by Just connect, as EM Forster said. You may not have been thinking about the iPhone and Mac, since they didn’t exist then, but Apple seems to be taking the mantra seriously. Many of the latest features of the two products come to life when they meet another Apple device: the new iMac may look the same on the outside, but it has new powers on the inside.
Apple executives Colleen Novielli of Mac Product Marketing and Stephen Tonna of Platform Product Marketing sat down with The independent to talk about how combining the capabilities of different Apple products became even more useful with the latest software.
An updated iMac arrived last month, with the same 24-inch screen and seven different color options as its predecessor, but with a much more powerful Apple processor inside. Along with this came new software for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with features that help these disparate devices work as one.
Continuity is the general title for the ways in which content can be shared, for example, between different devices. If you have widgets (those particular types of apps that display additional information or have more interactivity than most app icons) on your iPhone or iPad, you can now have them on your Mac desktop too. Even, and here’s the new item introduced with the latest software, called macOS Sonoma, if those apps aren’t on your Mac.
Apple has been developing Continuity features for years, with AirDrop being one of the first examples. It means you can transfer documents between devices easily. Stephen Tonna, who manages to be intensely focused and almost casually relaxed at the same time, explains how he got there.
“If you remember, when we originally introduced AirDrop, it was because we were in that transition as an industry of going completely wireless and replacing the USB drive. We left that behind a long time ago. “AirDrop remains the easiest, fastest and most seamless way to transfer content between devices and when you have an iPhone with a lot of photos and want to share them quickly, it’s the best way to do it.” AirDrop works wherever you are – there’s no need to set up, pair devices, check you’re on the same network, or any other hassle. In fact, you don’t even need to be near a Wi-Fi network, because it creates its own connection.
Continuity also works with other connection types. “As long as you sign in with the same Apple ID, everything will start working. You can use your iPad and Apple Pencil to be creative on your iMac,” explains Tonna. This works because you can set up devices so that doodles on your iPad with an Apple Pencil can appear on your Mac’s screen. You can also set your Mac to unlock when it detects that your Apple Watch is nearby, play content from your iPhone on the largest screen on your Mac, send and receive SMS messages on your Mac as well as your phone, and more.
“Really what Continuity is all about is this rich set of features that allow you to move seamlessly between your devices, helping you be even more creative with the things you do in your daily life. Our key superpower is that we can combine these things so there is no complicated setup.”
For the iMac, the new processor also helps. Colleen Novielli describes the new computer with delight and pride, saying, “It’s the best and best-selling all-in-one in the world.” The iMac and Continuity, she adds, “simply bring your Mac to life for all the devices and users in a home or small business. Continuity works on all of our Macs, but the iMac is great because the huge 24-inch screen gives you plenty of real estate. Users say this makes them incredibly productive.”
As Tonna adds, you can use it to bring added convenience to FaceTime calls. “I start a FaceTime call when I go for a walk, say, and I come home, so I want to continue that FaceTime call on my iMac. With just one click, everything is transferred to the iMac.”
A new feature called NameDrop was recently in the news, and one police department thought it was risky (it’s not). You put two iPhones together and it allows you to share your contact details. No more “I’ll call you and you’ll have my number” and having to enter their name afterwards. I wonder how important that element of surprise is for Apple.
Tonna says: “It used to be cumbersome to share contacts when you meet someone new. We deliver this in a unique way, and the wow factor is that the animation is simply beautiful. But it is also a very functional animation. It really tells you what’s going on. Your contact, if you choose to share it, literally switches between devices. It’s always good to get the surprise factor. But at the end of the day, we create these features so that users get more value from their products.”
Apple does not have this perfect connectivity with itself. Samsung already allows things to be transferred between different products that carry its name, and Huawei does the same. Chipmaker Qualcomm has just announced Qualcomm Seamless, which will work on products from different brands and with different operating systems. Why is continuity something Apple thinks it can do better?
“The reason we can do better goes back to Apple’s core values, the fact that we make hardware, software and services. The services part is key because iCloud is the connector that helps you move seamlessly between devices safely and privately. “The hardware and software components come from our ability to combine technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to do things like understand when your devices are close to each other and enable features like Handoff.”
Handoff is what allows you to transfer calls from a phone to a Mac, or copy and paste between devices. Find a document on your iPhone, say, choose Copy and then press Paste on your iMac and watch it appear. As Novielli says, it’s a way to improve things. “People have ingrained behaviors, certain ways of doing things that technology has allowed for a long time. So if someone needs to carry a file around, they think they need to open an email, attach the file, maybe zip it “. archive. And then, go to the other device. Our philosophy is to make people do things in a better way.”
And as Tonna says, the initial capability of a Continuity feature is rarely the last iteration. “We’re always thinking beyond what we can do, but it’s really about solving an immediate user need and then listening to feedback.”
Which means we can expect great things from Continuity in the future. Novielli sums it up like this: “Continuity is one of those things that allows technology to get out of the way and not interrupt your productive flow. So you can be as productive as possible throughout the day.”
