WWDC 2023: all the news from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference

Apple has announced an augmented reality headset called Apple Vision Pro that “seamlessly” blends the real and digital world. “It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at,” CEO Tim Cook said of the device, which looks like a pair of ski goggles. As rumored, it features a separate battery pack and is controlled with eyes, hands, and voice.

Vision Pro is positioned as primarily an AR device, but it can switch between augmented and full virtual reality using a dial. The device is controller-free, and you browse rows of app icons by looking at them. You can tap to select and flick to scroll, and you can also give voice commands. You’re also not, Apple promises, isolated from people around you. The headset will display your eyes with a system called EyeSight, and if you’re in full VR, a glowing screen will obscure them to suggest you’re not available.

Apple has announced StandBy — a new feature that turns the iPhone into a sort of smart display when it’s docked on its side. The company announced this new trick onstage at WWDC 2023 while debuting iOS 17, which is expected to arrive this fall.

StandBy comes with iOS 17 and kicks in automatically when your iPhone is charging and horizontal. It’s designed to be seen from a distance and can display the time, Apple Home controls, the weather, Apple app smart stacks, and other features. At night, StandBy adapts the screen to lowlight, taking on a red tone to help you sleep.

Apple is bringing FaceTime to Apple TV. As part of an upcoming tvOS 17 update, a new FaceTime app will be made available that uses your iPhone or iPad camera to bring video calls to your big-screen TV.

Apple is making use of its Continuity Camera feature so that you can launch the FaceTime app on Apple TV and it will wirelessly connect to your iPhone or iPad. You can even pick up a call that’s taking place on your iPhone and transfer it to your Apple TV.

Apple announced watchOS 10, its “milestone” next-gen smartwatch platform, today at WWDC. As in past years, it’ll be available for developers to start tinkering with today, while a public beta is expected sometime next month. Users can expect to see the final version arrive later this fall alongside the forthcoming Apple Watch Series 9.

Widgets are back on the menu, friends. Turning the digital crown will bring up your widget stack and let you scroll through for quick and easy access to information. It’s a major shift in how users have thus far interacted with the Apple Watch and is reminiscent of the Siri watchface introduced a few years ago in watchOS 3.

Hideo Kojima made a brief but interesting appearance during WWDC 2023, as Apple highlighted the power of its latest M2 chips, and a new game mode in macOS Sonoma. During the gaming portion of the conference, the director revealed that not only is he bringing Death Stranding Director’s Cut to macOS but his other titles as well. However, Kojima didn’t specify when Director’s Cut will make its Mac appearance nor which other games in his omnibus he’s porting to Mac.

Kojima’s appearance at WWDC 2023 might tease that he’ll have some role to play during Summer Game Fest event that kicks off later this week. Death Stranding Director’s Cut might make an appearance during the presentation as well as its sequel Death Stranding 2. Announced during last year’s Game Awards, Death Stranding is also getting a movie with the producer of Barbarian attached to the project.

Apple has just unveiled macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its desktop operating system, onstage at WWDC 2023. The headline features are support for widgets on the desktop, a new game mode, and aerial screensavers. Based on Apple’s release strategy in previous years, the update — also known as macOS 14 — should be available in developer beta imminently and as a public beta in the coming weeks. General availability is expected later this year.

Widgets can be dragged from your Notification Center to the desktop or can effectively be imported from an iPhone if a device is on the same Wi-Fi network. They can be interactive, with one demo showing how you can control a connected vehicle from its desktop widget, and are designed to fade into the background when you open a window.

Apple offered a preview of iPadOS 17 at WWDC 2023 today. The new tablet software update is set to gain many of the same features of iOS 17, including a handful of new Messages features (like automatic voice note transcriptions), expanded AirDrop capabilities, and smarter autocorrect for text input.

The iPad is also catching up to iOS with the ability to personalize the lock screen; this works much the same way that it does on the iPhone. Apple’s software VP Craig Federighi also showcased new interactive widgets that can be placed on the homescreen. iPadOS 17 will also bring over the Health app. And last, the iPad will be able to display Live Activities just like iOS.

Apple is changing Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri” to just “Siri.” The change, part of iOS 17, will make it easier to summon the virtual assistant on iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices and follows a report from Bloomberg in November that Apple was working on moving Siri to a single wake word.

Apple has been using “Hey Siri” up until now since the underlying engineering and training work is easier against a two-word trigger phrase. Moving to a single wake word is a significant shift, even if it might seem simple. Amazon allows Alexa users to trigger the assistant using “Hey Alexa” or just “Alexa,” and even Microsoft supported just “Cortana” as a wake word before shutting down its voice assistant on iOS and Android in 2021.

Apple has announced Journal, a new journaling app for iOS that allows iPhone users to regularly log their daily activities. Announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Journal is the company’s latest step into the health and wellness segment, joining other iOS apps like Fitness, Sleep, and Breathe that help users track and manage aspects of their everyday lives.

