There was so much that Apple had to fit into its WWDC 2024 keynote that some features were left out. Here on the company campus, I had the chance to speak with various executives and learn more about iOS 18, iPadOS 18, Apple Intelligence, watchOS 11 and more. During these sessions, I was able to learn more about how specific things worked, like the exact steps to take to customize your iPhone’s Home screen and Control Center. I also got to see some other updates that weren’t even briefly mentioned during the keynote, like new support for hiking routes in Apple Maps and what the charging information looks like training on watchOS 11. Among all the unmentioned features that I was able to discover, here are my favorites.
Maps: create and share personalized routes
I’ve always been a Google Maps girl, in part because that app offered superior information compared to Apple Maps in its early years. These days I stick to Google Maps because it has all my saved locations and history. When I found out that iOS 18 would bring updates to Apple Maps, especially regarding hikes and directions, I was intrigued.
Basically, in iOS 18, when you search in Maps, you’ll see a new option under “Search Nearby” called Hikes. It will show you recommended hikes, and you can filter by hike type (loop, for example) and specify a length. You will find nearby options and by tapping on one of them you will see a topographic view with elevation details, difficulty level as well as estimated duration. You can tap to save each route and store it for offline reference later and add notes as well. There’s a new Library view and you’ll find it in your profile in Maps.
You’ll also be able to create new routes in Maps by tapping anywhere to start setting your route. You can continue tapping to add waypoints, which will allow the course to continue connecting them, and then press the “Close Loop” button to complete your course. These routes can be shared, although it is not yet clear whether you can share them, for example, with your friend or driver to take your preferred route to your destination.
The hikes that Apple will offer in Maps are created by its own team, which works with the national parks of the United States, so they will only be available for the 63 national parks in the country. In other words, it’s not about transferring information from AllTrails, for example. In a press release, Apple said thousands of hikes would be available at launch.
As a city dweller who only hikes sometimes, my excitement is less about hiking and more about the potential to share my personalized routes to show people how they should walk to my favorite building or restaurant from the train station. It’s a nice feature and probably a reason why I would choose Apple Maps over Google.
Calendar integration with reminders
Honestly, the Maps update might be my favorite out of everything. was not shown during the WWDC 2024 keynote by a huge margin. But I also like some of the new tools coming to Calendar. Specifically, the new Reminders integration makes it easier to not only schedule your tasks directly in your calendar, but also check them off from the Calendar app. You’ll soon be able to move reminders by tapping and dragging them, so that note to call you mom can be placed in a slot at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, instead of staying in your Reminders app. Additionally, Calendar benefits from new views that better detail your activity level each day of the month, in the same way that the Fitness app shows the rapid progress of your daily rings in the month view.
Tapback information showing who responded exactly with which emoji
This is not the one that was not mentioned at all during the opening speech, but this are details about how Tapback works that weren’t described on yesterday’s show. If you’re like me, you might not even remember that Tapback refers to the reactions you can send in Messages by double-tapping a blue or gray bubble. With iOS 18, you’ll have more options than the limited selection of hearts, thumbs up, thumbs down, “Haha”, exclamation marks and question mark. They will also appear in color with the update, instead of the existing (boring) gray.
What I discovered later, however, is that when you double-tap a message that already has reactions associated with it, a new bubble appears at the top of your screen showing who responded with which emoji. This should make it easier to hide in a group chat, but could also serve as an unofficial polling tool by asking your friends to react with specific emojis to indicate different answers. This should make Messages a little more like Slack, and I’d like Whatsapp and Telegram to take note.
Others: Math notes on iPhone, Journal and Safari updates
There are a lot of features coming in iOS 18 that didn’t get a lot of love on the WWDC stage, like the new Journal app widget for the Home screen, which displays prompts to reflection and allows you to create new entries. Journal also features a new insights view that shows your writing sequences and other historical data, as well as a new tool that lets you add your mindset to each entry from within the app.
Meanwhile, Safari is getting a new “Highlights” button in the search (or URL) bar, and tapping it will bring up a machine-learning-generated summary of the webpage you’re on. Tapping it brings up a panel with more information, like navigation instructions to a restaurant mentioned on the page, for example, or a phone number to call a business. You can also quickly launch Reader View from this pane.
I wasn’t very excited about either, largely because I don’t use the Journal app much and don’t need Safari to summarize a website for me. But a few other buried updates that I really wanted to shout out. For example, Math Notes for iPad and using the Apple Pencil certainly took a long time, but it wasn’t until I looked at Apple’s iOS 18 press release that I discovered that the The iPhone Notes application also received a version. From the screenshot Apple included, it looks like you can tally and split expenses among a group of friends by writing down a list of expenses and the cost of each item, then adding the names of each expense to a formula with plus and equal signs. , then divide it by the number of people in your group. Not quite Splitwise, but I could see this becoming more powerful over time.
I was also intrigued by some of the Smart Script features on iPadOS 18, especially when I realized that you can simply move your handwritten words away from each other, and the rest of your scribbled text moves in tandem . It’s hard to describe, and I’ll have to wait until I can try it myself to show you an animated example. But it was impressive, even if not extremely useful.
Finally, the Passwords app and other privacy updates were praised during the keynote, but I learned more about how things like setting up accessories and sharing contacts work with applications. Apple is launching a new Accessory Setup Kit so device makers can adopt a pairing interface similar to how you would connect your AirPods or Apple Watch to your iPhone. If developers don’t use this approach, the new Bluetooth configuration interface will be much clearer about what other Bluetooth devices are on your local network and what you’re actually granting access to when you agree to let an app see d other devices on your local network. network. While it wasn’t entirely ignored during the keynote, the Passwords app is something that makes me happy, because I’m absolutely sick of having to dig through settings to find a way to get codes for specific apps that I use my iPhone’s authenticator to unlock. .
There were a lot of features discussed that I’m excited about and learning more about how they work, including the new dynamic clock style in the Photos watch face in watchOS 11, pinned collections in the redesigned Photos app, and the mirror iPadOS for easier remote control. technical support. Oh, and that new Airplay feature that will let you send money to friends by holding your phones together? Yes! Being able to pause and adjust your activity rings in watchOS and get an overview of training load? Alleluia!
And while I can see the appeal of locked and hidden apps, I’m not sure it would be very useful to me and it would probably exacerbate my already suspicion-prone nature.
I’m also a little wary of things like Genmoji and Image Playground, which are two Apple Intelligence features that won’t work on all iOS 18 devices. There will be metadata information indicating when the images were generated by the AI d ‘Apple and safeguards will be in place to prevent the creation of abusive and exploitative content.
Obviously, there are plenty of updates coming to Apple phones, tablets, laptops, and wearables later this year, and I can’t wait to try them out. The public beta should be ready around late summer of this year, at which point most people (willing to risk an unstable platform) will be able to check it out.
Find here all the news from Apple WWDC 2024.
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