One of the more highly anticipated iterations of Apple’s annual developers conference is underway this morning in San Jose, California, with this year’s WWDC giving Apple the opportunity to show off everything from new software for all of its major platforms — in addition to offering up some surprises. Like the news, leaked right before the start of Monday’s event, that Apple is going to split iOS essentially in half and formulating a new version specific to the iPad.
The company just showed off iOS 13 on stage, which — it’s now official — will include the much-anticipated dark mode feature.
When the new version of the iPhone maker’s mobile operating system arrives this fall, you’ll be able to switch the native design and color scheme to a darker mode that doesn’t strain your eyes as much. Apps like News, Maps and even the mobile keyboard will be switchable to the forthcoming dark mode, according to a presentation this morning from Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi.
One new ios 13 feature that got an especially enthusiastic reaction from the crowd in San Jose is “Sign in with Apple,” which lets you sign in to an app without inadvertently opening the door to those apps quietly accessing your personal data. You can even choose to hide your email from the app when it asks for your email.
Apple proves yet again that they care about privacy with “Sign In With Apple.” Not the same can be said about *cough* the other peeps. pic.twitter.com/5lCrSotJTc
— Quinn Nelson (@SnazzyQ) June 3, 2019
When you choose to hide your email, Apple will in that case actually create a randomized email address that forwards information to your actual email account. It’s important to point out — apps will need to enable “Sign in with Apple” support, and Apple allowing customers to stay a little more anonymous might mean some (or many?) apps may not want to give up being able to access the customer data they want. Stay tuned on that front.
Other new features coming to iOS 13 include the ability to have separate iCloud accounts for your work and personal lives, as well as the iPhone automatically sending unknown and possible spam callers to voicemail.
Here are some of the other new features coming, as mentioned by Apple in a news release following today’s keynote:
- Reminders has a new look and offers intelligent ways to create and edit reminders, with more ways to organize and keep track of them. With deeper integration with Messages, it’s also easy to tag someone in a reminder so that it surfaces when the user messages with that person.
- Messages can automatically share a user’s name and photo, or customized Memoji or Animoji, to easily identify who is in the Messages thread. Memoji are automatically made into sticker packs built into the iOS keyboard, so they can be used in Messages, Mail and other apps. Memoji also feature new hairstyles, headwear, makeup, piercings and accessories.
- Siri has a new, more natural voice, and Siri Shortcuts now supports Suggested Automations that provide personalized routines for things like heading to work or going to the gym.
- CarPlay gets its biggest update ever with a new Dashboard to view music, maps and more in a single view, plus a new Calendar app and Siri support for third-party navigation and audio apps.
- HomePod can distinguish voices from anyone in the home to deliver personal requests, including messages, music and more. Live radio also gives Siri access to over 100,000 radio stations from iHeartRadio, radio.com and TuneIn, and a new sleep timer turns off music after a set amount of time.
- Text Editing is enhanced, making scrolling documents, moving the cursor and selecting text faster and more accurate.
- Health includes new ways to track, visualize and predict a woman’s menstrual cycle.
- Location Services controls give users more choices for how they share location data with apps, including a new one-time location option and more information on when apps are using location in the background.
- Performance improvements make the entire system more responsive with faster Face ID unlock.
