New Maps Features
Apple is working on a completely new map view, and the
demo looked awesome. Increased street detail with 2D
models of buildings and parks make the map much easier
to follow. But wait, there’s more! Maps is fi nally getting a
street-level view that looks fun to navigate. Unlike other
street-level maps, Apple Maps’ view lets you move seamless-
ly up and down streets. Plus, buildings are not only labeled,
but they also have icons indicating what types of establish-
ments they are, such as restaurants, bookstores, and cafes.
You can fi nd where you need to go and get a preview of
where you’re headed to make navigation much easier.
“THE BIGGEST QUALITY
OF LIFE ADVANCEMENTS
ANNOUNCED THIS YEAR,
IN MY OPINION, CENTER
AROUND SECURITY.”
Privacy
The biggest quality of life advancements announced this
year, in my opinion, center around security. Apple is well
known for taking user privacy and data mining seriously, and
the new features unveiled at WWDC this year take privacy to
a new level.
First, there are improved protections for location sharing.
The new Allow Just Once feature gives you more control over
whether or not an app has continued access to your location.
Apple has also added a new sign in feature to replace Face-
book and Google called Sign In With Apple. It’s fast, it’s easy,
and while it uses your Apple ID for authentication, it doesn’t
pass along any personal information. If an app or website asks
for your email, you can now enable a feature that will hide
your real email address and instead provide a randomly gener-
ated one that points to your inbox, but that cannot be tracked
to create a profi le based on your habits.
HomeKit has gotten a major upgrade with security cameras
hitting the market that incorporate Apple’s new approach to
encrypted footage. In the past, video has been stored and
analyzed on the cloud. With HomeKit Secure Video, the foot-
age will be analyzed on your device and encrypted before it’s
ever uploaded to the cloud. That means only you can view the
footage, and you get free 10-day storage on iCloud.
Routers are also coming to HomeKit. HomeKit routers will
create a network specifi cally for the devices in your home
network. A fi rewall for each device will protect you from out-
side attacks and shut down vulnerable security points into
your home network. The routers will also be hitting the market
close to the release of iOS 13.Reminders Revamped
At last, Reminders is getting a comprehensive update. You’ll
have new fi ltering options, like Today, Scheduled, Flagged, and
All, to make it easier to fi nd the right reminder. A new quick
bar also makes adding times, dates, locations, and attach-
ments to reminders. One of the coolest new features bridges
iMessage and Reminders by allowing you to tag a contact in a
reminder. The next time you open a conversation thread with
that contact in the Messages app, the reminder you tagged
them in will pop up on your screen.Messages Improvements
There are quite a few minor tweaks to the Messages app.
In addition to connecting Messages to Reminders, Apple
is making it easier to share names and images with other
iPhone users. Now, when receiving a message from an un-
known number, Apple can share that person’s profi le picture
and name with you so that you have an idea of who’s trying to
reach you.Find My
Find My Friends and Find My iPhone will now be combined
under one application called Find My. Not only will it be easier
to track your device locations and the whereabouts of your
friends in one place, but you’ll also be able to fi nd offl ine de-
vices using a network of local Bluetooth signals from other
Apple devices. The Bluetooth communications will be encrypt-
ed for privacy and will make it possible to locate your device
much more easily.(Continued on page 16)