When Steven P. Jobs ran Apple, the company’s devices were distinguished by their polished software and famous iTunes store. Today, critics and even loyal fans are taking shots at Apple’s buggy softwareand Apple Music, its new streaming music service.
With its hardware sales now slowing, Apple is under pressure to fix its software and online services, which have become increasingly important to consumers. So at its annual conference for software developers on Monday, the iPhone maker tried to demonstrate that it was still a purveyor of high-quality software and services.
Brian X. Chen, Farhad Manjoo and Vindu Goel attended Apple’s conference keynote in San Francisco and analyzed what matters about the announcements that Apple made.
Apple announced:
■ Improvements in the Apple Watch operating system.
■ Changes in the operating system for Apple TV, called tvOS.
■ A rebranding of its Mac operating system.
■ An expansion of Apple Pay.
■ Opening up Siri to developers.
■ Improvements in photos and maps.
■ Subscriptions through Apple News.
■ Opening up its messaging service to developers
■ A new interface for Apple Music.
Here were the main points:·
The Big Picture
Farhad: Apple divided its presentation into four segments focused on each of its computer operating systems — one each for iPhone, the Mac, the Apple Watch and Apple TV.
That segmentation suggests Apple’s worldview. This is a company that still sees the tech world as defined by separate physical devices. Sure, it will integrate these devices through some cloud-based features (including some new ones it showed today), but fundamentally each Apple device is its own, and the internet is merely the glue between them.
That is a startlingly different — and, really, a kind of old-fashioned — view of tech, especially compared to the view that Google presented at its recent developer conference. In Google’s view, the internet is the central operating system — it’s the place where all your data and tech intelligence reside. The next era of the tech industry will be defined by which of these worldviews becomes dominant
Brian: One big takeaway was that Apple has a lot of catching up to do in online services. Most of Apple’s noteworthy announcements on Monday matched features already offered by other internet companies, namely Amazon and Google.
Following the footsteps of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker, Apple expanded Siri, its voice assistant, by allowing third-party app developers to take advantage of voice controls. After Google’s Photos app won fanfare with its automatic organization features, Apple announced that its photos app would have some smarter organization tools, too, like the ability to stitch photos automatically into video montages called Memories. In addition, Apple added some smarts to its Maps service, like the ability to find nearby points of interest such as gas stations — a feature long supported by Google’s Waze mapping service.
Apple executives have repeatedly said the company doesn’t strive to be first: It prides itself on coming up with better solutions later. (The iPhone, for example, came out much later than previous smartphones.) The question is, does it pay for Apple to be late in improving its online services, which only get smarter over time?
Farhad: Though lots of developers create apps for the iPhone, Apple has long been careful about how much access it gives developers to crucial parts of its operating system. That seems to be changing. This presentation was marked by much greater access — Apple now allows third-party developers to create new experiences in Apple Maps, to interact with Siri, to get access to its Messages service and to get access to the lock screen and phone interface. Similar access has been available to developers on Google’s Android operating system. Now Apple seems to be going out of its way to cater to developers, too.
Watch OS
Brian: Apple announced a new version of its operating system, Watch OS, powering Apple Watch. Notably, Apple started the keynote with Apple Watch, which signifies the increasing importance of the gadget, the first brand-new piece of hardware introduced by Apple under the leadership of its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook.
Vindu: Apple repositioned the watch as more of a health monitor, putting the activity tracker in a more prominent place and encouraging competitive sharing of workouts with friends.
Brian: The new fitness features of the Apple Watch place the product in more direct competition with Fitbit, the largest wearables maker.
Apple TV
Brian: Eddy Cue, head of Apple’s software and services, announced improvements in the operating system powering Apple TV, called tvOS. That includes a feature called single sign-on: People have complained about how long it takes to log into individual services like Hulu, Netflix and Showtime. Now, users will be able to sign into all network apps with a single universal login.
Apple essentially believes the future of the television screen will be driven by apps. Third-party apps could make the big screen smarter than the interface of standard cable boxes.
Vindu: Over all, the improvements in Apple TV are modest. But some tighter integration with live TV networks does set up Apple to possibly become a TV provider for cord-cutters as more channels offer their services over the internet.
MacOS
Brian: Apple rebranded its Mac operating system, which was called OS X for 15 years. It will now be called MacOS, bringing it in line with the branding schemes of Apple’s other software products (tvOS, WatchOS, iOS).
With its new Mac operating system, called MacOS Sierra, Apple is putting the clout of its Mac operating system behind the Apple Watch. Users wearing the Apple Watch will be able to unlock their Macs without entering a user name or password.
Apple also expanded Siri, its voice assistant, to become available in the Mac operating system. The move is a response to Google, which recently said it would expand its voice-powered virtual assistant to many products, including a chat app called Allo and a smart speaker called Home.
Apple Pay
Vindu: Apple is trying to make Apple Pay more useful for retailers. The company said Apple Pay, its payment service, is coming to the web for the first time, with dozens of retailers already lined up to use it.
However, it may not be easy enough to use to succeed in transforming online checkouts, where other services like PayPal have failed. Buying a product using Apple Pay on a Mac still requires you to authenticate the purchase by putting your finger on your iPhone — an extra step and extra device to pull out.
Siri
Brian: Apple unveiled a big upgrade for Siri, allowing outside app developers to take advantage of voice controls. Now Siri can do things like summon an Uber car, send a message through a chat app like WhatsApp or send someone cash with apps like Square Cash.
The move helps Apple play catch-up with Amazon, which already lets third-party developers add capabilities to its smart speaker, Echo. Google also has said it plans to allow outside developers to make their apps and services work with its smart speaker, Home, due for release this fall.
Farhad: This opening up of Siri is an improvement, but Apple was unclear about how expansive this system will be. How many apps will be able to use Siri? What functions will Siri be able to handle for them? Can Siri handle very sophisticated requests, like ones that depend on multiple apps — for instance, “Call an Uber five minutes before my next meeting”? Apple hasn’t specified. Given that voice is becoming an increasingly important interface for the next generation of computing, Apple’s progress here could be a key benchmark for its future.
Apple News
Vindu: Good news for publishers: Apple News, which has 50 million monthly active users, will let people subscribe to get every article from their favorite publications, including those with pay walls like The Wall Street Journal. Apple News has been a bit of a stepchild, with publishers largely focusing their efforts on Facebook, Twitter and Google’s AMP to speed up the display of articles on the mobile web. Will this get news organizations on board?
Messaging
Vindu: Apple is challenging Facebook Messenger, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, by opening up its Messages service to outside developers. Facebook has made a big play to establish Messenger as a place to conduct all kinds of activities, from ordering an Uber car to watching videos. Apple is now matching that, but with the full array of developers that use iOS instead of the handful that have chosen to work with Facebook.
(It won’t hurt the appeal to users that Apple is making emoji triple their previous size and automatically suggesting emoji replacements for words in messages.)
Apple Music
Vindu: Apple said it had 15 million subscribers to Apple Music, but the streaming music service has gotten off to a slow start. Apple said it had learned from the experience so far and unveiled a redesign of Apple Music that simplifies navigation and makes it easier to find your favorite music. But with more popular apps like Spotify soon able to tap Siri, it’s unclear whether the changes will be enough to dislodge competitors. Apple’s much-criticized iTunes software for buying and organizing music saw no upgrades.
Original: www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/technology/apple-wwdc-highlights-siri-music.html
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