WWDC 2024 Thoughts
Another World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) Keynote has come to pass, and announced within it were updates to macOS (Sequoia), iOS 18, WatchOS 11, and iPadOS 18. Out of all the announcements, I was most interested in the feature set of macOS Sequoia. I don’t have any of the betas. My comments are primarily based on what Apple shared in their keynote presentation.
Finally, macOS has proper tiled window management. Once available only as a third party add-on (i.e. Lasso, Rectangle, and even the late, lamented Divvy), macOS finally has basic window-tiling features that many Windows and Linux users have been using for years. (Does this mean that Stage Manager is dead?)
Apple’s new Password application has me intrigued. I probably won’t abandon 1Password, since I have a mixed set of machines (iOS, iPadOS, Mac and Linux); 1password is available across all of these platforms. But, if you’re only in the Apple ecosystem (like the rest of my family), a dedicated passwords manager utility will be good to have around. Hopefully it will support password generation…
iPhone mirroring was a pleasant surprise. If it works as Apple promises, it will make sharing data between my Apple devices even easier. This feature is promised to be available later this year.
I will admit I was less than thrilled when Apple announced their new Calculator app for iPadOS 18. But I came around after seeing how it can be used with the Apple pencil. The demo showed a few different mathematical operations, where an individual would use the Apple Pencil to write an equation out. When an equal sign was added, the solution would appear, in the same style of handwriting. One could even have an equation with variables, and the Calculator app will not only solve for “X”, but also graph it. I showed the video demo to my teen-aged daughter and she was blown away. But she also expressed concern that this feature could be used for cheating.
Built-in writing assistance and proof-reading tools were announced today, working across iPadOS, iOS and macOS.
Overall, I was luke-warm on Apple’s AI announcements. Some of the intelligent writing and summarization tools seem quite useful, likewise with the use of personal context in sourcing information from disparate apps to provide the user with a bigger picture.
Machine learning to sift and organize photos will make sharing and enjoying photos much easier.
The updates to the Photos app look to be equally impressive, offering the ability to quickly find and edit specific photos using machine learning.
Apple still needs to share how their generative AI art is being sourced.
But I was disappointed when Apple touted its generative AI art features, particularly Genmoji. Replacing hand-crafted art with AI-generated art smacks hard against the creatives who make up a significant percentage of Apple’s user base. More concerning: How were these generative images trained? Was it through an ethical manner, or was it harvested from artists who did not consent? These questions are, as yet, unanswered. On that note, did the System Settings layout get revised? Inquiring minds want to know…
Those are a few of my immediate reactions to Apple’s 2024 WWDC keynote. What about you?
-Krishna
Corey Johnston
June 11, 2024 at 5:35 amI am not happy about the AI integration at all. I don’t even user Siri. I suppose everyone thinks it should be “inevitable” bu they better have an opt-out.
I may be an old grognard, but no one needs to get ahold of me so badly I have to have AI to refine my notifications any more than the On/Off Airplane Mode and Focus settings that we already have.
it’s just unnecessarily inserted as a “convenience” in everything. it’s honestly nothing but an annoyance at this point and it’s getting really challeninging to avoid. I mean seriously—how small does a person’s world have to be that they get excited about AI-generated “emoji’s”? Can I actually read my own emails, or are we just going to be bouncing around spam to each other and trusting AI summaries to tell us what it thinks we need to know? Please just let me use my education that I paid for and let me write my own stuff without AI constantly proffering suggestions and getting in my way? And can I just search through my own photos? Please?
I really really hope it doesn’t insert itself where I don’t want it. I don’t need more “assistance to live my life”. Clearly the Apple execs think we do. Maybe that’s actually the problem.
Advances in tech have historically never actually saved us time. They just make room for us to do more of everything else, but now because we “have more time” we have to do everything else faster. I’m not looking forward to the world AI is going to foist on us. The “convenience” will be short-lived.
And now we know where they got their image sources—Sam Altman’s Open-AI. Talk about getting in bed with the devil.
Krishna
June 11, 2024 at 9:03 amThe confirmation that Open-AI is being used is really disappointing. I expected something better from Apple, but at this point I’m not surprised. Big Tech is really looking out for themselves, not their users. I also think there’s a fundamental disconnect between the developers who make new features and the users who use them. There have been so many pain points in macOS that have been around for years, stemming from usability issues to bugs. It has eroded the Mac experience to a degree that I’m only using Apple products because of the design tools I rely on for my work.