Top 3 Announcements from Apple’s WWDC

Apple held their developer’s conference, WWDC, this past Monday announcing some exciting new software upgrades including some wicked cool new features.

Here’s a recap of the top 3 biggest reveals at this year’s WWDC.

iOS 10 becomes more outsider-friendly

Apple is known for their closed system, meaning their unwillingness to open their basic OS to outside developers. They want everything on a closed circuit so everything is only compatible with other Apple products and Apple-approved apps.

That seems to be changing little by little over the past year or two with Swift, the iOS programming language, being open sourced. With the announcement that Siri is being opened up to third-party developers, this is another big step in that direction.

iOS 10 is also adding a “raise to wake” feature which combats people accidentally opening their phone by unlocking it.

Apple Music, as promised by rumor, has been totally redesigned. Per Apple, this should be easier to navigate as well as lending itself to being more user-friendly. There is even better curation to your musical tastes which was one of the original appeals of Apple Music when it first launched.

Apple TV is simplified

One of my biggest complaints with Apple TV’s tvOS is the need to sign onto multiple apps like HBOGO, etc. one by one. This can get tiresome as you have to authenticate each one.

Apple announced a single sign-on feature which will allow you to quickly access all your apps in your pay TV package. All you have to do is sign in once and authenticate and it will allow access to each app under that sign-in.

Siri’s also gaining a few new brain cells as her search functions have been beefed up significantly. She can even search for multiple criteria within a search. Ask her for romantic comedies from the 90s and she’ll show you the results.

macOS gets a little help

Siri seems to be the overriding theme at WWDC with major expanded capabilities. That’s no different with macOS as the resident virtual assistant finally gets her chance to shine on the Mac.

You will now be able to use Siri on youriMac, MacBook, etc. just as you would on your iPhone. But she does a little more than just perform simple searches for weather, local restaurants, etc. After all, you are now on your computer.

Siri will search local files for you and effectively work as the vocal version of Mac’s productivity app, Alfred.

Additionally, Apple Watch users will gain instant access to their computer by proximity alone. No need to worry about entering your password. Though some part of this seems a bit insecure to me, I’m sure there are ways to make this work on a secure level.
So there you have it, the top 3 reveals from WWDC 2016! Which are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below!

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Zuckerberg: 'I am not a lizard'

In his latest question-and-answer session, the Facebook cofounder answers oddball questions, including one about whether he's secretly a reptile. He also hung out with comedian Jerry Seinfeld.



What would Kramer do on Facebook Live? Nothing, Seinfeld says.

If you let anyone ask you a question, be prepared for doozies.

That's probably how Facebook cofounder MarkZuckerberg shrugged off a tongue-in-cheek message from a fan who was watching his Tuesday question-and-answer forum on the social network's live video service.

"Are the allegations true that you're secretly a lizard?" Zuck read. "I'm going to have to go with no. I am not a lizard."

So started an hour in which the 32-year head of the world's largest social network discussed his daughter Max, his efforts to build artificial intelligence software and his broken arm. All told, about 117,000 people around the world tuned in from to watch.

He held the event using Facebook's Live video service, which promises to make everyone with a phone and an internet connection the star of their own broadcast. It's become must-have functionality in Silicon Valley, with established companies, like Amazon and Twitter, and startups, such as Meerkat, building and buying live video services.

Facebook began widely offering its own live video function to users last year. Since then, it's become a venue for everything from celebrities hyping their latest movies to a mom showing off a toy mask that looks like the Star Wars character Chewbacca. The event marked the first time Zuck used Facebook Live for a Q&A.

And since it's live, there's no editing. In this case, Zuckerberg had to continue the broadcast through an attack of the hiccups. Later, he grabbed comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who'd visited the company's Menlo Park offices to try Facebook's Oculus virtual reality goggles.

Seinfeld's burning question: What does Zuckerberg do first in the morning? "You go to the bathroom," Seinfeld posited.

"No, the first thing I do is look at my phone," Zuckerberg said matter of factly. And since he's nearsighted and doesn't wear his contacts to bed, Zuckerbergsaid he has to hold his phone very close to his face. "I didn't expect to talk about this publicly."

We didn't expect him to either.

Zuckerberg's been holding public question-and-answer sessions for the past year, discussing issues ranging from hate speech to being a new father. (He says it's "awesome," though apparently his daughter Max has been waking him up lately).

He used the session to address weighty subjects like connecting the world, entrepreneurship and the potential of VR. Zuck also dispelled a rumor that Facebook would charge for its service someday.

"Facebook is free. It always has been," he said. "We're not going to charge. That's why we're ad-supported."

