Photo: Apple

At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple finally unveiled the highly-anticipated mixed-reality (MR) headset—Vision Pro. Including the MR headset, Apple announced a series of “big and little things,” as it jokingly termed it, at the WWDC 2023. And here’s a sum up of all we know.

Video courtesy: Apple

Vision Pro MR headset

The Apple MR headset is dubbed “the biggest product launch since Apple Watch” by CNN. It is also the most anticipated product at this year’s WWDC. The headset gives us a glimpse into the future where smartphones and computers are gradually getting replaced by MR devices.

The $3,499 Vision Pro comes with a proprietary three-element lens with dual 4K micro-OLED displays that packs 23 million pixels. On the inside, there are IR cameras and LED illuminators. The exterior of the headset features both LiDAR and traditional camera sensors. Apple calls its Vision Pro MR headset a “spatial computer” that features visionOS—the world’s first spatial operating system. It works with the company’s new R1 chip and an M2 processor to process input from 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones and deliver a “lag-free” performance within 12 milliseconds.

Video courtesy: Apple

The idea of an Apple MR headset dates back to 2017. After seven years of design and development, Vision Pro is set to be the tradition-breaker. Apple’s famed industrial team promoting a delayed launching date. This way they can perfect the product with more technically feasible outcomes, even if that means several more years. An article from New York Times indicated that both employees and leaders at Apple were skeptical about the new product. However, the MR market desperately demands fast outcomes. Meta also introduced its Meta Quest 3 just a few days before Apple’s WWDC, hoping to take a leading step with the release.

The M2 Ultra

Apple’s UltraFusion packaging architecture uses a silicon interposer that connects the die of two M2 Max chips to create M2 Ultra. Courtesy of Apple

The M2 Ultra is a new system on a chip (SoC)—the largest and most capable chip Apple has ever created. M2 Ultra is built using a second-generation 5-nanometer process and uses Apple’s UltraFusion technology to connect the die of two M2 Max chips, doubling the performance. M2 Ultra consists of 134 billion transistors—20 billion more than M1 Ultra. Its supports up to a breakthrough 192GB of memory capacity, which is 50 percent more than M1 Ultra, and features 800GB/s of memory bandwidth—twice that of M2 Max.

M2 Ultra also features a more powerful CPU that’s 20 percent faster than M1 Ultra, a larger GPU that’s up to 30 percent faster, and a Neural Engine that can deliver 31.6 trillion operations per second, which is up to 40 percent faster than M1 Ultra. Its media engine has twice the capabilities of M2 Max for ProRes acceleration.

32-core Neural Engine, delivering 31.6 trillion operations per second, which is 40 percent faster performance than M1 Ultra.

The 15‑inch MacBook Air

The 15-inch MacBook Air. Courtesy of Apple

While the buzz around Apple’s hardware has been centered around the MR headset, Apple also introduced an unprecedented 15-inch MacBook Air. It features an expansive 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, the latest M2 chip, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a six-speaker sound system.

The new MacBook Air weighs just 3.3 pounds and measures only 11.5mm thin, making it the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop—nearly 40 percent thinner and half a pound lighter than a comparable PC laptop.

MacBook Air also features MagSafe charging, two Thunderbolt ports for connecting accessories, and up to a 6K external display, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. It comes in four colors: midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver.

The M2 chip makes the 15-inch MacBook Air up to 12x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air. It features a powerful 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. M2 also delivers 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and supports up to 24GB of fast unified memory, allowing multitasking and working with complex workloads to be superfluid.

The new 15-inch MacBook Air will be on sale in Apple stores starting at AED 5,499 and AED 5,099 for education.

Mac Studio

Mac Studio. Courtesy of Apple

The Mac Studio is Apple’s small yet powerful desktop computer. It is up to 6x faster than the most powerful Intel-based 27-inch iMac, and up to 3x faster than the previous-generation Mac Studio with M1 Ultra. It features a 12-core CPU, up to a 38-core GPU, and up to 96GB of unified memory with 400GB/s of memory bandwidth. The new Mac Pro features M2 Ultra is up to 3x faster than the previous-generation Intel-based model. With the Mac Studio, motion graphics designers will enjoy up to 50 percent faster rendering speed with After Effects.

