Attending WWDC24 recap at Apple Paris

This Wednesday morning, I had the opportunity to attend the in-person recap of this year WWDC in Paris. I’m very happy to see those events flourishing all around the world, and specifically this year as I hadn’t as much time as I’d have liked during WWDC to really make the most of it.

About a hundred of people were invited near Place d’Iéna, and gathered to get a 2 hours keynote on what Apple wants developers to remind and focus on for this year WWDC.

What Apple wants us to focus on this summer

Apple Intelligence

This is of course the star of the show. Apple Intelligence was the first topic brought on the table. Focusing on integrating Writing Tools, Image Playgrounds and Genmoji in our apps. Apple seems very proud of Genmoji, as they used a lot of time to show us how it integrates seamlessly with rich text in the system.
Of course, the DMA situation with EU have only been mentioned at the end during the Q&A.

App Intents

In continuity of Apple Intelligence, App Intents was (re)introduced, explaining the concept of Intent and Entities to bring our App in the system. “App Intents it an API for your app”. This focus on a framework introduced 2 years ago shows how much it’s central for the upcoming intelligence of the on-device ML.

Translation API

Fun interlude, new Translation API in the spotlight!
The new TranslationSession allow to batch-translate user content, and to present it in our own interface, and looks neat to use for apps that are user-content centred.

Controls API

Focus on the new buttons and toggles that are integrated system wide, in the new Control Center, the HomeScreen, but also compatible with iPhone 15 Pro action button.
Powered by the Widgets framework, implementation looks flexible and simple enough to foresee a massive future adoption.

SF Symbols 6

Focus on the new animations that’ll ship with iOS 18 for SF Symbols, with a few UX tips:

• Wiggle:
  Perfect to reflect changes in an app. It redirect the attention of the user somewhere.

• Rotate:
  Dynamic movement to a symbol, to represent a physical object, or to show some progression.

• Breathe:
  Great for showing that something is still alive, or an activity in place (recording session)

• Magic Replace:
  Improved for striking, or adding badges. Great for tappable elements. I love it!

• Variable color:
  Linear or circular flows allow more complex Symbols to animate more smoothly.

visionOS 2

In the keynote, visionOS 2 felt like it wasn’t a that massive update. Therefore, it’s a very good year for developers!
TabletopKit remove the boilerplate of RealityKit and SharePlay to bring life to a single or multiplayer table-game.

Object Tracking finally allow to bring content on top of pre-trained real-life content. Seems limited for now, but it’s shows the future of the platform: bringing APIs that gives the intelligence of the surroundings of the users to enhance the experience.

Finally, Enterprise API, restricted to in-house apps, with a special enterprise entitlement, bring capabilities that are otherwise restricted: more computing power, camera and sensors full access, and more. This could unlock the full potential of this incredible hardware in pro environments!

App Store

The App Store team was also represented to expose the new built-in StoreKit paywalls, the new offers capabilities (including win-back possibility). New TestFlight app, less Screenshots requirements, and native notifications for App-of-the-day featuring! 🥳

Q&A titbits

• Translating your whole app with translation API is not a good idea. Because it’ll not catch all the subtleties of your app.
• Object tracking is limited to 10 objects at a time, but you can dynamically switch the tracked objects (and therefore bring more trained models in an app)
• DMA concerns about feature availability was not really responded, specifically if developer would be able to test the features they bring to their app. Therefore, those concerns will be passed on to.
• visionOS 2 can be provided at a lab if we ask for it! Otherwise, Vision Pro labs devices are using visionOS 1.2

Final words

It’s really exciting for Apple to bring WWDC summaries worldwide. It allow to be more inclusive for people who can’t, or chose not to travel for the event, while bringing the chance of in-person meets and greets with other developers and with Apple representatives.

I’m wondering if Apple will ever decide to make more than one event during the WWDC week, therefore, it seems unlikely as it would split the community, and it’s also exciting to gather people from all over the world around a same passion: code and design apps in Swift!

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