Apple's big developer conference includes a bunch of new features
Apple launched its yearly developer conference on Monday and announced a suite of new features that will be available in an upcoming iOS 12 software update. Here's the highlights:
- The days of notifications flooding your iPhone home screen will soon come to an end. The idea is to help people cut down the amount of time they spend distracted on their iPhones, heeding the growing call for Silicon Valley to create more mindful technology experiences.
- Along with grouped notifications, the iOS 12 update will include a dashboard letting users monitor how much time they spend in apps and how often they glance at their phones. For people who find themselves being sucked into a black hole by certain apps, Apple will let them set controls that will trigger reminders when time is almost up for the day.
- Apple even hopes to help people get a better night’s sleep with a “do not disturb” mode that will completely turn notifications off for the night, saving those late night messages for the morning.
- Apple is take a page out of Yahoo’s playbook. At Apple’s annual developer conference, the company showed off a redesigned stocks app with Apple News integration, making it easier to see the stories that explain why a company is having a banner day or in the tank. The update will be available with iOS 12 later this year.
- We’re now living in a post-emoji era. At WWDC, Craig Federighi, Apple senior Vice President, showed off a preview of the strange new world we’re about to enter — called memoji. With the upcoming software update, that means you’ll be able to design an emoji that reflects your appearance and choose from a variety of expressions and get-ups before sharing something uniquely you with friends and contacts.