WWDC 2021: So Many New Features Coming In macOS Monterey and iOS 15

Apple announced macOS Monterey, iOS 15, and iPadOS 15 today with a huge long list of new features. Apps like FaceTime, Notes, Safari, Photos, Maps and Health are getting lots of new things. The Shortcuts app is coming to the Mac and much more.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me run down all the new things announced at the World Wide Developers Conference today. 
MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you could read more about the Patreon Campaign.  Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts. 
So today's Keynote at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference was a long one hour and 45 minute list of new features coming to macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and other Apple operating systems and devices. So let me run down the things that I think are the most notable. 
First let's get right to it and the name for the new macOS. macOS12 will be called macOS Monterey. So as for what's new, everything is really integrated between all of the different operating systems. So it doesn't make sense to talk about what's new in macOS or iOS or iPadOS because a lot of them go across all of those. So let's start by talking about FaceTime. So in Face Time on those different platforms there are a bunch of real useful new features. One is spacial audio. So you actually hear the person talking from the direction that  they are on the screen. So someone in the upper right hand corner of your screen will sound like they are in the upper right hand corner of your screen. You also have new audio modes, voice isolation versus wide spectrum. So you can decide if you're in a noisy environment to have Face Time isolate your voice. Then the biggest new feature is something called SharePlay. So while you're talking with other people over Face Time you could share media or your screen with them. So, for instance, you could share music in Apple Music and everybody in on the conversation will hear the music in sync. The same thing with video playing in the TV app. So you could all watch a TV show together. If you want to share your screen with somebody you could do it now in the Face Time app.
Now the next set of new features Apple is calling Focus and it's really an extension on Do Not Disturb. So before with Do Not Disturb you could turn it On and certain notifications would be silenced. But now with Focus you could create these profiles. So you can have a Word Profile, a Home Profile, a Nighttime Profile, a Relaxation Profile and set each one for what notifications get through and which don't. 
Now in the Photos App there's a big new feature that introduces a whole bunch of new functionality. That's Photos can now see and understand text in photos. So, for instance, you may be able to search for text that appears in a sign in a photo or if you took a picture of a whiteboard or a document you should be able to search and find that. Now, not only that but in the photo you should be able to select and Copy and paste the text that's there.  Photos will recognize more things in your photos and give you options to be able to look things up that it finds. Like, for instance, if there's a cat in the photo you may be able to get more information about what breed of cat it is. Also, those memory slideshows that use the canned music now, we'll be able to pick up music from Apple Music and use actual real songs. You can customize it as well. It will go with like the tempo and the mood of the song. 
Now the app that's getting a major improvement is Notes. So Notes is adding a feature called Quick Notes that works on the Mac and on the iPad. This allows you to quickly just add a note but when you're using it in a place, like say Safari, it will know that the note is linked to that page. If it seems when you go back to that page in Safari you're note can be brought up again. So you can take notes on individual webpages and they're tied to that page. But they also appear in the Notes App as well. 
So Apple is adding a Plus to iCloud. It's called iCloud Plus now which is what we already get and the price isn't going to change. It looks like Apple is adding a VPN Service to keep your web browsing private. Also be able to create maybe unlimited email aliases. So you can keep creating these new email addresses and using them in various places and they are kind of disposable. They all just forward to your real email address. 
So a cool feature that looks like it really begins with a Mac also can be used on the iPad is a universal control. This means one mouse and one keyboard can control multiple Macs and an iPad. So, say if you've got your MacBook next to your iMac and then an iPad next to that you can just keep using your regular keyboard and mouse or trackpad across all three of those devices. It doesn't just allow you to use the same cursor that moves between all of them but you can even drag and drop between them. So basically like sidecar but seamless and including Macs as well. 
Another app that's going to see big changes is Safari, the way the Tabs look are going to be very different. As a matter of fact the whole top of Safari is going to look very different. You're going to have each individual Tab kind of have its own address and Search field at the top. So that's all integrated in there and then tabs could be put together in groups. So you can have a group of say five tabs. You could name that tab group, close all those tabs, and create another tab group for another purpose and then have those two groups and switch between them. That all syncs on iCloud so you could see that on your iPad and iPhone as well. Also Apple is going to bring Safari extensions to the iPad and iPhone as well as on the Mac. 
Now a big new thing on the Mac that a lot of people are going to be excited about is there will be a Shortcuts app for the Mac. This won't replace Automator. They said that a few times. As a matter of fact the two will work together so you can create Automator things that then can be called by Shortcuts. So the idea is that this looks a lot like the Shortcuts app that we have on the iPad and the iPhone and probably will work in a very similar way. But I'm predicting it will be a lot more powerful simply because the Mac can do so much more. 
Now specific to the iPad it looks like Apple is really going to try to address how confusing multitasking is on the iPad. They are adding a new control to the top of the screen that gives you direct access to things like SplitView and you'll be able to simply replace one of the two halves of the screen with another app in SplitView as well. So I think it's going to get a lot easier for people to understand how to use multitasking on the iPad.
There's also going be something called the Shelf which is kind of like minimizing things to the Dock on the Mac. So you can kind of minimize a screen of an app and it will be in the Shelf and then you can bring it back up again. Also Apple is bringing the iPhone feature of the App Library to the iPad. So you'll finally be able to hide seem of the home screens or just rely on the App Library of alphabetical list of apps rather than having all your apps in folders or lots and lots of home screens. 
The Air Pods are getting some interesting features as well. There's going to be something called Conversation Boost which will allow people to focus on the person that's in front of them talking and reduce noise. Apple is also saying the Location Tracking for Air Pods Pro and Air Pods Mac will be better and there's also going to be a separation alert if you accidentally leave your Air Pods behind. 
So those are the things I think were most notable. So here are just a few more things I think are worth mentioning. One is that your Mac can now be an Air Play destination so you can actually Air Play from an iPhone or an iPad or another Mac onto your Mac screen or using your Mac speakers. The Maps App is looking better and better with a nighttime mode, more detail in cities, an interactive globe mode, and also this new feature on your iPhone where you can be able to use the camera to kind of scan the area so it can figure out exactly where you are and give you directions, like say for coming up from a subway station.
The Translate App on the iPhone is now coming to the iPad and it looks like there's this new interactive talking mode. iCloud is getting a new recovery mode where you can give trusted people the ability to help you recover your account. The Health App has two new sharing features that are interesting. One is a private sharing mode between you and your doctor. Another is a private sharing mode between you and family members, either kids or parents, so you can help keep track of somebody else's health.
There are some updates to the Apple Watch as well. The one that I though was the most interesting is the ability to use portrait photos as a watch face. Portrait photos kind of act in 3D with the person's face appearing above the time and the background appearing behind it. Oh, and there is one more feature that I thought was worth mentioning. That's Swift Playgrounds which is an app on the Mac that allows you to play around with the Swift programming language and learn how to program is coming to the iPad. But not only is it coming to the iPad but it's going to allow you to actually create full apps that you can then submit to The App Store. So for the first time you're going to be able to use an iOS devise, in this case the iPad, to create an app and submit it to The App Store. It won't just be Macs anymore. It will be interesting to see what type of apps that you can create with only Swift Playgrounds on the iPad versus the type of apps that you can create in Xcode on the Mac. 
There were other announcements for developers as well. For instance the introduction of Text Flight for Mac Apps and a new set of concurrency commands for Swift and a new service called Xcode Cloud which will allow developers to more rapidly test and deploy apps across all sorts of different Apple devices.
Just as every year, the new versions of macOS, iPadOS and iOS will be available for developers pretty much right away. There will be public beta tests coming this summer and then all these new operating systems will be launched in the Fall. If you really want to know about everything that Apple introduced, well, the list is huge. I can keep going on and on. Your best bet is to simply watch the recording of the Keynote and you'll see what I mean. It's just basically a rapid fire list from different Apple executives talking about all these different new features and all the different parts of the Apple product line. But hopefully this summary acts as a way to quickly bring you up to speed on what's new. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 9 Responses to “WWDC 2021: So Many New Features Coming In macOS Monterey and iOS 15”

