Apple’s annual WWDC keynote address is a chance to see how the firm’s major platforms will advance in the coming year. And this year’s show was notable on a number of levels. Apple expanded its platform count from four to five by breaking out iPadOS from iOS. It highlighted two major developer advances, something it usually ignores in the marketing-heavy keynote. Most of the people at WWDC 2019 were first-time WWDC attendees, a first. And Apple was focused heavily on the integration of hardware, software, and services.

With all that in mind, here’s a quick overview of each platform announcement and which I think matter or do no matter.

Apple TV and tvOS

After almost ten minutes of patting himself on the back, Tim Cook finally moved into the first and least interesting hardware platform that Apple would discuss that day, Apple TV. And perhaps not surprisingly, Apple TV is getting only incremental updates this year.

Apple TV users will be able to take advantage of multi-user support, a feature that’s been available in services like Netflix and Hulu for years, but is perhaps a bit more unusual when you compare this system to other set-top box experiences like Roku.

That’s a pretty obvious feature. But Apple’s strength is in integrating its various products and services together into a cohesive whole. This is good for users, but it’s also designed to make it harder to leave the Apple ecosystem.

There were two key integration pieces announced for the next version of tvOS, the Apple TV’s software platform.  Apple TV will now display song lyrics when you listen to Apple Music, and it will do so in-sync with the music. And Apple TV will work with Apple Arcade, the firm’s coming game service, and will work with the two most popular video game controllers in the world, the Xbox One Controller and the PlayStation DualShock 4.

None of this is earth-shattering. But Apple TV is already a mature product, and if you ignore its remote—again, a crime against humanity—it works very well already.

Innovation: B
Excitement: C
Value: B

Apple Watch and watchOS

After a tough first year, Apple refocused Apple Watch on health and fitness, and it has steadily added innovative new features that really differentiate it from other smartwatches and fitness trackers. As important, it has worked to make Watch more of a standalone device without actually removing the lock-in integration that keeps users in its ecosystem. (You can’t use an Apple Watch with Android, for example.)

For 2019, Apple Watch is picking up a nice set of functional updates, some of which are new and some of which are improvements of existing features. There are lots of new watch faces, Taptic Chimes that accent taptic alerts with sounds, and more Apple apps on the platform, including Apple Audiobooks, Voice Memos, and Calculator, all of which are pretty obvious additions.

The biggest platform change, from what I can tell, is that developers will be able to write Apple Watch apps that run independently on the device for the first time and do not require an iPhone companion app. This is especially good for audio/music streaming apps, of course. And it seems like a moment of real maturity for watchOS, and it will include native app UX capabilities for developers and, for users, an on-device app store. We’re going to need a bigger watch (literally).

Speaking of maturity, this didn’t get enough attention, but watchOS 6 will also let Apple Watches receive and install software updates by themselves, another key change that severs and iPhone interdependence. This reminds me of how the iPhone eventually broke its Mac/PC iTunes requirement and became independent.

Given Apple Watch’s focus on health and fitness, it isn’t surprising that the platform is also being updated to include Activity Trends, which compare activity metrics over long periods of time, a Noise app that will warn you about hearing damage-inducing sound levels (which is smart; too few people pay attention to this), and menstrual cycle tracking for women. (Related to this, the Health app on iPhone is being redesigned as well.)

If you’re familiar with Apple Watch, you know it exposes app functionality on the watch face using small UI elements called complications. There’s a Noise complication for that new Noise app, for example, and Apple also showed off Wind, Rain, Audiobooks, and Voice Memos complications.

There are new bands this year, too, of course.

Innovation: B
Excitement: B
Value: B

iPhone/iPod touch and iOS

iOS 13 was introduced by Craig Federighi, who is apparently so famous that Mr. Cook only used his first name. But iOS is a big deal, and while there is only one truly major new feature in the next release—Dark mode—let’s not kid ourselves, it looks amazing. (Just as it does on macOS.)

Many of Apple’s system apps are getting updated. Safari is picking up new text sizing options and per-site preferences. Mail is getting “desktop-class” text formatting controls. And Notes is getting a new gallery view of your notes (as opposed to a text list, I assume) and shared folder support. Reminders has been completely rewritten and looks smarter and more efficient. Messages is getting photo and memoji sharing, plus a ton of new memoji features that got way too much attention during the keynote.

