conference kicks off on June 5 in San Jose, California, in which Apple has announced brand new products along with software updates. 

So Here's a list of 9 Huge Announcements at WWDC 2017.

Apple HomePod

The HomePod is Apple’s smart speaker — the answer to Google Home and Amazon’s Echo line. The speaker will respond to voice commands using Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, and is closely integrated with Apple’s Music services. While its features appear very similar to what's available on the Echo or Google Home, Apple said that its distinguishing feature is Sound quality. 

HomePod will include a 4-inch woofer and seven tweeters, as well as features to eliminate distortion. The speaker will also include Apple's A8 processor. it includes built-in spatial awareness, which will automatically detect the spaces in a room and automatically adjust the audio.The HomePod will be available in two colors — black & white.

The HomePod will cost $349 — more expensive than Google's and Amazon’s smart speakers — and will start shipping in December.

iMac Pro

The iMac Pro includes a 27-inch 5K display with improved cooling capacity and a space grey finish on the body. 

For CPU, the iMac Pro will feature Intel Xeon processors -- with 8-core, 10-core or 18-core options up to 4TB of SSD -- for what Apple is terming "workstation-class performance." 

For GPU, the iMac Pro will include AMD's new Radeon Vega graphics. The new device will also be configurable with a huge amount of memory (up to 128GB) and storage (up to 1TB), built-in 10GB Ethernet as well as four Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports. 

The starting configuration (8-core Xeon processor, 32GB memory, 1TB store) will be priced at $4,999 and will be available in December.

iMacs

Apple’s introduced updated iMac desktops with improved Retina displays, graphics boosts, Kaby Lake processors, and USB-C. They will also support graphics for VR content creation. 

The 21.5-inch non-Retina model will offer Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 with a starting price of $1,099

& 21.5-inch 4K Retina model will offer AMD Radeon Pro 555 and 560 pricing at $1,299 with the updated Kaby Lake processor.

The 27-inch iMac will be configurable with Radeon Pro 570, 575 or 580 with a starting price of $1,799.

iOS 11

The new version of iOS software has some pretty social updates, such as an update to Siri that has improved speech, the ability to help translate sentences into different languages, and on-device learnings that suggest actions based on what you do on your iPhone or iPad.

iMessages now live in the iCloud, with synchronized conversations that you can delete from any device you own that are under the same account. 

You can also pay and receive payments from contacts through iMessage.

There’s also a new safety feature that recognizes when a user is driving and automatically turns on Do Not Disturb to prevent distractions. 

When you’re available to be more social, you can now head to Apple Music to see what your friends are listening to and check out shared playlists.

Lastly, the App Store has been redesigned for better discovery and a How To section for tips on how to use various popular apps.

ARKit 

Apple introduced a new ARKit to let developers build augmented reality apps for the iPhone. The kit can help find planes, track motion, and estimate scale and ambient lighting. Popular apps like Pokémon Go will also use ARKit for improved real-time renders.

Rather than requiring external hardware like Microsoft’s HoloLens, Apple seems to be betting on ARKit to provide impressive quality imaging through a device most people already own.

10.5 inch iPad Pro

The iPad Pro will now be available in three different sizes, with a new 10.5-inch model introduced. There’s a 12-megapixel camera, just like the iPhone 7, with a 7MP selfie cam. It supports USB 3.0 and has 10 hours of battery life.

There’s a new feature called ProMotion which reduces the Apple Pencil’s latency to 20 milliseconds. It can automatically adjust the refresh rate based on what you’re watching (fast-moving video versus still image). ProMotion also doubles the refresh rate to up to 120Hz.

Both the 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros will come with a faster processor, the A10X, touted as 40 percent faster than the A9X -- while graphics performance will get a 40 percent boost as well. Battery life will hold steady at 10 hours on a charge, and the two models will now start out with 64GB of memory.

The 10.5-inch iPad Pro will be available starting with a 64GB configuration at $649; while the 12.9-inch model will keep the same starting price of $799. It’s available to order now and shipping next week.

macOS High Sierra

The upcoming version of macOS will be called High Sierra, and it comes with updates to Safari that help block site trackers and autoplaying videos. 

Apple’s also added new photo-editing tools like Curves (helpful for those who don’t have Adobe Photoshop), and it has better filtering tools to sort images by keywords or faces.

An updated file management system will be a part of the update as well, which speeds up directory cloning with native encryption. 

On the graphics end, there’s a second version of Metal, VR support , and a Metal 2 developer kit that you can order with an AMD GPU to tune apps for external graphics. This may be launched in Fall.

MacBook Pro and MacBook

The biggest difference is that the MacBook Pro and MacBook will now come with Intel's seventh-gen processors. Apple is also adding faster storage to the notebooks, and faster standard graphics for the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple is lowering the starting price of the 13-inch MacBook Pro model without Touch Bar to $1,299 from $1,499. 

Otherwise, the pricing is staying the same i.e $1,799 --- 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, 

$2,399 --- 15-inch MacBook Pro 

$1,299 --- 12" MacBook.

WatchOS 4

WatchOS 4 brings new Siri watch faces that feature Toy Story characters & Mickey Mouse and a new app-browsing UI.

There’s also a fitness-focused update, which includes monthly challenges to encourage the wearer to get more active and NFC-enabled data sharing where the user can tap their Apple Watch on gym equipment to pair the two, sharing the most accurate calorie burn and activity information.