PK Birkmeyer

4 years ago

Gary--

The WWDC 2021 was a crazy non-stop event of features! You are going to be kept very busy when all of this stuff comes out with videos explaining each and every one of them!!

nick

Still no native calculator app for iPad...any idea why?

Gary Rosenzweig

Nick: No idea why. It has been that way since the first iPad in 2010. Plenty of third-party calculator apps to choose from though.

Bert Mullemeister

Hi Gary
thanks for your helpful videos. I always wonder after I upgrade to a new Operating System that all programs still work.
In particular Quicken 2016 and EyeTV, which has 10 years of my financial history.I use time machine monthly but wonder if the program does no longer work.

Bert: You'd have to check with those developers to ask them. Surely there is a more recent version of Quicken than "2016" though, right? If you have something valuable, like your financial records, stored with an app, I'd think you'd want to make it a priority to keep that app up-to-date.

Thim Fook, Law

3 years ago

Hi Gary. I wonder if the Private Relay is iOS/OS specific, i.e. for iOS 16 and Monterey only. My iPhone 7 Plus is currently on iOS 14.6 - which is upgradeable to iOS 15 when it's out, but my iMac is still on Catalina, and is not upgradeable to Big Sur, what more Monterey. So, if I upgrade my iPhone (and iPad) to iOS 15, does it mean that I will NOT be able to use Private Relay in Safari on the iMac? So upgrading to iCloud+ doesn't give me all the features for all the devices, right?

Thim: No, just getting iCloud+ wouldn't somehow add a feature to Catalina that is only available in Monterey. Note that iCloud+ isn't an "upgrade." They are renaming all paid storage tiers of iCloud to "iCloud+." So if you are paying for anything above the free 5GB of iCloud storage, that will be called "iCloud+" at some point later this year.

Wayne Parkins

when will next WWDC be Monterrey

Wayne: Not sure what you are asking. WWDC is usually in June. Monterey is the new version fo macOS currently in beta testing that will probably be released later this month or next.

Comments Closed.

WWDC 2021: So Many New Features Coming In macOS Monterey and iOS 15

Comments: 9 Responses to “WWDC 2021: So Many New Features Coming In macOS Monterey and iOS 15”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information