WWDC: 8 ways Apple’s services get better in fall

Apple spared some love for its services at WWDC, announcing a range of upcoming features across all of these. Some will be amazing, so here are 8 of the best improvements coming later this year.

iCloud Mail gets greater

iCloud Mail gets really good, with new ways to manage your inbox and automatic organization into usable topic areas, such as transactions or personal. Mail also gains automatic writing and grammar tools and much, much more. I think these improvements will be extremely useful to so many people.

Apple Pay – tap for this, tap for that

Apple Pay gains lots of improvements, including support for rewards and offers via eligible credit and debit cards in some nations. But the two features I really like in terms of ease-of-use are tap gestures – you’ll just need to tap iPhones to pass Apple Pay Cash to another person; while Tap to Provision lets you add eligible credit or debit cards to Apple Wallet by simply tapping their card to the back of their iPhone. Unfortunately, neither of these features is available everywhere.

Smart events

I think people will like the enhanced support for event tickets in Apple Wallet. If a vendor sets this up, event goers will be able to access really useful info via Wallet, such as venue maps, parking details, food delivery, even location sharing to help them find their mates.

Walk, keep walking

It seems completely appropriate that Apple puts a lot of thought into encouraging people to walk. At Apple Park, that means a 20-minute stroll from parking to the office; and in Apple’s DNA, Steve Jobs was famed for walking to talk and think. You could call it a tradition worth keeping. Apple Maps in the US now includes hikes and supports custom walking routes, and these walks can be used offline. You can even add notes to the walks you have taken.

Walking is fitness, so Fitness+

Apple Fitness+ has been redesigned, but the two best improvements include personalized recommendations in the Summary tab and a new For You section which also tries to point you toward exercises you should do.

Apple Account

I think I like that Apple ID will be renamed Apple Account.

Music is tribal

If music is tribal digital music demands a shared listening experience. Apple is trying to make this happen in SharePlay, which lets users share control of music playback. That’s neat, but its Music Haptics that catches my attention. This lets deaf or hard of hearing people experience music on iPhone by playing taps, textures, and refined vibrations to the audio of the music.

On the telly

For me, it’s the Enhance Dialog support that is most interesting in Apple TV. This makes use of machine learning to improve vocal clarity. And if that’s not enough, subtitles have gotten smart enough to appear when you need them, such as when you mute the TV, or when you skip back while watching something.

More WWDC coverage, please also read

• WWDC: Will Apple lead the world in AI?
• WWDC: Apple announces Apple Intelligence
• WWDC: Private Cloud is the future of cloud services
• WWDC: What’s new in iOS 18 which ships this fall?
• WWDC: This is what’s coming to the Mac with Sequoia
• WWDC: iPads get smarter, gain calculator, more
• WWDC: visionOS hits 2.0, Vision Pro goes international
• WWDC: Xcode gains a little AI of its own, making coding easier
• WWDC: Apple ramps up its developer support
• iPhone + AI will launch an Apple upgrade cycle

Please follow me on Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.