Apple WWDC 2021: Everything announced including iOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS Monterey, and more

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2021 (WWDC 2021) kicked off last evening with the keynote address helmed by CEO Tim Cook and Apple's Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi. Announcements made last evening covered big updates coming to a whole bunch of Apple's apps and the OS across devices including iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, watchOS 8, and more. In case you missed it or got totally overwhelmed with everything that was going on, don't worry! We've got you covered. 

Apple announces iOS 15

Apple wants to make your experience on the iPhone even better, so say hello to iOS 15. Apple announced a series of updates coming to your iPhone including SharePlay in FaceTime, LiveText, and redesigned notifications to help you focus on what's the most important at that very moment. Expect more natural FaceTime calls with the introduction of Spatial Audio and Portrait mode, and enjoy the same content with others with SharePlay. And that's not all! You can now schedule FaceTime calls and friends and family who are not on iOS can join you on these calls via the browser - yes, FaceTime is coming to Android, in a way. Your smartphone is going to get smarter with on-device intelligence powering smart Spotlight search and LiveText on the device, upgrades to Apple Maps, Apple Wallet, Weather app, a better browsing experience on Safari on the iPhone, and a lot more. You can read it in detail here. The iOS 15 is going to come to iPhone 6s and up with the beta rolling out in July and the stable release by fall. 

Apple Watch gets better with watchOS

Apple is bringing the watchOS 8 to the Apple Watch and the focus is on health and mindfulness this year. No surprises there! New features coming to the Apple Watch with watchOS include better access to Apple Wallet, a redesigned Home App, two new Workout types (Tai Chi and Pilates), the new Mindfulness feature that's going to let you focus on productive thoughts and reflect on them, sleep respiratory rate tracking, Portrait watch face and Photos on the Apple Watch, and easier ways to message contacts and also focus on tasks at hand better. Apple is also bringing in significant feature additions to the Apple Health app that will help you understand your lab results better and also set up Health profiles for your parents and kids to keep a better check on their daily health. For more details, read our in-depth coverage here. 

Multitasking made better with iPadOS 15

We've known for a while that for Apple, your iPad is as good, if not handier, as your Mac. So they want to make it easier for you to work on the iPad and also work across devices including the MacBook and the iMac. With iPadOS 15, Apple is adding new multitasking features and keyboard shortcuts, easy organisation of widgets on the home screen, a super handy Quick Note feature, SharePlay, upgraded Safari experience, Apple Translate, and Swift Playgrounds coming to the iPad to allow developers to create their apps on device. And that's not all, there's Universal Control that will let you control the iPad with your Mac keyboard and mouse/trackpad and more. These new software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPad mini 4 and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and all iPad Pro models. Check out more details here. 

Say hello to macOS Monterey

The age of the Big Sur is over and the age of Monterey has come, well, almost. Apple's new macOS is called Monterey and it shares a lot of features with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Essentially, what you can do on the iPhone and the iPad, you should be able to do the same and more on the Mac, that's how Apple envisions it. So this means the same upgraded experience when it comes to FaceTime, Safari, QuickNotes, Universal Control, etc. This is rolling out in developer beta right away and a public beta of macOS Monterey is coming next month, just as it is with all the other new OS' that Apple announced today. You can read more details about the macOS Monterey here. 

We'll be getting you more detailed stories about all the WWDC announcements thought the day, so keep your eyes on our website!