With WWDC days away, I wanted to look at a few rumors surrounding iOS 15 and share a few features that might enhance each rumored experience.
Notification Categories
It’s rumored that iOS 15 will launch with the ability to set custom modes where your notifications will trigger or stay silent. Similar to silent mode, I want the ability to set a Morning and Afternoon mode. It would be very convenient if third-party apps were also enabled to create these modes, with user permission.
Imagine you’ve just started a movie on Netflix, or purchased a theater ticket through AMC. Either Siri, or the app itself, would ask you if you’d like to set a Watching Movie mode that triggers at the time the movie starts and concludes when the movie ends.
Health App Food Tracking
It’s rumored that Apple is incorporating food tracking into the Health app, but the method is currently unclear.
What I would love is a way to input any fast food meals I have, either automatically via Apple sharing information with third-party food apps, or manually. A simple interface, like the item selection menu on self-checkout kiosks in grocery stores, would give you the ability to quickly add any custom meals you cook yourself down to the seasoning you used to prepare it.
This would be another great way for Apple to use machine learning to notice patterns in foods you eat, allowing them to suggest you new restaurants and healthier alternatives to, or ingredients for, your own recipes, even target you with exercise routines based on the foods you consume.
Intelligent Reach
Apple is adding many new accessibility features to iOS 15, including one that gives the Apple Watch new functionality. Through its heart-rate sensor and motion sensors, the Apple Watch will interpret motions you make with your hand to control a cursor on your phone. The new feature will detect pinches and fist clenches. (This sounds like tech you could slim down into a bracelet and bundle with something VR-related.)
My hope is that Apple will add a feature where, if the Apple Watch detects your hand moving toward your iPhone, it will unlock and wake before you grab it. I wear my watch on my non-dominant hand, so I’m always picking up my phone with my right hand. I’d like to retain the ability to choose to read lock-screen notifications, then decide if I’d like to continue engaging with those notifications. I also want to be able to pick-up my phone and bypass the lock screen, being taken to the home screen for immediate use when picked up with the watch hand.
WWDC 2021
We’ll be able to find out how Apple is pushing forward when they reveal iOS 15 at their World Wide Developers Conference, which takes place June 7-11, starting at 10 a.m. PDT with Apple’s Keynote.
