Apple’s two-hours-plus keynote at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week was packed with new and exciting information about the future of software for its current major hardware. But we couldn’t help but notice some things that were missing.
Here are some of the ways Apple’s presentation left us hanging this year.
SAN FRANCISCO — The key to crafting great Apple Watch apps can be summed up with a simple mantra: “Make the user happy.”
That’s designer Joe Cieplinski’s approach to all design, really, but the precept is even more important than ever for developers making apps for Apple’s new wearable. Instead of attempting to cram all the features of an iPhone app onto that tiny screen, devs need to focus as much on what they leave out as what they include.
“That’s how you get a successful product,” Cieplinski, who works for Philadelphia-based Bombing Brain Interactive, told Cult of Mac after his AltConf panel here Tuesday. “It’s not just trying to be philosophical.”
Why does the latest iPhone still ship with just 16GB of storage as standard? Why does the new MacBook have only one USB port? Why does Apple make devices thinner and thinner rather than adding bigger batteries?
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, marketing chief Phil Schiller sat down with The Talk Show to address some of these questions.
Jonathan Mann is the Song a Day creator who’s (so far) written and recorded 2,350 songs (including this one) for his YouTube channel. He’s an Apple fan, of course, and many of his songs have to do with the Cupertino-based tech company.
Mann set up his Macbook and guitar across the street from the Moscone Center and recorded this latest tune live on the sidewalk, and it’s all about the Monday’s developer keynote.
“Not one but (count ’em) two,” he sings, “women up on the stage. It’s a start, and it’s about time ’cause these white dad jokes they’re starting to fade.”
Check it out.
Selfie sticks are quite possibly the worst thing mankind has ever invented. They’re annoying, long, and narcissistic and you can’t go to a concert, museum, landmark, or pretty much anywhere else in public without running into fifty dudes trying to wrangle their piece of metal into the perfect pic.
Luckily, some brilliant designers have devised a cool solution that lets you get nice photos of yourself, without annoying everyone around you.
Check it out:
Developers are churning out the Apple Watch apps way faster than the first wave of iPhone apps that launched with the App Store. According to new data provided by App Annie to Cult of Mac, the number of Apple Watch apps has double since the device debuted on April 22nd.
Popcorn Time is an open source app for Mac that allows users to stream movies from bit torrent sites that have ripped movies on them.
The tech made a huge splash, but is now sadly defunct, even while its creators still proclaim that the technology is legal.
However, some other folks thought the technology was perfect to help us all with another internet activity that a whole bunch of us still enjoy: porn.
Porn Time, based on the same code as Popcorn Time, is now available for Mac, Windows and Linux, so grab a towel and check it out.
Apple is ramping up security on iOS 9 and it’s going to take a little extra memorization on your part.
Anyone with an iPhone or iPad that has Touch ID will be required to update to a new 6 digit PIN when the new operating system is released this fall, according to Apple’s website.
Apple just unveiled the future of OS X with the developer preview of El Capitan, but it’s still trying to squash some bugs in El Yosemite with the fifth beta of OS X 10.10.4.
Apple may have announced iOS 9 at WWDC yesterday, but it hasn’t forgotten about its iOS 8.4 beta. A fourth release is now available to developers ahead of this month’s public rollout.
Steve Jobs hated Android so much he once said Apple would never make an iTunes app for Android because he didn’t want to do anything that would make Android users happy. At yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Tim Cook sang a different tune by announcing Apple Music would be available on Android too. What he didn’t say was everyone with an Android phone is going to have to pay. Even for the free features.
The best Beats headphones can’t help you if your ears are unable to hear certain subtle sounds. You can crank up the volume, but that only puts your hearing in peril.
The creators of Aumeo want to change the way you listen to music with an audio device that profiles your hearing – testing it with a smartphone app to find the frequency suited for each level – and offers sound-rich audio that lets you take your thumb off the volume button.
A person’s hearing is as unique as their fingerprints, but electronic audio devices provide more of a “one-size-fits-all” range of volume, according to Aumeo co-founder Paul Lee.
By Brandon Shaw
Dear Apple,
I wanted to love Apple Music, I really did. It had all the potential in the world, and with all the hype surrounding the WWDC keynote, I watched with cautious optimism. Ultimately, though, I was disappointed. Here’s why.
Based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name, The Martian will chronicle astronaut Mark Watney’s incredibly plausible scientific survival on the surface of Mars for four years in a habitat designed for 30 days.
With Matt Damon in the title role, an all-star cast and Ridley Scott in the director’s chair, The Martian is shaping up to be the one film science nerds must see this summer.
The official trailer came out Monday and you’re going to want to see it right now. Too bad you’ll have to wait until the end of November.
