2023-12-30 16:30:00
Perhaps as busy as the hardware market is the softwareespecially at Apple, which released some interesting new features in 2023 — whether features for existing devices or for a new operating system (which, obviously, didn’t start being built this year).
In this post, we’ll check out five of the main software features developed by Apple and announced in 2023, focusing on those that stood out the most throughout the year — especially among the announcements made by the company at WWDC23.
Shall we go to the list?
Interactive widgets
This year, we had news involving widgets on basically all of Apple’s major operating systems. And the biggest highlight is that they are now interactive — yes, three years after the feature’s original implementation in iOS 14.
With the new feature, it is possible to mark tasks as completed, emails as read or even connect a smart device directly from the widget — which was previously only available within the app itself.
This new feature is available not only on the Home screen, but also on the locked screen and in Standby mode (StandBy), which we will talk about next — which shows us how Apple manages to make an interesting integration around its resources.
Standby Mode
Continuing with the news focused on the locked screen of iPhones, Apple launched this year the way On holdwhich presents a new interface to users when iPhones are being charged horizontally.
The feature makes it possible to customize the display format and view details such as time, date, weather and other widgets, being one of the features most praised by users this year, despite its simplicity — and which could have existed at least since last year, with the introduction of the Always-On Screen on the iPhones 14 Pro/14 Pro Max, so to speak.
The way StandBy It’s really cool because it allows you to give the iPhone an extra use when it is theoretically out of use — especially when the device is connected to a support powered by MagSafe, for example.
Widgets no Apple Watch
After almost a decade following basically the same visual guideline, watchOS received an interesting redesign of its interface this year: the arrival of widgets on the smartwatch’s main interface.
The user simply scrolls the Digital Crown so that the Smart set of widgets and complications show up. As they are also interactive, it is possible to manipulate them directly, as if we were on the iPhone’s Home screen.
Widgets also adapt to the user’s context, being able to show content depending on the time of day, location, applications running or events and tasks registered in apps such as Calendar (Calendar) and Reminders (Reminders).
Contact and NameDrop Posters
This year, we had a lot of features related to Phone apps (Phone) and Contacts (Contacts), some of which are Contact Posters and the NameDropwhich allow you to create and share personalized contact cards with third parties, respectively.
Screensavers and widgets on macOS
macOS was another system that also received a significant redesign involving widgets, which (like what happens in iOS and watchOS) also became interactive. But not only that.
In macOS Sonoma 14, widgets can now be added anywhere on the Table (Desktop) and change appearance depending on whether another application is in focus or not.
Animated screensavers, in turn, are mainly visible on the macOS locked screen and “freeze” whenever the device is unlocked, gradually turning into a static image. There are several options made available by Apple itself, but you can also add animations as a photo slider from your device.
FaceTime e Apple Music Sing na Apple TV
One of the most interesting news of the year, in my opinion, came to Apple TVs. The latest models (4K 2nd generation or later) can finally be used during FaceTime callswhich allows users to take advantage of the entire large screen of their TVs during calls.
To use the feature, you must activate the Continuity Camera (Continuity Camera)— since, as there are no cameras in the set-top box from Apple, those from the iPhone are used to deliver your image to whoever is on the other end of the line. Or rather, the screen.
But that’s not the only interesting thing that the Continuity Camera provides on Apple TVs, as it is possible to use the image captured during an Apple Music Sing session to generate a very interesting visual background beneath the lyrics of the songs sung.
Bonus: visionOS
Even though they haven’t been officially launched yet, an honorable mention is due to the features that will arrive with the visionOSan operating system that will be launched alongside the Apple Vision Proat the beginning of next year.
Among the most interesting functions is using it as a gigantic external screen for the Mac — which could, for many people, eliminate the need to purchase an external monitor to use with Apple computers.
In terms of software, a very interesting mode of interaction is to direct the gaze and gestures to “point” — in contrast to mechanisms such as the mouse and finger on physical devices.
So, what did you think of some of Apple’s new features in 2023? Comment! ☺️
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