WWDC 2022: Important Announcements from Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference

Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference, WWDC 2022 announced several updates to chips, devices, and all of the operating systems. We explore the more important announcements below and analyze their impact on users and the market.

WWDC 2022: Technology

M2 chip

The Apple M1 chip challenged the chip-making establishment. Its implementation in Apple products created some of the highest-performing low-power devices on the market. M2 steps up that game with the following new features.

8-core CPU and up to a 12-core GPU w/ performance improvements (reported at 18% better performance on multi-core than M1)
Up to 100 GB/s unified memory bandwidth
Up to 24GB of unified memory
16-core Neural Engine w/ performance improvements (reported up to 40% better performance than M1)
Playback of multiple ProRes 4K/8K video streams

M2 represents Apple’s next-generation entry-level chip. The M1 Pro and M1 Max still outperform the new chip with the expanded M1 architectures.

Notably, the M2 still only drives a single external monitor natively. That means it will run a laptop monitor and an external monitor up to 6K at 60Hz. This limitation only applies to the basic M2 chip. As Apple offers Pro, Max, and Ultra versions of the M2 this limitation will likely go away, just as it did with the M1.

WWDC 2022: M2 chip

M2 is built using enhanced, second-generation 5-nanometer technology and consists of 20 billion transistors — 25 percent more than M1. Source: Apple.

MacBook Air

Apple made the MacBook Air thinner and more powerful. I don’t think much more needs to be said. Thinner and more powerful are the only reasons to upgrade from a previous generation MacBook Air.

Continuity Camera

Some commentators have taken the Continuity Camera to task as an admission that Apple’s cameras built into monitors and laptop displays aren’t good. They aren’t, and neither is anybody else’s. What Continuity Camera potentially creates is the ability for Apple to remove cameras from those devices completely, forcing tighter integration with the ecosystem. Why would they do that? Because if you look at the good cameras on iPhone, they have grown over time to better capture light.

Putting a camera array like that of the iPhone 13 Pro on the front of a laptop would raise calls of abomination. Making those cameras available to the laptop should be seen as a brilliant use of technology to allow devices to do what they do best, and to work together to increase the value of multiple devices.

The underpinnings of this technology already exist in macOS, iPadOS and IOS through features like using iPhone to capture an image for Preview. And because Apple offers deep integration across their devices, people using their iPhone as a camera won’t miss calls because they can be picked up on the Mac or a nearby iPad.

Continuity Camera will prove even color with FaceTime Handoff as it switches from being the target device to be a peripheral during a call.

WWDC 2022: Continuity Camera

Continuity Camera example. Source Apple.

Spotlight Updates

Spotlight will be able to search photo library images and text in those images. Quick preview will help confirm the sought-after file has been found. For most, search takes the place of curation, and features like this make organizing content in folders, assigning tags, and tracking dates seem medieval.

Read the full article at Serious Insights >

– Daniel W. Rasmus, Serious Insights