Confirming many reports and adding a bit more, Apple Inc. today debuted updates to the Apple TV, Watch and iOS and also announced a new iPadOS, iPad and a very pricey Mac Pro.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook (pictured) took the stage to talk about how developers creating apps enrich the world and Apple’s ecosystem, following an inspirational video (above) with the theme “While the world sleeps, you dream.” He noted that WWDC has received more attendees than ever this year.

Warming up, Cook spoke about the launch of Apple News+, featuring news from more than 300 publications. Then came the announcement of Apple Arcade, featuring more than 100 new games, available later this year, and Apple TV+.

Apple TV+

To show off TV+, Cook played a trailer from “For All Mankind,” a TV show about how the space race could have gone differently, with a Soviet cosmonaut making it to the moon first, propelling the U.S. and the world to push into space and continue onward. It will be part of Apple TV, this fall, alongside other original shows. All are streamable in 4K resolution using the software platform tvOS.

The Apple TV home screen has been completely redesigned with full-screen previews of TV shows and recently released movies. The “Up Next” list will show a list of shows for everyone in the home and now it has multi-user support, meaning everyone can get their own personalized up next list.

These upgrades will also extend to Apple Arcade, which will add support for current Xbox and PlayStation controllers.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch (above) will be getting some updates with upgrades to watchOS. First, Apple Watch will receive numerous new “watch faces,” which are customized displays for what the watch looks like when it’s being a watch — each of which can be personalized with extra information, or kept as simple as simply timekeeping.

More Apple apps are being brought to Watch, including Apple books, memo recording and calculator.

Developers will receive access to new application programming interfaces the foremost that will give the ability to run apps without needing a companion iPhone. WatchOS 6 will also provide a streaming audio API, which can stream audio without a paired phone. The App Store is also coming to Apple Watch, meaning that users can browse apps directly on the watch instead of needing to go through a phone or web to purchase and install them.

New health and fitness capabilities are also coming to Apple Watch. In WatchOS 6, Apple is adding “Activity Trends,” giving users the ability to see their own activity levels to understand if they’re doing better or worse with their exercise, workouts and fitness levels. The watch will also help users with protecting their hearing, to do this the watch uses the microphone to warn users about environmental noise levels that could damage hearing. Most importantly, this app does not save any audio, meaning the privacy of users is protected.

For women, the watch has also added the ability to track menstrual cycles. It provides a simple, discrete way to log period, fertility and symptoms, providing a way for women to better describe their health to their doctors. This app is also available for iPhone and iOS, with no need for the watch itself.

The Health app has also been updated to keep as much health-related data in one place. Using machine learning on the iPhone, the app will decide what data might be more relevant to you. Privacy is also important to Apple in this, with the data being securely stored on the iPhone, or encrypted on the Apple cloud; the app also enables users to decide what data, if any, can be shared with other apps.

iOS 13

Next up, to no one’s surprise, was iOS 13, which Cook called “the world’s most powerful operating system.” He said iOS has the highest customer satisfaction in the industry with a 97% satisfaction rate for iOS 12 and an 85% installed base for that latest version.

The next release, iOS 13, will focus heavily on optimizing the iPhone. When it rolls out in the fall, app downloads will be 50% smaller and app updates will be 60% smaller. That means that apps will launch twice as fast in iOS 13.

Dark mode, a much-anticipated feature, also is coming to iOS. Home screen, notifications, widgets and apps will now be able to display inverted with a dark theme, meaning that across the entire phone, enabling it to look better for people who don’t want their phone to be a brilliant, white beacon in the night.

Apple Maps has been rebuilt from the ground up, including the use of sensor cars equipped with lidar, that have already been used to map out the San Francisco Bay Area. The company plans to complete the entire United States by the end of 2019. Maps is also getting a function similar to Google Street View, in that users may now also zoom into street level and tilt around to see what the world looks like in person.

For developers and users, Apple is adding “Sign in with Apple,” a way to sign into an app without worrying about being tracked by authenticating with Facebook Inc. or Google LLC. That means that users can log into apps using onboard Apple security, but without revealing any special information.

