2021 Apple's WWDC - Sneak Peek

The 2021 WWDC event by Apple revealed a series of major updates to iOS, iPadOS, MacOS and WatchOS. Here are the top announcements from the event. In this article, I will cover the key announcements with minimal details. A detailed report of this is covered in a separate article (Read Detailed Report).

iOS 15

Coming this fall, iOS 15 is packed with new features that help you connect with others, be more present and at the moment, explore the world, and use powerful intelligence to do more with iPhone than ever before. Apple introduced SharePlay, where you can watch tv shows and movies, listen to music, and share your screen with your friends and family right inside FaceTime. FaceTime calls also sound and feels more natural with new sound modes to block out or enable ambient sounds and comes with the new grid tile view. Significant updates to FaceTime now also includes having FaceTime conversations with friends and family who are on Android devices using a web link. Updates to Messages makes it even easier to find and enjoy the great content shared by friends and family with photo stacks and new emoji's to better express yourself and a completely redesigned notification panel. A powerful new set of tools is coming to iOS 15 that gives you more control over how you prioritize your time and attention. So you can find balance and stay focused on whatever you’re doing at the moment - Apple is calling it Focus. Through iOS 15, Apple is also introducing a significant update to Maps allowing you to explore cities with unprecedented detail for roads, neighbourhoods, trees, buildings, and amazing 3D landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge in both the day and dark mode maps. The new update also brings new design, tab grouping and voice-based search to Safari. Apple Wallet expands to a whole new level with the latest update and now allow you to add ID cards and keys integrate with wide options to unlock doors. In addition to all of these updates, there are significant enhancements being rolled out to Photos, Privacy, Health, iCloud plus and many more.

Next up is iPadOS 15

With the new iPadOS15, you get all your all significant updates to FaceTime, Messages, Notifications with all the bells and whistles that were announced for iOS15. In addition to these, the iPad can now do more things even more easily with new multitasking tools. Such as notes go system-wide with Quick Note enabling you to create notes from any app. You can add new widgets with new larger sizes that let you see information at a glance right on your Home Screen. Now the App Library automatically organizes those apps for you and you can now play with reordering your screens. The most significant update is the introduction of the new Universal Control feature, you can now use a single keyboard and mouse or trackpad now work seamlessly between your Mac and iPad.

Finally, macOS

So just like iPadOS15 gets all the updates from iOS15 and some more, the new macOS Monterey gets all the updates from iPadOS15 with some additional features such as AirPlay to Mac, Low power mode, System-wide translation including third-party apps.