Everything Apple announced at WWDC 2022: New MacBooks, iOS 16, and more
The company’s annual developer conference kicked off today, with a keynote address stuffed with new product news.
Photo credit: APPLE
APPLE’S WORLDWIDE DEVELOPERS Conference kicked off on Monday with a keynote address, and the company used the stage to announce a bunch of new software updates and the stray hunks of hardware. Rather than sticking with the totally virtual event format Apple has been running during the pandemic, this WWDC was a strange hybrid of prerecorded video played before a live audience at the company’s California headquarters. As expected, Apple went big on the software updates. But there’s also a new MacBook Air and a new M2 processor.
Read on for all the news Apple announced today, and check out the rest of WIRED’s WWDC 2022 coverage.
New MacBooks
Hey, look, there’s a new MacBook Air! Normally it would be surprising to see a laptop launched at a software event, but the long-awaited portable was expected by pundits. The 2022 MacBook Air has a new case design that’s 20 percent thinner than the previous model, and it features slimmer bezels around the screen and a smaller notch for the webcam at the top of the display. Also, big news: It has MagSafe. The magnetic charging attachment appears on the new MacBook Air in place of the Thunderbolt charging that Apple has been moving toward lately. The MagSafe addition also frees up the two Thunderbolt-USB 4 ports. Inside, there’s a new M2 chip (more on that below) that improves performance and battery life. Apple says the new Air gets 18 hours on a charge, even while playing videos the whole time. The new laptop weighs just 2.7 pounds, comes in four different colors, and starts at $1,199.
There’s also a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip inside. Apple says it gets up to 20 hours of battery life and can be upgraded with 24 GB of memory and a 2-TB SSD. The Pro starts at $1,299.
The M2 Chip
Apple’s new chip is built on the same proprietary hardware that the company’s been packing into most of its new machines. This second-generation chip has an 8-core CPU, which Apple says is 18 percent faster than the CPU on the M1. The GPU has up to 10 cores, and Apple claims it provides 25 percent higher performance than its predecessor. It’s going to be available in the new MacBook Air and a new 13-inch MacBook Pro.
iOS 16
The next version of the iPhone’s operating system will arrive this fall, and it’s coming with a bunch of quality-of-life updates. The lock screen is getting more customizable. Now, you can make a variety of visual changes without having to unlock the screen. Just press and hold to change colors and typefaces, or activate widgets that let you access things like your calendar, workout apps, and photos. Apple is also tying its Focus app to the lock screen. Set a lock screen for each of your Focus modes, and your notifications and apps will be filtered to show just what’s relevant to your current mode, helping you avoid those constant texts and distractions.
Apple also added some updates to Messages. Maybe most noteworthy is the ability to edit and even delete texts after they’ve been sent. The voice-to-text dictation feature is getting some enhancements too, like the ability to flow between voice and finger input, something that’s enabled by the keyboard staying on-screen while you dictate. Apple’s Live text feature has been updated to let you copy text right from videos, photos, and the translation app. In Apple Maps, a Multistop planning feature lets you plot out up to 15 different stops along your journey.
Apple has added updates to its Home app intended to make it play nice with all your devices in your smart home. Apple’s working with the upcoming smart home standard Matter, which is meant to ensure that devices from different brands communicate smoothly in your home.
There are also updates to Apple News, which gets sports scores; Apple Wallet, which has a new “buy now, pay later” option for large purchases; and Apple’s CarPlay, which will allow for custom dashboard displays on new vehicles that support them. We’ve rounded up all the details about iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 here.
watchOS 9
Workout tracking got beefed up in watchOS 9. A new workout view shows a bunch more data on screen, even alerting you if your heart rate goes below your desired threshold. The Apple Watch will also be able to better measure arm and leg movements during runs to deliver more accurate stride data. Other health options are on the way too. A new feature called Sleep Stages tracks the quality of your slumber as you go through light, deep, and REM sleep. You can also use the watch to track and remind you to take medications, and you can enter meds into your profile by simply taking a photo of the label.
There are also some aesthetic tweaks to the Apple Watch, like new faces that show off lunar calendars or real-time astrological alignments.
macOS Ventura
Apple’s new desktop operating system is called Ventura. The new features shown off at WWDC concentrate heavily on productivity. A new feature called Stage Manager keeps all your stray apps and tabs off to the side in an easily viewable sidebar and allows for quick switching between groups.
Mail and Safari are getting some efficiency upgrades too. Have too many browser tabs open? Good news, now you can share those Safari tab groups with other people and let them add in their own. There are some privacy boosts, like an on-device security feature called Passkey that lets you sign into websites and apps without using passwords. A new version of Apple’s Metal gaming rendering engine aims to smooth out frame rates and allow more demanding, more realistic gameplay on Macs.
Apple’s goal of creating a smooth, all-encompassing ecosystem of products rolls on with its new Continuity features. Now, Macs and iPads can detect that you’re on a FaceTime call on your iPhone and offer to switch the call to one of the larger devices. And—something that will surely fit right into our Zoom-Meet-Teams present—you’ll gain the ability to use your iPhone as a wireless webcam for video calls. Attaching a plastic accessory to the back of your iPhone lets you rest it on top of the screen with the lens pointing at you; macOS automatically recognizes the phone and switches the camera function to use the handset’s camera instead of the computer’s webcam.
iPadOS 16
The inexorable fusion of the iPad and MacBook continues, as Apple announced a bunch of features that make its capable tablet feel a little more laptop-y.
A new screen scaling feature lets iPad users adjust the pixel density of windows in split-screen mode, squeezing more information onto the sliver of the screen that each app occupies. Most significantly, Apple is putting Stage Manager on the iPad. Just like in macOS Ventura, iPad users will be able to organize and group windows together for better workflows. You know, just like on a computer.
New collaboration features on iPadOS 16 let multiple users work together live to talk in video chats while they edit documents. Freeform, a collaborative whiteboard app, will be available across iPad, Mac, and iPhone. There are also new collaborative gaming features as well, such as a SharePlay option that lets people play games together while sharing video. There are features aimed at artists like Reference Mode, a color-grading mode that aims to produce more accurate color representation on the screen.
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