Journal will be released on iOS 17, which is expected to roll out in September later this year. Apple says that the new iPhone app will use on-device machine learning to curate personalized suggestions for users to commemorate within their digital journal, pulling information from contacts, pictures, music, workouts, location data, and more.

Apple’s iOS 17 is official, making its debut on WWDC 2023’s keynote stage. Highlights include new safety features, a built-in journaling app, a new nightstand mode, redesigned contact cards, better auto-correct and voice transcription, and live voicemail. And you’ll be able to drop the “hey” from “Hey Siri.”

Your contact book is getting an update with a new feature called posters, which turns contact cards into flashy marquee-like images that show up full-screen on your recipient’s iPhone when you call them. They use a similar design language as the redesigned lock screens, with bold typography options and the ability to add Memoji, and will work with third-party VoIP apps. There’s also a new live transcription feature for voicemail that lets you view a transcript of the message a caller is leaving in real time. You can choose to ride it out or pick up the call, and it’s all handled on-device. You’ll also be able to leave a message on FaceTime, too.

It’s finally happening. Apple is bringing back the Mac Pro with new chips designed for 2023. It’s the first big update to the Mac Pro in four years, and it completes Apple’s transition to its own Arm-powered Silicon. The new Mac Pro model will be available starting June 13th for $6,999.

The new Mac Pro looks the same as the old Intel version with the cheese grater metal front, but there are some major changes on the inside. The Mac Pro will come with Apple’s M2 Ultra chip, as well as six open PCIe Gen 4 slots for expansion, and offer eight built-in Thunderbolt ports. It can be configured with up to a 76-core GPU and 192GB of memory. With a fully specced model, Apple says it can be up to 3x faster than the old Intel version.

Apple is updating its Mac Studio desktop system with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips. The miniature desktop Mac Studio has the same design as last year’s M1-powered device but much more powerful processors inside. The updated Mac Studio will start at $1,999 and start shipping on June 13th.

M2 Ultra is the big news here, with Apple describing it as “a monster of a chip.” It’s essentially two M2 Max dies connected with Apple’s UltraFusion technology, with a 24-core CPU and up to a 76-core GPU that’s 30 percent faster than the M1 Ultra. Apple claims that a single system with this type of GPU can train ML workloads that discrete GPUs can’t handle due to memory constraints.

Apple has unveiled a new 15-inch MacBook Air at its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple claims that the device will be “the world’s best 15-inch laptop.” It’ll come with Apple’s M2 chip.

The new model is 11.5mm thick, which Apple says makes it the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop, and it will weigh just over three pounds. It has two USB-C Thunderbolt ports (supporting up to a 6K external display), a MagSafe charging connector, and a headphone jack and will come in both midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver colors. Its 15.3-inch screen (sporting five-millimeter bezels) has 500 nits of brightness. There’s also a 1080p FaceTime HD webcam, three microphones with “advanced beamforming algorithms”, and six speakers (two teeters and two sets of force-canceling woofers) with spatial audio and Dolby Atmos.

It’s time to see Apple’s plans for virtual reality. At WWDC 2023, the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is expected to introduce its first VR headset and tell the world why it thinks this tech is the future.

There’s a lot riding on the introduction: this is one of only a few major new product categories that Apple has stepped into under CEO Tim Cook, and it’s one that many other companies have tried and struggled to succeed in. Meta’s high-end Quest Pro was a flop; Samsung discontinued the Gear VR; HTC has struggled to gain support from app makers. And more generally speaking, it’s still not clear how many hours a day anyone wants to keep one of these things on their head.

As Apple prepares its long-rumored jump into augmented reality on Monday, doubts have shadowed every step of the way. There are reports of frequent changes in direction and skepticism inside Apple’s ranks. The device has allegedly been hard to manufacture and required numerous compromises. The process has taken years longer than Apple expected. And at a rumored $3,000, even Apple reportedly expects slow short-term sales.

But among AR professionals, the mood is jubilant. “This is the single greatest thing that could happen to this industry,” says Jay Wright, CEO of VR / AR collaboration platform Campfire 3D. “Whether you make hardware or software. We’re excited about it.”

If Apple’s mixed reality headset is going to succeed, it’s going to be because of the apps. On Monday, Apple will take the stage at its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference to talk about FaceTime and Apple Books and all the other cool built-in stuff you’ll be able to do with its ski goggles strapped to your face. But if it can’t get third-party developers on board, and those developers don’t figure out how to build life-changingly great stuff for those goggles, the Reality Pro (or whatever it’s called) doesn’t stand a chance.

Apple knows this better than anyone, of course. The iPhone took off when apps like Instagram and Uber showed what you could do with a camera and a GPS in your pocket. The iPad became a creative tool because creative people kept building cool stuff to do on such a huge touchscreen. And developers at places like Nike and Strava did more to make the case for the Apple Watch than Apple’s Walkie Talkie app and weird heartbeat-sending thing ever did. Apple’s product strategy for 15 years has been to make the coolest gadget it can, show it to developers, and ask them what they think.