Zuckerberg also gave an update on his effort to build artificial intelligence software for his home. He can now voice-control the cameras and gates at his house, and he might hold another live video session soon to show it off.

Seinfeld wasn't impressed.

"To get the door is not that much work," he said mockingly. "[You're] going to put in a tremendous amount of work to save us walking to the door and opening it."

Zuckerberg said he took on the project in order to tackle writing code, rather than because he's lazy.

In fact, he broke his arm falling off his bike while training for a triathlon, apparently struggling to manage clip-in cycling shoes.

Apple, Microsoft and Google race to introduce your kid to coding

With the new Swift Playgrounds app, Apple is trying to make the next generation computer literate, just the latest tech giant to take up the cause.

There's never been a better time to be a young programmer.

At its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple debuted a new tutorial app for iPads called Swift Playgrounds that will ship this fall. Students learn basic programming instructions to control an animated character named Byte, like writing for loops that get Byte to repeat his gem-collecting actions. At the heart of the app is Apple's Swift programming language, which the company urges programmers to use when writing software for Macs, iPhones and other Apple devices.

"Because Swift is so easy to learn, it has the potential to bring many more people into coding," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said. "Swift Playgrounds will revolutionize how people learn to code."

Cook sounds earnest about his company's efforts to improve computer literacy and seemed genuinely pleased that WWDC's youngest attendee is 9 years old. But there are sound business reasons for the push, too. Two of the company's top rivals, Google and Microsoft, are trying hard to attract the attention of bright young coders. Today's primary-school students are tomorrow's college students, engineers and business decision-makers, and making a good impression on them now can pay dividends for decades to come.

Google and Microsoft also eager

Microsoft is testing Minecraft Education Edition, a school-specific variation of its immensely popular video game. Schools already have embraced Minecraft's blocky and endlessly adaptable virtual worldto teach everything from math to art history, but it's particularly popular because curious and motivated kids often teach themselves to take advantage of Minecraft's programmability.

And then there's Google's cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a new version of the popular Scratch tool for introductory programming. MIT is upgrading Scratch so it canrun in browsers and mobile devices.

Swift Playgrounds has slick animated 3D graphics but hearkens back to the 1960s programming language Logo that let kids control an on-screen or robot turtle. It was a popular education market option in the 1980s on the Apple II computers that vaulted the company to business success.

Apple's approach emphasizes nuts-and-bolts programming concepts like if-then-else conditionals and the difference between text and numeric variable types. But Apple's rivals are starting at an even more basic level, said Jonathan Eunice, an independent developer and consultant who's also helped younger coders through the Codementor service.

Swift Playgrounds includes lessons like programming a "for" loop that repeats a character's actions.

"The Google and Minecraft work seems to me much more in line with that next-gen vibe of 'teach the kids the concepts,'" Eunice said. In contrast, tools like Swift Playgrounds are easy to set up and produce results almost immediately, but still appeal to people who have already decided they want to program.

Tinker time

There's another new dimension to today's programming lessons: hardware.

With the $35 Raspberry Pi, a capable computer the size of a credit card, schools and students can tinker with hardware without breaking the bank. The Raspberry Pi's core purpose is to get more students into programming, but it does so by offering hands-on physical activities like controlling LED lights and gathering weather data from electronic sensors.

That's well-suited to today's students.

"Young or new programmers are infinitely more ambitious" nowadays, Eunice said. "They often want to build something of substance," including software that incorporates data from the outside world or that controls robots and cameras.

Freebies galore

Apple offers discounts to educational customers, and the physical intuitiveness of iPads can be great for young children. But Apple has plenty of competition at schools. Chromebooks, inexpensive laptopspowered by Google's Chrome OS software, have surpassed Apple Macs and iPads as well as Windows computers in recent purchases by US schools.

Part of the Chromebook appeal is that Google offers schools free use of its Google Apps services, which combine tools like Gmail and Calendar with its browser-based tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheets. And Microsoft, trying to keep up with the Joneses, offers its online version of Office free to schools and students.

But educators should be careful about committing to today's freebies. Software moves fast, and today's tech giants can lose interest in their own projects.

For example, Google hoped to tap into the Raspberry Pi excitement with a project called Coder designed to introduce students to the basics of web programming. But with no updates in the last year, the project is languishing.

Swift Playgrounds works only on Apple's iPad tablets. Schools might have them this year but might prefer programming tools that work on the web next year. Swift apps run for the most part on Apple devices. Languages like JavaScript and Python aren't so closely tied to one company's products.

But guess what? Nothing is perfect. The reality is that kids and schools embracing coding have better choices than ever.