The big Apple, no I don’t mean New York City, has just presumably reinvented itself for the first time since the iPhone.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) also affectionately known as ‘Dub Dub’ started Monday.
Apple didn’t announce new technology Monday. It typically takes Apple longer to develop fresh, new consumer-based software features due to the company’s limited engineer resources. That’s hard to believe for a company with the reported market cap of over $500 billion and $150 billion in cash on hand. However, it did compile various technologies into one ecosystem in a way only Apple could, which can be said is innovative.
Company executives presented a new Mac OS 10.10 aka Yosemite. Yosemite has a new design UI along with new features like (spotlight search, mail enhancements and iCloud drive. Which essentially Sherlocks (Geek speak for, created its own version) Dropbox.
iOS 8 fine tunes and polishes last year’s release but with some much needed features like widgets, third-party keyboards and refinements to iMessages and much more. Many of the “improvements” represented Apple playing catch-up to Android and other third-party developers.
There was one more thing.
The last presentation, DEV, was a departure from past WWDC events and in my opinion the game-changing segment. The key word to this segment was API (Application Programming Interface), 4,000 of them. APIs make the app game go-round. Now there is a Touch-ID API, only found on the iPhone 5S for now. This will usher in a new brand of apps. Imagine paying your utility bills and buying dinner with your fingerprint or buying your new iPhone 6 with your smudged one year old 5s. That’s a good reason to buy a new one, right? Essentially, the better the programming foundation, the better the apps. This is why Apple developed a new programming language called Taylor Swift. Swift could be Apple’s programming language for the next twenty years, like Objective-C was for the last twenty.
Apple also announced several new Software Development Kits (SDKs). ‘Cloud Kit’ allows developers to create iCloud synced apps, ‘Health Kit’ allows for third-party health monitoring and ‘Home Kit’ will allow developers to create apps that combine all of your appliances, HVAC system, lights,etc. This is my dream of a truly automated home using one device, my iPhone.
Imagine, saying ‘Hey Siri, make me a sammich.” Ok, she can’t do that. But she can turn on the kitchen lights and play you some music while you make your own dang ‘sammich’. One hundred bucks for the first STL developer to create a way for Siri to do this for me. Think about it for just a moment. Soon you’ll be able to say “Hey Siri, we’re sleepy.” Then Siri will check the garage door to make sure it’s closed, lock the doors, turn off the lights, light a candle and play some good ol’ Teddy P. I can’t wait.