Maps was a surprise. This app started as an industry laughing stock and Scott Forestall’s inability to apologize for its terrible launch quality led to his dismissal. Since then, Maps has improved steadily, and while I think most would be crazy to use this app instead of Google Maps, the changes are obvious. Especially in the U.S., where Apple has done a better job of improving its data collection and map building. For 2019, Apple Maps is picking up more detailed maps, a redesigned launch screen with favorite places, a Collections feature for sharable lists and trip organization, and a Street View-like feature that actually seems to animate through areas more seamlessly than Google’s feature.

Apple has fallen behind Google, Samsung, and Huawei when it comes to smartphone camera quality, but the firm continues to make improvements in both the software and the hardware. iOS 13 addresses the former with new Portrait Lighting capabilities, a new photo editing experience with new effects, new video editing features (including video rotation), and a big update to the Photos app that makes navigation better, removes duplicates, and highlights your best shots by making them appear as bigger thumbnails.

Apple also hammered home its dedication to user privacy—something Google is belatedly addressing and only in response to antitrust probes—by introducing a few new privacy-related features in iOS 13. These include finer-grained location sharing with apps (where you can, for example, share your location just once), a HomeKit Secure Video feature that ensures that in-home video surveillance recordings are securely stored and hidden even from Apple, and a HomeKit compatibility feature for home Internet routers that helps protect your smart home from attack. Linksys, Eero, and Charter Spectrum (the Internet service provider) are on board.

But the biggest and maybe most controversial new privacy-related feature is something called Sign in with Apple, which is Apple’s take on those “Sign in with Facebook” and “Sign in with Google” buttons you see everywhere. In a uniquely Apple way, this feature is both incredibly useful and yet another way in which Apple can lock its users into its walled garden.

Sign in with Apple doesn’t include any tracking, of course, but it can also optionally obfuscate your real email address from the service you’re signing-in to, much like some credit cards (like American Express) can hide your real card number during purchases to prevent fraud. This is an excellent idea, and because the fake address that Apple creates will forward to your real iCloud account, you’ll still get all the benefits of signing-in to the service.

I was a bit taken aback, however, by Apple’s focus on performance in this release, which mirrors the weirdness of its attack on battery life a year ago in iOS 12. In both cases, the types of improvements that Apple is claiming seem oddly large, as if there was no optimization previously at all. But this is particularly strange for performance, since Apple and its fans routinely claim the iPhone outperforms Android handily in every way imaginable.

Here are the numbers: Face ID unlock is now 30 percent faster. Thanks to an app packaging change, app downloads are now 50 percent smaller, while updates are 60 percent smaller. And apps will launch up to twice as fast.

Suspicious? Yep. Welcome? Oh yeah.

Innovation: B
Excitement: A
Value: A

iPad and iPadOS

When Apple first launched the iPhone in 2007, the software platform on which it ran was called iPhoneOS. But by the next year, iPhoneOS was running on other devices, starting with the iPod touch. So, Apple renamed it to iOS.

This system has served Apple and its users well: As the iPad has evolved to be more than just a big iPod touch, Apple has added features to iOS that take advantage of its unique features. And developers have responded in ways we haven’t seen on Android, by modifying their apps so that they look more natural on the iPad’s bigger screen. Today, many iOS apps offer different experiences according to which device you’re using.

Which makes the introduction of iPadOS, a custom version of iOS specifically designed for the iPad, seem a bit strange at first. Some are over-reacting to this change: Wired, for example, fell hook, line, and sinker for Apple’s marketing nonsense and declared that the consumer electronics giant was suddenly serious again about the iPad. The truth is, that hasn’t happened yet, and this year’s minor improvements to the iPad experience are nothing to get excited about, just like this past year’s iPad Pro changes were nothing major.

But I do agree that the OS name change is potentially significant, and that it could signal that Apple will now evolve the iPad in ways that are perhaps more dramatic than what has happened so far. Please note all the qualifiers in that statement—potentially, could, and perhaps—since they’re by design. Nothing Apple announced at WWDC—nothing­—hints at this future.

For 2019, iPadOS picks up all of the new features available in iOS—because, again, they are the same thing—but it also adds improvements that are specific to the iPad. Which, again, Apple has done previously in iOS.

There are no major new features, so let me get that one out of the way. Apple is finally providing some new home screen functionality, but it’s not the very basic ability to put icons anywhere on the screen you want. Instead, iPad users will be able to swipe over from the left to display Apple’s widgets next to the grid of icons. Normally, this display is available on a separate screen to the left.  Whoopee.

I’ve always found iPad multitasking to be obtuse and non-discoverable, and the basics are not changing in iPadOS. Instead, the firm is making minor changes to the Slide Over and Split View features. In Slide Over, you can now access a fanned list of previous apps that were available in this floating sidebar. And in Split View, where two apps split the on-screen real estate in very basic ways, individual apps can display multiple views (or what Apple calls windows). In other words, you can have two Word documents displayed side-by-side. Or two notes in Notes. This is not exciting, it’s just obvious.

