Everything Apple Announced At WWDC 2017

Apple holds the Word Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) in June every year. Around 5000 developers packed in the San Jose Convention Center to listen to Tim Cook announce a number of Apple's latest innovations. Over the course of two and a half hours, the company unveiled a slew of new updates for its existing operating systems for mobile, new operating systems for its hardware, new devices and an improved artificial intelligence. The following are the major announcements made at WWDC 2017:

Apple HomePod- Siri comes with a new home

The Apple HomePod is a 7 inch Siri-based smart speaker which will take on Google Home and Amazon's Echo. However, it is more than a normal speaker if Apple's statement can be believed. The smart speaker supposedly uses spatial awareness to analyse its environment and tweaks the sound accordingly in order to produce good quality sound no matter where it is. To direct the sound to you, the smart speaker is said to use beamforming technology. It is equipped with an Apple A8 chip which makes it better than an average speaker. It also has an array of 6 microphones, so users can interact with it from across the room. And just by saying "Hey Siri, I like this song", the HomePod becomes the perfect speaker for music by learning preferences from hundreds of genres and moods, across tens of thousands of playlists, and these tastes are shared across your devices. Siri integration allows the speaker to interact with HomeKit devices enabling it to control the user's lights, thermostat etc. These give us more reason to call this innovative piece of tech "smart". The HomePod is priced at $349 and will be available in US, UK and Australia in December.

Most Powerful Mac Ever

Apple introduces the all-new iMac Pro which packs monster power in the same super-sleek design which Apple offers. This beast of a tech sports a 27-inch Retina 4K display and is powered by a stunning 18-core Xeon processor coupled with a mind-boggling 128GB RAM and 4TB of internal memory (SSD)! Apple has also upgraded its MacBook and Macbook pro, incorporating high-end Kaby Lake processors, more GPU and expanded memory. The new MacBook pros start at $1,299 but you'll have to shell out $5000 for the new iMac Pro.

High Sierra MacOS

The latest macOS, dubbed High Sierra, supposedly brings updates to your computer. According to Apple, Safari runs 80% faster and comes with in-built autoplay blocking. New features in Mail spotlight your most important messages and improved machine learning capabilities enables it to automatically sort your library by event or detect who is in the picture. The new Apple File System comes with fast directory sizing, file level encryption and built in crash-protection. High Sierra is available today in developer Beta and will roll out for everyone later.

iOS 11

The new OS for iPhones and iPads- the iOS 11 will bring a horde of new features to messaging in iCloud, payments with Apple Pay, improved Siri and more. The iOS 11 also brings HEVC for video recording at high quality. It brings changes to the control center which adds more icons to it and packs all notifications into a single page. There is a "Do Not Disturb" mode while driving to help users stay focused at driving. The changes in Siri include a new voice and new capabilities involving interaction with Camera and Photos. Apple Maps now support indoor maps for major airports and shopping malls across the globe. It also features a one-handed keyboard mode for iPhone to allow easy texting and typing on the go.

The Improved Siri

Siri, now has a more human like voice and way more functionality. Siri can now translate a given sentence into 5 new languages. Ask Siri, "Hey Siri! How do I ask, 'Where is the Great Wall Of China' in Chinese?" The new capabilities also include task management, banking, and bringing up VR codes. Apple has also boosted Siri's intelligence. Based on how you use your device, Siri can anticipate your needs. If you have been searching a lot for "Intel i9", then i9 related news might pop up in Apple News.

New iPads

Apple launched a 10.5 inch iPad Pro and an updated version of 12.9 inch iPad Pro at WWDC. Both the iPads will feature Apple's True Tone display along with the enhanced camera inspired from the iPhone 7 camera. Apple claims that there is enough room on the iPad Pro 10.5 inch screen to fit a full-size on screen keyboard. It is supposed to be the fastest model yet as it is powered by the new A10X processor paired with a 6-core CPU an 12-core GPU. It comes with fast-charging as well as USB 3.0. The new iPad comes in LTE models starting at 64GB of memory. The new iPad pro starts at $649.

Kailash Sadhikar

An engineering undergrad student who loves all things tech. He has a soft spot for Android.