Apple HomePod Smart Speaker Announcement Plus Keynote Cheat Sheet

After an action packed 2 and a half hours of announcements here are all the highlights from todays WWDC Keynote…

iOS

• iOS 11
• Messages now sync’d in iCloud
• Apple pay – person to person in Messages
• New Siri Voice & Beta translate feature
• HECV takes 3x less space for Videos
• HEIF replaces JPG for 2x better compression for stills
• New customisable Control Centre
• Floor plans added to maps for Airports & Malls
• Lane guidance and speed limits added to Maps
• New Do Not Disturb while driving feature
• Airplay 2 brings multi-room Speaker control to Apple Home
• New redesigned App Store
• New Machine Learning APIs for developers
• New ARKit for Augmented Reality features
• Public beta available later this month
• Free to all this Autumn

iPad Pro

• Most popular 9.7″ model replaced with new 10.5″ iPad Pro
• 40% Smaller Bezels, Weighs 1lb.
• Brighter Displays with ‘Pro Motion’ 120Hz refresh rate
• 6 core A10X CPU up to 30x performance increase
• 12 core GPU up to 4ox performance increase
• New Cameras
• USB 3 support
• Charges twice as fast
• Base model doubled to 64Gb
• New Dock & App switcher Plus Drag and Drop
• New Files App
• New in Document scanner in Notes app
• Order today – ship next week

MacOS

• MacOS “High Sierra”
• Safari update for speed and will  block advertiser tracking
• Photos improvements & 3rd party photo books
• HFS replaced with APFS
• H.265 HEVC Support in Software and accelerated in newer hardware
• Metal 2 brings up to 10x improvements in graphics performance
• Metal 2 also used for Machine Learning tasks & VR
• Metal 2 support for external Graphics
• Public beta available later this month
• Free to all this Autumn

HomePod

• New “Breakthrough Home Speaker”
• Think Sonos plus Amazon Echo
• 7″ tall covered in 3D Mesh
• Array of 7 beam-forming tweeters
• 4″ Upward facing Woofer
• A8 CPU on board
• “Spacial Awareness” conforms to room dynamics
• 6 Built in microphones for Siri smart assistance
• Voice control of HomeKit devices
• Includes HomeKit base for control outside the home
• $349 White or Space Grey
• Ships December starting in USA, UK & Australia. Other Countries to follow.

Mac Hardware

• New iMacs with improved displays
• Kaby Lake CPUs
• Available with up to 64GB RAM
• New SSDs up to 50% faster (up to 2TBs)
• Thunderbolt 3
• Much faster Graphics Performance
• MacBooks also move to Kaby Lake
• All shipping today
• Sneak Peak of space grey ‘iMac Pro’ coming December
• Most powerful Mac ever
• up to 18 core Xeon CPUs & Radeon Vega GPU
• up to 128GB RAM & Up to 4TB SSD
• Built in 10Gb Ethernet

watchOS

• “Incredible growth” this year
• watchOS 4 previewed
• New Siri face intelligently displays the info you need next
• New kaleidoscope & Toy Story Faces
• Workout App improvements
• 2-way comms with new gym equipment
• Music app on watch improved
• Coming this Fall

tvOS

• Amazon Prime Video coming to the TV App and Apple TV later this year

apple.com