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Apple’s WWDC 2021 announcements have not had the benefit of Apple Silicon announcement of recent years, and the sad lack of news about the MacBook Pro is a hard pill to swallow for those hoping for new hardware. But there was a lot of interesting news for business professionals using Macs, iPads, and / or iPhones.
Here’s a quick tour of what CEO Tim Cook and other executives talked about at Monday’s event:
Think from a distance
Apple’s staff have worked primarily remotely for over a year, and the company faces justified pushback from workers who want to continue to do so, rather than reverting to a culture of presence.
Along with the transformation of work practices, the COVID-19 pandemic also means that Apple’s people have first-hand experience with some of the weaknesses of remote working; WWDC 21 has seen the arrival of several useful improvements to eliminate some of these.
Take FaceTime, for example. It may not be truly cross-platform yet, but Apple will now allow you to use FaceTime to video chat with people on Windows and Android platforms (using a web app).
It’s not a perfect solution, of course, but it does mean remote workers will be able to use FaceTime to talk to colleagues on other platforms. (Let’s face it, that bird flew and we’re all using Zoom right now.) Apple knows that too; why else would it already allow third-party video calling apps to take advantage of the new FaceTime enhancements, including voice isolation, wide-spectrum audio, and Portrait mode?
Of course, yet another signifier of the remote work world most of us have lived in, Slack users can now share users’ status in conversations.
iPad for Mac
We anticipated that Apple could work on the iPad UI after its decision to put an M1 processor inside the iPad Pro. It didn’t disappoint.
Multitasking has been made much more intuitive, making Split View and Slide Over easier to use and much more flexible with your workflow, including a multitasking menu that appears at the top of apps.
You also get widgets on the entire home screen and subsequent pages. A small change involves the introduction of a larger widget, which should make the Files app more useful, although it may become more useful if OneDrive or Dropbox become supported stores.
Perhaps the most profound improvement in productivity is in the new keyboard and mouse support via Universal Control. This allows you to use a keyboard and mouse to control multiple iPads and a Mac. It requires no setup and means you can simply swipe between screens. It makes the iPad and Mac both extensions of the same screen, and support extends to drag and drop between these devices.
This feature makes the experience of using multiple Macs and iPads together much more unified.
Xcode Cloud: remote test
This wasn’t Apple’s only platform enhancement that powers enterprise workflows, remote or otherwise. Xcode Cloud, a new tool coming next year, will allow you to transfer your Xcode projects to iCloud where they can be collaborated, tested and distributed to beta testers once done. Parallel testing in the cloud means developers can test on a simulated version of any current Apple device.
Another useful update: You can now use your iPad to create Swift UI code, and you can share beta apps with Macs using TestFlight. These useful features for any developer also make it easier for enterprise app development teams to work on projects remotely and engage in ad hoc internal testing with their trusted teams.
The ability to test apps will be warmly welcomed by many, while B2C app developers and businesses will want to use the new tools to A / B test different App Store page descriptions that the company has introduced.
Augmented reality
Blink and you may have missed the introduction of a new AR view in Maps that shows directional visual cues to help you get to where you are going.
What you won’t miss is Apple’s blatant statement that it is now the largest augmented reality platform in the world with over a billion AR-compatible devices and their own tools to create experiences for that platform.
The new macOS Monterey Object Capture API means that Apple has made it possible to create photorealistic 3D models of real-world objects in minutes using images captured on iPhone, iPad or DSLR and turn them into AR-optimized 3D models.
Concentration and awareness
Apple has also introduced new apps that run on its platforms and could be designed for remote working. Focus, for example, is a context-sensitive notification and interruption manager that helps you filter out external interruptions when trying to get the job done. Focus users can automatically filter out notifications unrelated to their current activity. When Focus is set on one device, it automatically sets on all other devices.
Focus suggestions are context-based, so you’ll get a different set of filters during business hours than when you’re relaxing for bed. Focus also allows you to create custom application pages, which should help you take your eyes off the Twitter stream.
Spotlight gets a boost
Any image you have that contains text, such as handwritten notes, becomes searchable. You will also be able to use the Camera app on your iPhone / iPad to recognize and copy text on the spot, such as the Wi-Fi password displayed in a local coffee shop.
Spotlight now uses intelligence to search for photos based on location, people, scenes or objects, and using Live Text Spotlight can find text and handwriting in photos.
Another little feature that can pay off for CRM: Contact Search now shows recent emails, messages, pictures, and shared locations, which might come in handy when you want to personalize your next business call.
Mac shortcuts
Of course, as work becomes remote, everyone is looking for ways to automate repetitive tasks. Powerful AppleScript and Automator have always helped with this on the Mac, and now shortcuts help automate tasks in the Apple ecosystem, including on the Mac.
Monterey will bring shortcuts to the Mac, meaning most workers (including remote employees) will be able to customize the robotic process automation promise of making a computer do the tedious work simply by creating relevant shortcuts that work on all their devices.
While it may not be immediately obvious given Apple’s consumer-centric treatment of this news, when used with third-party apps like the wonderful OmniFocus shortcuts it should help make business process automation a reality on the Mac. more, it means developers now have an even better reason to support shortcuts.
AirPlay on Mac
You will be able to stream presentations and other resources directly from your iPhone or iPad to a Mac using AirPlay on Mac. This can come in handy when visiting customers.
Mail privacy protection
Corporate security gets a boost (and perhaps additional protection against phishing) with Mail Privacy Protection. This prevents senders from using invisible pixels to know if an email has been opened and hides IP addresses so that senders can’t know a user’s location or use it to create a profile on them for phishing. iCloud + (the new and improved iCloud, same price) gets additional security tools that should be useful to business professionals, not least the ability to share unique random email addresses that they forward to their personal inbox.
Microphone activity
The Mac recording indicator shows which app is accessing the Mac’s microphone.
Live text
Apple now has Apple Lens, but calls it Live Text. This uses machine learning on the device to detect text in photos and uses data detectors to make text useful. You can call a phone number collected in an image or follow a tracking number. You can also take text from an image and paste it as text into a document.
When used with Apple’s translation tools and airport interior mapping, business travelers (if there are any in the future) won’t get lost again.
Keys and IDs
Apple is bringing driver’s licenses to iPhones. Travelers visiting Hyatt hotels will find that their wallet now contains digital keys in their room. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is working to enable airport security checkpoint support for digital ID cards on iPhones.
New iPhone configuration tools
This is a big improvement. When setting up a new iPhone, existing iPhone users will be able to temporarily backup data to iCloud even without a subscription to easily transfer their data to a new iPhone. Apple has also improved the Move-to-iPhone software for the switchers. Any business that adopts or updates their iPhones should take advantage of this.
Privacy improvements
Intelligent Tracking Prevention will also hide a user’s IP address from trackers, preventing them from using this information to track what and where they go.
Another useful privacy feature allows users to see how often apps take advantage of the permissions granted to them to share data about them and with whom that data may be shared.
In summary, Apple seems to have really focused on productivity and security at the heart of this year’s WWDC.
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Copyright © 2021 IDG Communications, Inc.
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