Mac Studio starts at AED 8,599 and AED 7,699 for education.

iOS17: NameDrop, Journal, Standby, Autocorrect, “hey Siri,” and more

iOS17 updates. Courtesy of Apple

There is a wave of updates with the new iOS17 for iPhones. The first is the personalized Contact Poster. Users can customize how they appear with treatments for photos, Memoji, typography, and font colors. It will also be available for third-party calling apps.

Live Voicemail gives users the ability to see real-time transcription as someone leaves a voicemail, and the opportunity to pick up while the caller is leaving their message. With the power of the Neural Engine, Live Voicemail transcription is handled on-device and remains entirely private.

FaceTime now supports audio and video messages so when users call someone who is not available. FaceTime calls also get more expressive with Reactions such as hearts, balloons, fireworks, laser beams, rain, and more.

In an exciting update to Apple TV 4K, FaceTime now extends to the biggest screen in the home. Powered by Continuity Camera, users can initiate a video call directly from Apple TV, or start the call on iPhone and then hand it off to Apple TV. With Center Stage, users will have perfect framing even as they move around the room.

Messages also get significant updates with iOS 17, including an all-new stickers experience with new emoji stickers and the ability to create Live Stickers with photos. Search gets more powerful and precise with search filters. A new catch-up arrow indicates where the user last left off in the conversation. Location-sharing will update in real-time in the conversation. Audio messages will be transcribed automatically. Messages also introduce Check In. After a user initiates a Check In, their friend or family member will automatically be notified as soon as the user arrives. Any information shared is end-to-end encrypted.

NameDrop is an easy contact-sharing method. Users can share contact information simply by bringing their iPhones together, or by bringing an iPhone and Apple Watch together. With the same gesture, users can also share content or start SharePlay to listen to music, watch a movie, or play a game while in close proximity between iPhone devices.

Autocorrect get’s an update with a transformer language model, an on-device machine-learning language model for word prediction. It improves the experience and accuracy of users every time they type. It also receives a refreshed design to better support typing, and sentence-level autocorrections can fix more types of grammatical mistakes.

iOS 17 introduces StandBy, a full-screen experience with glanceable information that can be viewed from a distance. It can be personalized to display a range of clock styles, photos, or widgets, including Smart Stacks.

Journal is a new journaling app. It uses on-device machine learning and personalized suggestions to help inspire a user’s journal entry. Suggestions are curated from recent activity, including photos, people, places, workouts, etc. The app has end-to-end encryption to protect users’ privacy. It also comes with a new Journaling Suggestions API, which allows developers to add journaling suggestions to their apps.

MacOS 14 Sonoma

MacOS Sonoma preview. Courtesy of Apple

The new MacOS allows users to place widgets right on the desktop, interact with them with just a click, and access the extensive ecosystem of iPhone widgets on their Mac. In macOS Sonoma, video conferencing also gets more engaging with great new features to help users present remotely, like Presenter Overlay, which places a presenter on top of the content being shared, and Reactions, which enables fun gesture-triggered video effects in cinematic quality. Safari also gets a significant update. Profiles keep browsing separately between multiple topics or projects, and web apps provide faster access to favorite sites. And gaming gets better, with the introduction of Game Mode, exciting new titles, and a new game porting toolkit that makes it even easier for developers to bring more games to Mac.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch watchOS updates. Courtesy of Apple

With the new watchOS, users now have a fresh approach to quickly view information with redesigned apps, a new Smart Stack to show relevant widgets and new watch faces on their Apple Watch. New metrics, Workout Views, and Bluetooth connectivity for power meters, speed sensors, and cadence sensors arrive for cyclists, while new Compass Waypoints and Maps capabilities further help hikers. The Mindfulness app offers additional tools to support mental health.

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