Apple provides stories of three Swift Student Challenge 2023 winners. Stories show inspiration for the projects and details on the path from idea to actual application.
Apple Developer: Meet three winners of the 2023 Swift Student Challenge
Apple Newsroom: Apple’s WWDC23 Swift Student Challenge winners code to share their passions with the world
No details are provided by Apple on actual hardware specifications of Vision Pro so far. Some information is gathered through WWDC sessions, interviews, responses.
Apple announced 12 cameras, 5 sensors on the headset. LiDAR, and 3D imaging cameras are installed. Apple mentioned that only some of these cameras and sensors will be available for developers, while others will be used for face scanning and gesture recognition. Four cameras with LED illumnatio will be tracking eye movements.
Headset features Digital Crown (which also acts as a button) and separate button which could trigger photo capture or video recording. No controllers are required to work with Vision Pro. There are multiple "standard" hand gestures which are detected by the system and custom gestures could be implemented by application developers.
Notably, Vision Pro support direct touch manipulation and "indirect" subtle finger gestures like pinches. Eye glance is used to highlight element which will be responding to gesture.
Internal displays are made using micro-OLED technology and have total of 23 million pixels. It is reported that Vision Pro runs on 90Hz refresh rate with boosts to 96 Hz to display 24 FPS video content properly.
Vision Pro is powered by M2 and R1 chips. M2 acts as CPU/GPU engine for the headset while R1 is focused on signal processing to accumulate and analyze information coming from cameras and sensors.
Headset could be used plugged in or via external battery. Vision Pro should have 2h battery life.
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Figma design resources for iOS and iPadOS 17 now available. Sketch resources are also available.
Apple is to provide more updates on design language of visionOS. Currently, WWDC23 sessions are recommended for watching.
Also, updated fonts were published, and SF Armenian, SF Hebrew and SF Georgian are added.
All updates to Human Interface Guidelines and other resources are published on Design site.
Figma: Apple Design Resources – iOS 17 and iPadOS 17
Apple Developer:
This fall businesses will be able to accept digital ID stored in Apple Wallet to verify customers. This could be used to verify identity or just customer's age. Biometric authentication will be required to access ID.
Starting this fall, businesses will be able to accept IDs in Apple Wallet — no additional hardware needed. This will streamline their ability to securely check a customer’s age in person for things like alcohol purchases, or to verify a customer’s identity at checkout for car rentals, and more. To seamlessly and securely present their ID in Wallet to an enabled business, users simply hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the business’s iPhone. Users will be shown what information is being requested and whether the receiving party will be storing the information. Users will then be asked to authenticate and consent by using Face ID or Touch ID.
Apple Newsroom
Apple Newsroom: Apple previews new features coming to Apple services this fall
References:
First day of WWDC23 was packed with announcements. Here is a list of announcements captured by media.
Apple Vision Pro will have its own biometric authentication based on iris. iOS and iPadOS apps running on headset which use Face ID or Touch ID for authentication will automatically switch to Optic ID for seamless experience.
Siri now drops "Hey" part of activation phrase. Moreover, you can now do follow-up requests to speed up interaction.
Apple to provide developers with Development Kit later this year.
Headset will have support for prescription lenses, not all prescriptions will be supported though.
Safari gains extensive support for web apps in macOS 14 Sonoma. Safari also brings support for spatial computing with <model> tag providing easy way of displaying 3D content alongside with web page.
Follow up notifications to take medications are added. Mental health and vision control features are also built in. Device will now notify users if they're holding device too close to their face.
Apple Newsroom: Apple previews new features coming to Apple services this fall
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During first day of WWDC23 Apple announced winners of annual Apple Design Awards.
This year has six nominations both in apps and games:
Apple Developer: Apple Design Awards 2023 winners and finalists
Apple Newsroom: Apple announces winners of the 2023 Apple Design Awards
New releases will support less hardware than current ones.
iOS 17 will be supported on these devices (and, obviously next models):
iPadOS 17 will be available:
watchOS 10 will be land on these watches:
macOS 14 will be supported on these Macs:
References:
Apple started its annual developer conference with Keynote and Platform State of the Union. First day of WWDC is packed with announcements.
Apple unveils MacBook Air 15" with M2, and M2 Ultra powered Mac Studio and Mac Pro. The new MacBook Air starts at $1,299. Prices for the second generation Mac Studio start at $1,999. Mac Pro starts at $6999.
MacBook Air 13" with M2 chip is now starting at $999.
iOS 17 gets new features focusing on communications and sharing. Contacts app is revamped with emphasis on photos and typography. Standby view is added for iPhone.
iPadOS has more customization for Lock Screen. Widgets now could be interacted with.
Also, AirDrop now has new experience when users hold their phones close to each other.
macOS 14 Sonoma now has "Game Mode" which improves performance for games, minimizes delays. macOS also gets interactive widgets that could be placed everywhere.
Safari gets a lot of privacy and security improvements. Improved support for web apps is announced.
watchOS 10 brings support for widgets. New design language is introduced.
tvOS 17 gets support for Continuity Camera hinting on new tvOS-powered devices with camera hardware.
Apple unveils Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Price is starting with $3,499, US sales are expected to start early next year. Other countries to follow later.
Device has 12 cameras, 6 microphone and many other sensors. Also, device has external display that could show user’s eyes (feature is called EyeSight). During FaceTime calls device will show face by using trained ML model and device cameras.
Vision Pro will be able to run iOS and iPadOS apps in windowed mode. Also, headset supports direct 3D experiences built using RealityKit, ARKit. Unity is also supported as development framework.
Windowed apps could be powered by SwiftUI which is updated to better support depth.
Apple to host labs in multiple cities for developers to try their apps on real device before public launch. Simulator is available as a part of development tools.
visionOS SDK is to be available later this month.
The App Store Review Guidelines, the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, and the Apple Developer Agreement have been updated to support updated policies and upcoming features, and to provide clarification. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms as needed.
Beta download: Operating Systems
Apple Developer:
Apple Newsroom:
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iTunes for Windows prior to 12.12.9 had a critical security vulnerability. Issue is now resolved and all users are encouraged to update as soon as possible.
Microsoft Windows Apps: iTunes
Reference: PSA: Serious Windows iTunes vulnerability discovered, immediate update advised
With less than a week before new major iOS is going to be presented Apple provides iOS 16 adoption statistics.
90% of all devices introduced in the last four years use iOS 16.
81% of all devices use iOS 16.
76% of all devices introduced in the last four years use iPadOS 16.
71% of all devices use iPadOS 16.
Apple Developer
Adoption grew quite significantly since beginning of the year.
Apple Developer: App Store
Reference: Apple Shares Latest iOS 16 Usage Statistics for iPhone Ahead of WWDC