Every other year Apple releases an “S” version of the iPhone. Later this year, we’ll see the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The “S” models generally deliver modest improvements — better cameras, better networking, faster chips. But the basic design remains the same. The “S” suffix means the same, but better.
And so it goes with this Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. In terms of announcements of import, WWDC 2015’s kickoff was an “S” upgrade. It built on the spectacular announcements of last year, but didn’t break huge new ground.
And that’s OK. “S” upgrades are often underrated.
The Apple Design Award winners are in, and they showcase the cutting edge of game and app design.
At a ceremony Monday at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple handed out 12 awards to the best apps of the past year. Games scored half of the nods, with some really cool productivity, finance and utility apps also taking honors.
Here are all of this year’s winning apps — and why they won.
Apple Music may be a streaming service, but you won’t always need an Internet connection to enjoy it. Apple has confirmed that you’ll also be able to download songs for offline listening, so you can enjoy albums and playlists when you’re on the road without data.
Apple Music could be the best music service for mobile devices ever created if it lives up to the hype Eddy Cue danced into it during today’s keynote, but it won’t play nice with Internet connected speaker systems like Sonos.
Sonos speaker lovers won’t be able to jam out on their favorite tunes through Apple Music, the company revealed in a statement today. While Sonos has been a supporter of Beats Music since 2014, the company confirmed says Apple’s not ready to focus on home listening yet:
Once again, Apple has shown its desire to be your go-to for everything you do in your life.
During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this morning, the iPhone maker talked up software updates, services and new functionalities aimed at making several of its competitors’ offerings redundant.
Here are the things Apple’s trying to take out with new stuff at WWDC 2015.
I’ve finally been able to start processing Apple’s overly long WWDC that was packed with celebrity appearances, tons of great software, and Eddy Cue’s horrible shirt. All of my nerd friends are chatting about iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, which is kind of hard to do because Apple hasn’t added ‘El Capitan’ to its predictive keyboards yet.
Try texting your buddy about how stoked you are for the ‘El Capitan’ beta from Mac and it’s automatically corrected to El Capital, which actually might have been a better name for it now that it’s suggested.
This is me in basically every chat window today:
While Eddy Cue was busy winning this year’s worst-dressed award for WWDC 2015, hip-hop icon Drake surprised us all by hitting the stage with a vintage Apple jacket that oozed fashion from every stitch.
The hip-hop icon said he used “this tool called the internet” to score his dope threads, and you can, too, thanks to a number of eBay auctions that are selling vintage Apple jackets just like Drake’s. We haven’t found one yet with the exact same brown leather sleeves, but you can score an all-black Apple jacket that looks pretty similar for $350. If that’s out of your price range there are a bunch of other stylish options.
Check out some of the awesome Apple jackets below:
Please, please, please let Apple’s Beats 1 radio station be good.
Of all the announcements at Monday’s WWDC keynote, that’s the one I personally am most excited about. When it launches June 30, Beats 1 will be a 24-hour global radio station run by three DJs from three different cities around the world.
I’m a music junkie. I listen to music radio all the time, especially Radio 1, the BBC’s flagship radio station in London. To be honest, a lot of it sucks, but a lot of it doesn’t. It allows me — an expat Limey living in California — to keep tabs on Britain’s awesome musical culture.
And that’s what I’m hoping for — that Apple’s billions will privately fund a radio station that’s like the BBC’s publicly funded Radio 1 — on a global scale.
Apple hinted at such ambitions in the launch video played during Monday’s keynote. Done right, it could be the great music discovery mechanism the entire music industry’s been looking for.
Apple’s big idea for transforming the way we experience music is bringing a personal touch — and a simple, unified platform — to the tangled technological mess that music’s become in 2015. Apple Music is classic Apple: putting a human face on technology that threatens to overwhelm us.
Tim Cook brought out high-profile artists, and Apple’s team of industry insiders, to show off what he called “the next chapter in music” today at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
“I know your are going to love it,” Cook said, introducing Apple Music. “It will change the way that you experience music forever.”
Here’s what Apple Music will bring to your ears.
Apple spilled all the details on iOS 9 at its WWDC keynote today. The new operating system will be rolling out to iPhones and iPads this fall — here’s what you have to look forward.
Apple put on one of its biggest shows ever for WWDC this year. Not only did the conference kick off with a hilarious video starring Bill Hader, Matt Walsh, Danny Pudi and others, but they also had a series of great short videos to promote some of the company’s new products.
The new ‘History of Music’ clip might have been my favorite new video from Apple today. It showed not just how the iPod and iTunes changed music, but also tossed in nods to vinyl records, radio, and the days of burning one mixtape after another onto CD. We’re still waiting for Apple to upload its star studded videos to YouTube, however you can get a look at the company’s ‘History of Music’ video right now.
Watch it below: