Top Stories: WWDC Recap With iOS 18, Apple Intelligence, and More

WWDC 2024 kicked off on Monday with a jam-packed keynote revealing iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and more, all fueled by upcoming Apple Intelligence technology.

We’ve highlighted the major announcements below, but be sure to check out our recap post that includes a video going over the highlights plus links to all of our coverage from the big day!

Apple Announces iOS 18 With Customizable Home Screen and Control Center and Much More

Apple this week announced iOS 18, which includes a wide range of new features and changes for the iPhone, including new customization options for the Home Screen and Control Center, a redesigned Photos app, the ability to use any emoji as a Tapback in the Messages app, an option to lock apps behind Face ID or Touch ID, and much more.

The tentpole feature of iOS 18 is Apple Intelligence, which is Apple’s new suite of generative AI features coming to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac later this year. Read on for more details about Apple Intelligence.

‘Apple Intelligence’ Unveiled for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Apple Intelligence can summarize text and notifications, create custom emoji and images, and more. Siri is also getting smarter with Apple Intelligence, with richer language understanding and more per-app controls. Siri will also be able to access ChatGPT.

These new AI-powered features will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or any Mac or iPad equipped with an M1 chip or newer. Apple Intelligence will be available when iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia are released to the public later this year, but the features will have a beta label at launch.

Apple Unveils macOS 15 Sequoia With iPhone Mirroring, Passwords App, More

macOS Sequoia is the name for this year’s major update to the Mac operating system!

Key new features beyond Apple Intelligence include the ability to mirror your iPhone onto your Mac, the same Passwords app coming to the iPhone with iOS 18, improved window tiling, and more.

macOS Sequoia is currently in beta, and it will be widely released later this year.

Apple Previews watchOS 11 With New Health and Workout Features

watchOS 11’s key new features and changes for the Apple Watch include the ability to pause your Activity rings without disrupting your award streak, a new Vitals app that provides overnight health metrics, Live Activities support in the Smart Stack, and more.

Like the other software updates unveiled at WWDC, watchOS 11 is currently in beta for developers and will be widely released later this year.

tvOS 18 Adds ‘InSight’ to Identify Actors and Songs in Apple TV+ Shows and More

While it did not receive too much attention at WWDC, tvOS 18 is coming to the Apple TV.

The software update includes a handful of new features and changes, including an “InSight” feature that can identify actors and songs in Apple TV+ shows, updates to the Enhance Dialogue feature and subtitles, additional screen savers, 21:9 video playback support for playing movies and shows on projectors, and more.

Apple Announces visionOS 2 With Ultra-Wide Mac Virtual Display, Travel Mode on Trains, and More

visionOS 2 is the first-ever major software update for Apple’s Vision Pro spatial computer, which launched in the U.S. earlier this year and will be available in eight more countries by mid-July.

visionOS 2 can turn existing 2D photos into spatial photos with machine learning, adds new hand gestures for frequently used features like Home View and Control Center, introduces a larger ultra-wide version of Mac Virtual Display, expands Travel Mode to trains, supports a physical mouse, and more.

Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we’ve covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.

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