Originally published at: 12 Compelling Features Coming to Apple’s Operating Systems in 2023 - TidBITS
Apple has pulled back the curtains on the new features it’s adding to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 15, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17. Here are the 12 that Adam Engst finds the most immediately interesting.
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i’m waiting for emoji display, especially when working with kanji, to be made entirely optional so i can turn that unwanted -er- stuff off. i’m expecting to turn blue and pass out before that ever happens.
this is an example of what i find objectionable:
Definitely want widgets and app-specific browsers. I use WidgetWall and have been using WebCatalog but I want to see how well the Safari implementation works.
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The end of the presentation on Facetime for Apple TV mentioned that the Continuity Camera API that powers it is available, and Zoom and WebEX will be using it to create Apple TV apps.
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This is the silliest roundup of new features for macOS et al I have ever seen.
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“Silly” is an odd, even perhaps borderline insulting, word to throw out here. Is it the new features themselves that you find silly, or Adam’s writeup? If it’s the features, why do you find them “silly”, rather than simply not of interest to you? For those who these features will benefit, there’s nothing frivolous about them.
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TechCrunch has a few more details on Apple’s “Sensitive Content Warning.”
UPDATE June 6, 2023
From The features that didn’t get discussed onstage at WWDC:
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Communication Safety features now encompasses images and videos transmitted via means beyond Messages, including AirDrop, the systemwide photo picker, FaceTime messages, Contact Posters, and third-party apps.
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Similarly, all users now have an option to blur sensitive images in the above apps before viewing them. As with Communication Safety, this analysis is all done on device.
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“NameDrop” … There’s no doubt it’ll be more integrated and so more useful, but I had to laugh. Among the first third-party iPhone apps that appeared in 2009(?) was one that did the same thing! The ‘tappee’ iPhone’s accelerometer would detect being tapped and if the ‘tapper’ was another iPhone, an Address Book entry could be exchanged (via WiFi, I assume). I thought that was really cool out-of-the-box thinking.
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The widgets on desktop feels so Vista. It’s like Dashboard never existed.
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How wrong is it that the one feature I’m probably most excited about is Find My item sharing? 
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I remember another app that did the same thing, except you fist-bumped with the phone in your hand. Loved that one and am glad to see this function returning.
Also, you’ll be able to use Find My to find the AppleTV remote!
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There are only two reasons that Apple announces new hardware at WWDC and it is either that the hardware needs new software or that they haven’t much software to announce. Looks like the second one this year, but i is a bit much to expect Apple to announce something software related every year.
Ho hum. Usual annual Apple “upgrade” with 80-90% crap and a few possibly useful features. I guess those of us waiting for the modern equivalent of a Snow Leopard like release can give up for now and wait till next year…again. Hopefully the inevitable bugs that will be a part of macOS Sonoma will not be too crippling.
Their hardware is amazingly good (at least among the Macs). Why can’t they write software anymore? Why this psychotic obsession with annual releases?–and no, I have no, zero, none, nada, zip interest in anything remotely connected to augmented, virtual, or wished for reality.
Sigh.
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Dashboard was something that you toggled on and off IIRC. They didn’t actually live on the desktop. I have to admit that my Mac desktop is almost always covered with windows so I rarely see it, so I won’t use widgets much on Mac.
I thought the added feature and app count was pretty low by comparison that this did feel exactly like a Snow Leopard like upgrade to me. Really the same goes for iOS and iPadOS - just a few new things, and some improvements to existing features, with some features that were only on one platform moving to the others (eg, lock screen customization, widgets on the Mac desktop.)
Maybe this is the app you’re remembering:
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Well some would argue that the lack of new features is because they instead put their effort into squashing bugs and Snow Leoparding macOS. I’d love to believe that’s the case, but our recent experience with Apple and its priorities (or lack thereof) do not support that. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong once Sonoma is released.
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I continue to be frustrated by what Apple ignores on the Mac. I was hoping the Journal app would make it to the Mac but it’s iPhone only. Health has found its way to iPad but still not Mac.
Dear Apple, I use my iPhone as a phone and my iPad, well, for very little. My primary machine by far (99% of what I do) is the Mac so it would be nice if I could check my health reports or write my Journal there. I don’t write anything on the phone, I don’t edit anything on the phone and I have no interest in starting.
I simply don’t understand why their laptop/desktop machines don’t get equivalent functionality to their phones.
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Because they sell way more iPhones than Macs, they make way more money off of iPhones, and hence all their attention goes to iPhone?
Now obviously the Apple Silicon transition on Mac appears to contradict that, but then you recall that Apple Silicon was rooted in iPhone, not Mac.
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