Apple Updates Have the Tele Team Buzzing
The tech company announced their new software updates, and we’ve got the bite-sized take
Last week, Apple unveiled a sweeping array of software updates at the 2021 WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference), including the new iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8. These software updates include SharePlay, Focus Mode, design changes to Safari and Apple Maps, and new privacy controls for Siri and Mail, to name a few. It’s an exciting time for anyone who uses Apple products as they continue to develop features and programs that make our lives easier and more productive. These features can also affect the way we think and function in a digital agency, and that has us thinking of ways we can utilize these features in our day-to-day work.
Within our industry and across the world, the prioritization of long periods of deep, uninterrupted work time is growing. We see this in Apple’s new Focus feature that serves as a tool to help you reduce distractions from all of your Apple devices. You can customize your Focus feature to only allow certain people and apps to notify you. There can be multiple Focus filters for different times of your day, like Sleep or Work. This customizable feature could be the ultimate deep focus tool for getting into the zone. As a full-service agency, deep work is essential for our creative process, which is why we have Deep Work Wednesday each week—the perfect time for us to use the Focus feature.
One of the features Apple announced on Monday is Mail Privacy Protection. This new update will limit the amount of data that emails can collect from their subscribers/consumers.
From Apple:
“Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. [It prevents] senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.”
What we know right now is that this affects any email opened from the Apple Mail app—no matter which email service is used, whether it’s a work account or a Gmail account, for example. Hence, you probably won’t be able to determine who opened your emails and when. But again, this only applies to users using the Apple Mail app.
Because we don’t yet know exactly how Apple will treat tracking pixels, we can’t say for sure how much of an impact Mail Privacy Protection will have on open rates. We believe you shouldn’t rely on opens as your sole performance metric in the first place, and that metrics such as clicks and conversions are just as important, so this update could be a reminder to include other metrics when making campaign decisions.
Apple’s new Live Text feature digitizes the text in your photos by using on-device AI to recognize the text in an image. Live Text can come in handy when you want to look up the text in an image on the web, copy and paste it on another app, or call a phone number displayed in an image. You can copy the name of a restaurant sign and search for its location, turn handwritten notes into emails, and even search your camera roll for text-based images, like recipe cards and receipts. Unlike Google Lens, the processing of Live Text data happens completely within the iPhone device. It’s all done locally and never leaves your phone. This is a big step forward into the adoption of native AI functionality.
There could be a multitude of use cases for Live Text in the advertising field. For example, after a whiteboard brainstorming session. Simply snap a photo of the notes, copy and paste the text into a Slack channel, and you’re good to go.
Testing is an integral part of developing/launching a new website, or in this specific case, an app. It is a long and tedious process that requires a lot of attention to detail, which can become overwhelming. TestFlight is an app that was developed in 2014 and is only available on iOS, but Apple announced that TestFlight is finally migrating over to MacOS later this fall.
This is a big step forward in the world of app testing that will ease the process for a lot of beta testers. With TestFlight, developers can invite up to 10,000 beta testers, receive feedback with ease, schedule automatic updates, launch the app directly from TestFlight, and more. Along with these special tools for testing, Apple also announced Xcode Cloud, an integration built into Xcode. This will allow Apple Developers to build apps in the cloud instead of having a dedicated build infrastructure. It will also include automated workflows, parallel testing with TestFlight, and the ability to record automatic feedback after an app crashes.
From code, to design, to testing, and all the way up to deployment, Telegraph creates top-quality apps for our various clients. Using TestFlight means our team can deliver fully functional, customized apps in a shorter timeline with a more streamlined and seamless process.
Two Words: Game Changer. The new Universal Control feature is a unique tool that allows users to effortlessly use a trackpad or mouse across Apple devices. No set up. No cables. Just drag your cursor across the screen, and you can fully control your device. And it doesn’t stop there. You can even drag and drop files across devices. Not just between two devices, but three (if you really need it).
Now, it may seem like a small feature, but it’s going to have a tremendous impact on workflow, especially across devices. Given that we are in a highly remote world, it’s not uncommon for people to have a laptop and desktop, or laptop and iPad, or even all three. The universal control feature is going to save so much time working between the devices. While working, it’s easy to get into the habit of constantly emailing or Slack messaging design files to ourselves, sending links to our own desktops, and AirDropping photos to one another. This new feature eliminates that middle-man step and allows us to work more quickly and freely.
Technology moves quickly—as does the advertising industry. These new features give us exciting ways to evolve our working habits and creative processes, a must for full-service agencies in pursuit of the best ideas.