Apple WWDC 2018 will try to stop the way phones ruin our health

This year, excitement wasn’t exactly running high ahead of Apple’s Word Wide Development Conference (WWDC).

Industry pundits didn’t expect brand new products to be unveiled; even though Apple has a reputation for drum-tight security on announcing new kit, reveal rumours usually make their way to the press ahead of WWDC. That wasn’t the case this year and no one new what to expect from the event – or even if it was worth having.

As it turned out, Apple’s focus this year was on digital wellbeing tools, which are essentially aimed at helping users spend less time on their smart devices. As part of the new iOS 12 update, which will be rolled out later this year, Apple users will gain access to a feature called ‘Screen Time’, allowing them to set daily limit for apps that offer notifications and nudges.

Screen Time also allows users to see which apps they spend the most time on, the number of notifications they receive and how often they pick up their device and remain glued to their screen. They can even see how their usage patterns compare to the average user. This is bound to prove useful for parents as they’ll be able to limit their children’s screentime on Apple devices.

Apple also said that iOS 12 will make older devices faster, more responsive and generally more efficient. App loading with iOS 12, for example is twice as fast as it is with iOS 11. This is good news for anyone with an older iPhone or iPad, as iOS 12 will be downloadable on devices from the iPhone 5 S and higher.

As far as the fun stuff went, augmented reality features have been expanded, and users will soon be able to create something Apple’s calling a Memoji. This is essentially a personalised Animoji users can create to look like themselves (or anyone they know really) and use to talk to friends. Unbelievably, this isn’t as creepy as it sounds.

Apple also unveiled the next desktop operating system, which is called macOS Mojave. It comes with a something called ‘Dark Mode’, which makes all first party apps take on a darker hue, making night work easier on the eyes. It also introduces new ‘Desktop Stacks’, an auto-tidying feature which groups together related icons in piles. On top of that Mojave offers wallpapers that update throughout the day and a new gallery view.

Perhaps the most interesting part of WWDC came towards the end when Apple took a clear sideswipe at Facebook. Apple’s senior vice-president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, said that there would be greater protection for users against developers that want to collect and use their data.

“These ‘like buttons’ and ‘share buttons’ and these ‘comments fields,” Federighi said. “Well, it turns out that these can be used to track you whether that you click on them or not. This year, we’re shutting that down.”