Why Apple’s Changes to iPhone, iPad, Watch and Mac Software Matter – AppleTV 4 Jailbreak (appletv4jailbreak.com)
Apple’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday was, itself, a sign of the times.
Like all conferences in the coronavirus era, the WWDC keynote morphed into an online-only affair with lone speakers presenting in socially distant productions, as the end credits claimed. But the announcements were no less jam-packed. The moves extend across the Apple universe, bringing changes to the individual software platforms for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Mac computers, while also tying them closer together.
The list of updates both on the surface and under-the-hood, look rather extensive: Redesigned widgets in different sizes will be able to sit on homescreens and in the Mac’s notifications area. Siri and call notifications are shrinking down, taking up less screen space. Picture-in-picture video, which has been available on the iPad, heads to iPhones. And users get new powers of organization to clear the app and folder clutter.
iOS 14’s redesigned widgets Courtesy image
There are also new mechanics — among the most intriguing of which are App Clips, a small set of features that app-makers can make directly accessible based on context.
“An App Clip is a small part of an app. It’s lightning fast and easy to discover, so you can quickly get what you need, right when you need it,” explained Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “Everything about App Clips is designed for speed.”
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App Clips show up as a card that pops up on screen, allowing users to take actions immediately — like paying for a purchase with Apple Pay — even if they don’t have the full app installed on their devices.
The card, or “clip,” can pop up when the user taps a phone to a compatible terminal and friends can send them to one another. In the video’s example, a contact messaged an App Clip from Etsy to a product, making it easy for the recipient to open and buy it. The clip immediately vanishes when done. Another example tied into Apple Maps, letting users find and interact with local businesses.
Craig Federighi Courtesy image
Integration with “Sign in with Apple” logins is built-in, so interactions may be more than just transactional, depending on what developers want to include, such as booking appointments. That encourages brands and businesses to adopt the Apple sign-in feature to make the most out of these clips.
Recently used App Clips are also housed in a new app library, and they can be launched from the web, through a text from friends or via QR codes.
App Clips are effectively Apple’s new way of approaching discovery. For brands, the promise is that individual app downloads are no longer a barrier to potential new business — that is, as long as they support the other facets of the Apple ecosystem.
The company believes the new feature will be beneficial both for businesses that already…
