Apple event 2022 – as it happened: New MacBooks unveiled alongside new iPad and iOS 16 at WWDC
All the news, updates and announcements from Apple’s annual developer conference
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple began its Worldwide Developers Conference – WWDC 2022 – in California on Monday, the annual software event that sees updates to all of its products.
All of Apple’s products saw new additions, from the smallest Apple Watch to the biggest Mac, through new iterations of the WatchOS, iPadOS and MacOS operating systems. All will be available for Apple users later this year, while developers will have instant access to a beta version.
Apple also launched new hardware, too, with a new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro – both powered by the M2 chip that gives significant performance gains.
The event was live streamed on Apple’s website and official YouTube channel. You can read the whole even, as it happened, in our blog below.
Everything announced at Apple WWDC 2022
There was quite a lot crammed into nearly two hours of announcements and presentations.
Here’s a full round-up of everything announced at the opening of WWDC today. We’ve got articles on all of them - you can click on the links to read more:
Hello and welcome...
... to The Independent’s live coverage of WWDC 2022, which will begin later today.
Apple Store goes down ahead of event
The Apple Store has gone down. That’s normal, when Apple is introducing new products – it seems to have to take it offline to add them to the website – but isn’t always normal ahead of WWDC.
Indeed, the Apple Store doesn’t usually go down ahead of WWDcs, and hasn’t for five years. Back then, there were a lot of new pieces of hardware.
So does this mean that Apple is about to announce at least one new hardware product, which will be available to order soon enough that it needs to be added to the website now? Probably!
Apple’s mysterious new ‘Developer Center’ finally revealed
There’s been some minor speculation about what exactly Apple’s “Developer Center” is – it was first mentioned during its court hearings against Epic, and has been mentioned since. Now, developers have been allowed in ahead of WWDC, and we’ve had a chance to see what it is.
It seems to be a sort of Apple themed office for developers to go into. Not clear what the long-term plan for it is.
The context here is that Apple has had a bit of a tough time with developers lately. The Epic case and the ongoing fights about the App Store have led to some complaining that Apple overlooks their contribution to making things like the iPhone so popular. So the new building is presumably aimed at easing some of that.
Apple has enlisted Hollywood directors for its new augmented reality headset, report claims
Apple is working with developers such as Jon Favreau to create video content for its upcoming augmented reality headset, according to a new report. The glasses – which the report says “look like a pair of ski goggles” – will come alongside new virtual- and augmented-reality experiences, The New York Times reported.
It’s not clear whether we’ll get a look at the AR headset during today’s presentation. But we almost certainly will get a look at the technology underpinning it – Apple has been quietly introducing new features aimed at building out augmented reality in recent years, all of which look like neat tools for the iPhone and iPad but will obviously be important for any possible headset.
Tim Cook gets new profile picture
Tim Cook has changed his profile picture, to a Memoji version of himself:
The invitation to the event relied heavily on Memoji too. So perhaps it will be a central part of the announcement.
Some have suggested that Apple’s Memoji are part of its augmented reality technology. After all, we’re going to need to be able to see other people in the metaverse – and don’t Memoji seem like a perfect way of doing that?
... and Tim Cook posts Memoji-themed reminder
Following on from the previous post, below, Tim Cook has now posted that same WWDC/Memoji-themed artwork.
(It’s worth noting that this doesn’t necessarily mean that Memoji will be a central feature. The little heads have featured heavily in previous Apple events, but not come with corresponding updates.)
No huge official leaks ahead of event
In previous years, Apple has accidentally spoiled some details of its own announcements. There’s basically none of that this year – while there are some rumours about what might be coming, none of them are official or confirmed.
Apple has seemingly mentioned its “RealityOS” operating system, which is expected to power its augmented reality headset, but it probably won’t actually turn up this WWDC. And the Apple Store going down probably means that some hardware is coming, but not definitively, and we don’t know exactly what.
WWDC could offer late hints at what is coming in AR, report says
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a strong track record of revealing Apple’s upcoming announcements, says that the augmented reality goggles probably won’t be revealed during the event – but will nonetheless “will still cast a shadow over the event”.
That will include new work on the frameworks and technologies that underpin the glasses, he notes. If they are to be a success, developers will have to build experiences for them, and that in turn will mean giving them the tools they need to do so. We could see some of those tools appear at this year’s event, Gurman reports. (Though they might be painted as being, for instance, for the iPad, where a lot of the AR groundwork has happened already.)
Apple is also building its own experiences, such as a virtual reality FaceTime and a new version of Maps. It’s also looking to let the headset extend a Mac’s display so that it’s in 3D, he reports.
No major leaks but plenty of rumours
No Apple event is complete without some wildly speculative rumours, especially when leaks have been so sparse compared to previous editions of WWDC.
To find the most far-fetched you need look no further than Apple patents, which typically give a hint of what the tech giant is working on.
Last week, the USPTO approved a patent for an “in-built rotatable camera” within the Apple Watch, thouh it will probably be a few years before the technology is integrated into the world’s most popular smartwatch - if at all. You can read more about it here:
The Apple Watch might soon have a camera
Latest patent describes smartwatch with new tech housed in ‘back side’ of device
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