Apple had its WWDC keynote on Monday, where it showed off the big new features coming to its platforms, but it didn’t have time to show off everything coming to the new versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. So we’ve combed through the preview pages, Twitter, and a good chunk of the internet to see what interesting features got left out of the presentation.
The big features in iOS and iPadOS were the updates to notifications, FaceTime, and multitasking, but it appears Apple may have been really focusing on the platforms themselves, too. There are a ton of quality-of-life improvements including:
- Spanish speakers will be able to choose whether their devices refer to them using masculine, feminine, or neutral words.
- Mail is getting a widget, and there’s also a widget to show you how poorly you slept.
- iPads are getting the ability to tab through text fields and buttons in apps, as can be done with Macs and in Safari.
- iPads will support eye-tracking hardware to improve accessibility by letting people control a cursor using just their eyes.
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The Monterey portion of the keynote was dominated by an incredibly impressive demo that showed off Apple’s new Universal Control feature, but Apple also took the time to discuss Shortcuts, which are coming to macOS. Macs are complex machines, though, and there are a few more fun and useful things that will be coming in the fall:
- A software microphone indicator light in the menu to show when an application is listening to you
- A better file copy interface, with the ability to pause and resume transfers
- The easy ability to erase user data, settings, and apps without re-installing the OS (great for if you’re selling your Mac)
- The ability to manage your saved passwords in System Preferences. You can also import them from other password managers or export them.
- You can customize the mouse cursor’s outline and fill color.
- Windows will resize when you move them to another monitor.
- Shortcuts will let you integrate shell commands.
- An improved Go To Folder dialog in Finder
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Of course, Apple is running an ecosystem here, so many of the features that got announced will be coming to all of its computers. Here are a few more that will also be coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs:
- A built-in one-time password generator, similar to Google Authenticator or Authy
- Safari will detect if websites can support HTTPS and will automatically use it if they do (similar to the HTTPS Everywhere extension).
- A low power mode for macOS and iPad (I can’t wait to see how far I can stretch an M1 MacBook Pro)
- Reminders are also getting a tags feature, similar to the one found in Notes.
- The Photos info pane will tell you about what Visual Look Up sees in the picture.
- The ability to turn on DownTime whenever, if you really need to focus on something
- An extension for Edge on Windows that lets you use your iCloud Passwords
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Well, Apple showed off pretty much everything for WatchOS onstage — it looks like it’s not a big year for the wearable (but I’ll be very happy to get better always-on display support and multiple timers). There are some new time complications, though!
Just noticed there is a new set of Time complications in watchOS 8. While a slight bit of ‘Sherlocking’ for Watchsmith, I’m honestly super glad it’s here. A good number of my gray hairs came from supporting time based complications…glad I can focus elsewhere now. pic.twitter.com/q44aVDMoZh
— David Smith (@_DavidSmith) June 9, 2021
If you want to know if you’ll be getting these features, we’ve laid out which devices the new OSs will be coming to here:
