Apple WWDC: No Hardware, No Problem

What's This?

Apple CEO Tim Cook walks through the major updates from WWDC 2014.

Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff

By Lance Ulanoff2014-06-03 15:45:19 UTC

SAN FRANCISCO — I know, it’s hard to sit through a two-hour Apple event and walk away without a single piece of new hardware. No new categories, no life-changing gadgets. But if you think that’s all there is to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, then you're not seeing the innovation through the trees.

In the span of roughly 128 minutes, Apple laid out a roadmap for a radical readjustment of its software and, eventually, hardware landscape. And it opened entirely new highways for app developers and partners ready to build health and home-automation technology.

See also: Everything You Need to Know From WWDC 2014

The overarching themes, if you’re looking for them, are continuity, collaboration and connective tissue. And many of the changes will lead directly to new hardware from both Apple and its partners.

The big stuff

Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff

HomeKit and HealthKit, two developments that come with Apple’s iOS 8 SDK, hold the most promise and also some of the biggest hurdles for hardware and software. Each seeks to consolidate an exploding lifestyle category with dozens of entrants but few clear leaders.

In the case of HealthKit, Apple is offering a single communication platform and consolidation of the "quantified self" in its own aptly named Health app. It’s a smart move considering the degree of competition and jockeying for the lead position in the space.

Nike, an announced partner, had already built a substantial market around its FuelBand, but it upended expectations this year when it essentially shuttered the business. FuelBand and other health/activity measurement devices all use their own apps and, though built on the iOS platform, they're usually sharing data with other health partners and not Apple.

If Apple succeeds here, there could be a central repository for your health data and a wide array of hardware and software partners, from consumer devices and software to enterprise organizations like the Mayo Clinic, all ready to tap into this data and, I guess, help us stay healthier and even get well again.

Similarly, Apple's HomeKit smart-home platform plants Apple’s stake at the heart of what is essentially a household quantification system. “Is my door locked?” “Is the coffee on?” “Do I need more bananas?” “Is there an intruder in my home?” “Can I open my garage door and set my thermostat from here?”

You can get the answer to most of those questions from a variety of devices and apps not built by Apple. While the company thinks it can insert itself into the mix and make its resident voice assistant, Siri, the control metaphor, it will have to convince at least one key rival that Apple’s toolkit is the best platform for home automation. When Apple listed all its HomeKit partners, one name was notably missing: Nest. The Google-owned smart thermostat company is unlikely to adopt Apple HomeKit, at least in the short term.

HomeKit and HealthKit don't just point to third-party hardware and software innovations; their existence also means Apple will likely build these capabilities into hardware that should arrive before the end of this year.

Though not mentioned during the WWDC keynote, Apple’s iWatch will surely benefit from the HealthKit platform and app. We have to assume the rumored wrist-wearable will measure at least heart rate and physical activity. It will not, however, need to contain data like age, height, weight or gender. All that could live in the Health App and be sharable with both the iWatch and other HealthKit-friendly devices and apps.

While the hardware path for HomeKit is less clear, I imagine that future iPads and iPhones will gain native smart-home capabilities and, if Apple is smart, they will add a home automation hub to Apple TV.

Continuity

When you have two different operating systems for what were once two very different sets of devices, some inconsistency is to be expected. Five years ago, no one would have anticipated features that existed on mobile migrating to the desktop. Today, smartphones and tablets are often nearly as powerful as laptops. As a result, the disparate interface designs and inability to make obvious connections between devices seems needlessly archaic.

Apple’s new “Continuity” tackles those concerns head on, and it does it in a number of ways. It’s evident in OS X Yosemite’s new Notification Center, which, not surprisingly, looks like Notification Center in iOS. It’s evident in iPhone phone calls, which can now seamlessly appear on your Mac OS X Yosemite desktop (complete with speakerphone option). And it’s evident in AirDrop, which finally lets you drop files between iPhones and Macs.

Consistency also means that some cutting-edge features in iOS are now available to third parties. Specifically, TouchID: Apple's fingerprint reader is currently available only on the iPhone 5S and works with Apple’s system software. With iOS 8, it will finally be available to third-party developers. While I expect this to be quite popular with them, I also suspect that this could be a signal that Apple plans on expanding TouchID to more of its devices, like the next iPad and even, perhaps, future MacBooks.

A look at some of the Siri enhancements coming in iOS 8.

Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff

Notably absent from this cross-platform migration is Siri. In iOS 8 Siri will wake up when you say "Hey Siri," no button push required. It'll even have built-in Shazam song identification capabilities. What it won't do, though, is appear on OS X. Disappointing, sure, but I think I understand. Siri is baked in the A7 CPU. It's a chip MacBooks simply lack.

Make it easy, make it smart

Some of the most consumer-friendly updates illustrate a refreshing willingness to give consumers what they want instead of what Apple thinks they want.

Messages in iOS 8 has a host of new features including the ability to mute some group messages and answer with Snapchat-like videos and audio, all of which play back inline.

In addition, iOS 8 notifications will be interactive, meaning that instead of opening Messages, you can respond to a notification in a space right below it.

Consumers may never love the term “cloud storage,” but it’s increasingly becoming a part of their everyday computing lives. Apple’s iCloud solution has paled in comparison to the more robust offerings available from Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive, but with OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 you can finally, via iCloud Drive, share files across Macs, iPads and iPhones (and even Windows) through the cloud.

It’s not clear yet if the web-based iCloud interface will get an overhaul. It certainly needs one. When I log into Google Drive or OneDrive, I see a rich file system where I can find all my synced photos and files. For now, iCloud on the web lets me access iCloud mail (an account I never use), contacts, notes, reminders and calendar, but none of my files.

I’m pleased that iPhoto will automatically back up to iCloud, and that your iPhone or iPad can access all those photos, even if the number of photos is more than you can fit on the device.

Many of the changes mentioned on Monday won’t necessarily have any long-term impact on devices, but programming-level enhancements like the gaming API Metal, the programming language Swift and cross-app "Extensibility" will certainly impact user experiences, especially on mobile devices, in the next 6-12 months. Put simply, the world of apps and iOS-driven mobile abilities you know today could be very different, and possibly a lot better, tomorrow.

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Topics: apple, Apple WWDC, Apps and Software, Dev & Design, health, Healthkit, HomeKit, iOS, iOS 8, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, OS X, Tech, wwdc 2014