Safari is edging closer to the desktop version on macOS, and that’s for the better: Most websites display a mobile version that is designed for phones, not tablets. So the new Safari will now display the desktop versions of websites by default. It’s also picking up a download manager (yes, in 2019).

Beyond this, we see more minor updates.

The Files app gets a columnar view, just like the one no one in macOS uses anymore. iCloud Drive now supports folder sharing for the first time, triggering a question about how the heck it didn’t always support this feature. You can access USB thumb drives and SMB (Windows-style) file shares, other curious missing features from the past.

There is faster touch-based scrolling. New touch-based cursor movement and text selection. And a three-finger pinch/spread—yes, really—for copy and paste. I’m guessing most of these gestures will happen by mistake for most people, with hilarity ensuing. I also find it telling that Apple didn’t demo them live since they are clearly error-prone. You’ll want to know the new three-finger swipe gesture for undo.

Apple also talked up Apple Pencil improvements, none of which seemed notable to me.

Overall, this was a curiously uneventful set of updates. Apple needs to get serious about the iPad, especially the iPad Pro. But this isn’t it, despite Tim Cook’s comment about it being a “blow away, huge release.” Sorry, Tim.

Innovation: C
Excitement: C
Value: C

Mac and macOS

Apple has traditionally provided minor updates to its legacy desktop platform, but macOS Catalina, or macOS 10.15, looks really interesting. And there are actually some major new features.

The biggest, of course, is support for iPad apps. In the past, Apple described this capability as support for iOS apps, but I always figured this was only about iPad apps, and it is. It’s now dubbed Project Catalyst, and it will help iPad developers bring their apps to the Mac. They’ll need to make some changes to accommodate the Mac, of course, and it’s not clear how successful this effort will be. But any expansion of apps on the Mac is a good thing.

Another new feature, Sidebar, steals from third-party solutions and lets Mac users access their iPad as a second screen and as a secondary, touch- and pen-based input device. This may be bigger than it seems, since Apple has long been criticized for not providing native touch and pen capabilities in macOS. It works wired and wirelessly.

As had been widely rumored, Apple is killing off the Mac version of iTunes and replacing it with three separate apps—Apple Music, Podcasts, and TV—just as it did previously on iOS. No surprise there, but I’m sure most Mac users will view this is a major achievement, given how crappy iTunes has become. (Also, audiobooks will now be available in Apple Books.)

There are some amazing accessibility features, too, including a Voice Control feature, also on iOS, that lets you control your Mac entirely via voice. It looks impressive.

Finally, macOS is also picking up the Find My app (which combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends), which lets you find your Mac or iPhone even when it’s offline, plus Screen Time, the digital wellbeing solution from iOS. There are also minor updates to Photos, Safari, Notes, and Reminders. New AR capabilities.

Stepping past Apple’s expensive new Mac hardware, which I’ve ignored here, I feel like the Mac—well, macOS—was the highlight of this year’s keynote. This platform has received the biggest and most interesting updates, though Dark Mode on iOS is obviously pretty big too.

Innovation: A
Excitement: A
Value: A

Developer advances

Apple doesn’t usually discuss developer topics during the WWDC keynote—ironic, I know—but this year, it did. And it discussed two technologies that the developer in me finds truly exciting. They are Reality Kit and Swift UI.

Reality Kit makes it easier for developers to incorporate Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities into their apps, with photorealistic rendering, native Swift APIs, and a Reality Composer app that provides drag and drop interactive environment building. It’s all based on ARKit, which is getting a major update as well. The big change? People Occlusion, which lets humans walk among AR elements in a scene and realistically appear behind or in front of them as needed. Microsoft is using this technology to bring Minecraft Earth to life, and their demo of this game was easily the highlight of the keynote.

Swift UI is a long-overdue overhaul to Apple’s terrible user interface building tools in XCode, its developer environment. Taking its cue from Visual Basic, which was first launched in 1990, Swift UI lets you “build better apps with way less code.” It’s a declarative framework built on the Swift programming language, and unlike with previous Interface Builder- and XCode-based environments, it’s not obtuse or hard to use. If you’re familiar with things like XAML in the Microsoft world, you get the idea. And if you like hot reload from Flutter, well, Swift UI has that too.

Late or no, Swift UI is huge, and the fact that it’s coming to what is already the world’s healthiest app development environment makes it all the more impressive.

Innovation: A
Excitement: A
Value: A