To further enhance privacy, the Sign In With Apple function also allows people to hide their email address behind a randomized address. This means that email can be hidden from spammy apps, and potentially apps can be blocked because randomized addresses can be simply disabled.

Messaging will be update in iOS 13, allowing senders to send along their contact information with messages. No more seeing just a phone number when someone sends a message — if they choose, it will send along a name and avatar (including “memojis,” which are customized cartoon avatars).

Photo editing will be updated as well, providing a new dashboard that permits tap-and-drag for everything that can be done to a photo from vibrance, saturation, lighting and other edits. This capability is also being brought to video; with iOS 13, users will be able to tilt and rotate videos.

The photo library has also seen some updates, using machine learning to help reduce clutter by compressing duplicates and removing non-activity shots (such as receipts and screenshots). Overview modes such as day, week, month and year will compress photo layouts in an attempt to display iconic photographs and provide time-lapse video highlights in order to best portray the time period.

iPadOS

The Apple iPad will get all of the same features that are coming to iPhone, since it’s built on a similar technological foundation, but the iPad does have its own distinct platform differences. As a result, it’s getting its own specific updates with iPadOS.

Today, Apple introduced iPadOS with a first look at how it will change things. It is now possible to pin widgets directly onto the home screen. It is possible to multitask with “slide over,” which allows users to add notifications and apps to a slide-in interface. Split view brings multiwindow capability for apps on iPad, meaning that a single app (such as notes) can split itself into two windows (meaning that two notes can be displayed at the same time).

Apple’s browser, Safari, will also see a large number of updates for iPad. First and foremost, Safari on iPad is getting desktop-level processing, permitting websites to be sized correctly for the iPad display and web pages will be optimized for touch capability. Safari will receive a download manager, 30 new keyboard shortcuts and much more.

New Mac Pro

Finally, Apple debuted an equally anticipated new Mac Pro, a high-performance Mac designed for business use — for example video editing, high fidelity audio production or even simulating multiple iPhones at once for testing or design.

The system comes with a Xeon processor, with up to 28 cores, up to 1.5 terabytes of system memory, 8 expansion slots for cards, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports and a standard audio 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.

The system also comes with a massively powerful graphics processing unit, the Radeon Pro Vega II, which is considered one of the most powerful GPUs in the world — and the Mac Pro is capable of running two at the same time. To make certain this workstation can keep up with all of this extra capability, it includes a 1.4 kilowatt power supply and three enormous fans and one large blower, which is fairly quiet but still powerful.

Adobe Inc., Blackmagic Design, Avid, SideFX, Epic Games Inc. and Serif have all announced software updates to their flagship products that will take advantage of the new Mac Pro capabilities.

To top off the reveal of the new Mac Pro, Apple also revealed the display that will come with it. The display includes a high-resolution screen, with a high dynamic range, a 32-inch screen with a 6K Retina display. For challenging, high brightness environments, the screen has been etched with a “nano coating” for greatly reduced reflections. The display is also one of the brightest screens ever designed by Apple, with extra heat dissipation, providing a one-million to one contrast ratio.

The stand also allows users to rotate, in case they desire to switch to portrait mode — which can be useful for photo editing, or people who want to write or code on a screen that looks more like a sheet of paper.

The new Mac Pro will start with a price tag of $5,999 and will hit the shelves this fall.

Augmented reality

For developers looking to design apps for augmented reality, Apple announced updates to ARKit and the composition tools for AR experiences. ARKit 3 in particular will receive huge updates including the ability to have people block (or walk in front of) AR objects and provide on-the-fly motion capture of people.

To show off these AR capabilities, Apple employees took to the stage to show off the game “Minecraft” played life-size. As a finale, Minecraft Creative Director Sax Persson was killed by an exploding Creeper.

Overall, Macquarie Securities (USA) Inc. analyst Ben Schachter wrote in a note to client, Apple is clearly pushing developers to create apps more tailored to the strengths of each device they’re being used on. “The new App Store for Watch and a dedicated OS for iPad, combined with Project Catalyst for Mac and Swift UI for more seamless app development across each platform were the highlights of the event,” he said.

Most of what has been revealed today will be available for developers in beta versions. As for consumers, everything revealed will be arriving with launches upcoming in the fall.

Photos: Apple/livestream