Apple on the road to artificial intelligence?

Augmented reality and artificial intelligence have so far been domains of specialists in the developer scene. Newly introduced tools should now allow developers of iOS apps to use these technologies somewhat for programming apps even without much specific know-how by providing prefabricated basic functions. In the case of the augmented reality framework ARKit, these are, for example, position recognition and the recognition of certain structures and objects.

Artificial intelligence learns to walk

For example, a technology called Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) allows Apple's ARKit software to very accurately track the position and movements of a device in a room without the need for calibration, Apple writes. ARKit can also recognize objects such as tables or the floor and place virtual objects on them and track them in turn.

Another development in the direction of artificial intelligence is called CoreML. This "few-line code" optimizes predefined machine-learning models "for various tasks". CoreML also supports app development. This includes not only text recognition or image analysis, but also the recognition and control of faces and objects. Last but not least, better and better APIs are available for speech interpretation.

Drone programming for kids

Swift Playgrounds, the learn-to-program app for iPad, is enhanced with new features that make learning to program robots, drones, and musical instruments possible. Swift Playgrounds is perfect for students and beginners to learn programming with Swift, Apple's powerful and intuitive programming language for building world-class apps.

Apple is working with leading manufacturers to make connecting Bluetooth-enabled robots in the Swift Playgrounds app as easy as possible. This also allows kids to program and control popular products like LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, Sphero SPRK +, Parrot drones and many more. The update to Swift Playgrounds 1.5 will be available as a free download from the App Store starting Monday, June 5.

LEGO promotes understanding of robotics

"More than one million kids and adults from around the world are already using Swift Playgrounds to learn the basics of programming with Swift in a fun and interactive way," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. "Now they can instantly see the lines of code they write and control their favorite robots right from Swift Playgrounds. It's an incredibly inspiring and powerful way to learn."

"Starting today, we're working with Apple to give even more people around the world the opportunity to learn programming," said Esben Stærk Jørgensen, president of LEGO Education. "We're combining the familiar LEGO bricks and our hands-on approach to learning through play in LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 with the powerful learning platform of Swift Playgrounds, so now anyone can program their LEGO MINDSTORMS creations in real Swift code."

With Swift Playgrounds, anyone can program and control these popular products with the app:

• LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 is for schools around the world. It makes it easy to understand programming by solving real-world problems as students develop and control their own LEGO robot characters, vehicles, machines or inventions. With Swift Playgrounds, kids can program, develop and control motors and sensors.
• Sphero SPRK +, a popular robotic sphere, rolls, spins, accelerates and changes its colors; sensors give feedback when Sphero hits an obstacle - all this can be controlled with Swift code.
• Parrot's drones such as Mambo, Airborne or Rolling Spider can take off, land, turn or perform various flight maneuvers such as flips with the help of the code programmed by the user.
• UBTECH's Jimu Robot MeeBot Kit lets kids program their buildable robot to walk, wave or dance.
• Dash by Wonder Workshop is an exciting hands-on learning robot suitable for students up to the end of elementary school, designed to teach the basics of programming, creative problem solving and computational thinking.
• Skoog is a tactile cube that allows all children - regardless of individual abilities - to have fun discovering, composing and playing music with Swift code.

More new settings and tools  

At the launch of the new iOS, Apple communicated in its usual grandiose manner - that iOS 11 represents "a giant leap" for the iPhone and even "a monumental leap" for the iPad. IT experts do not yet see this as a world leap. Most of them are content to list the announced new functions without hailing them in a big way. They concentrate on individual (ab)changes in the settings. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo are no longer listed in the Settings app on the iPad.

The new features for the iPad should bring significant changes for users. However, non-iPad users will not be blown away by them, because they bring functions to the Apple tablet that have been integrated into PCs for a while. For example, you can now easily see what is stored where on the tablet in a new file system. A more accessible, swipeable dock is supposed to allow easy multitasking and switching between apps.

In addition, objects such as photos can now be copied from one app to another via drag and drop. There are also some improvements for the use of the Apple Pencil on iPads with iOS 11. For example, it should be much easier to add notes to PDFs or screenshots. Forms can also be scanned automatically with Notes and then filled out with the Pencil.

Universal pay functions?

Other announced innovations for the iPhone include the possibility to directly transfer amounts to other users via Apple Pay and Messages, a redesigned App Store, a more "natural" voice for Siri and various new photo manipulation options now dominate the scene. In addition, Apple seems to allow the use of the NFC function in iPhones not only via Apple Pay, but also apps from third-party developers, as has been reported in the past few days.

This could be of particular interest to developers of mobile payment solutions - however, as always, it should be interpreted with reservations: While mainly German-language media report this as fact, the usually well-informed English-language sites like 'Engadget' or 'The Verge' are more cautious and report that Apple "might open" the feature.

www.apple.com