Hey Siri, What’s New at WWDC?
Last week Duo attended Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, known as WWDC, in sunny San Jose, California to learn about what’s new with Apple’s major annual OS upgrades and to consider what they mean for Duo and our customers once these updates ship to Apple customers later this fall. Check out what’s new in macOS Mojave, iOS 12, and watchOS 5.
The theme of this year’s WWDC was focused on improved performance and increased stability with a big focus on intelligence features, augmented reality and accessibility. We worked with Apple designers and engineers in the labs, attended countless sessions, and even met a handful of awesome Duo fans (who got some awesome swag!).
Duo at WWDC: Taylor McCaslin, Mobile Product Manager and Mike Brown, Lead iOS Engineer
Security Improvements
Below are some of the improvements that our team found interesting and that developers should take note of as they are considering how these new updates impact their applications in the Apple ecosystem:
General Platform Improvements
- Automatic Strong Passwords and Security Code AutoFill - password management workflows within the Apple ecosystem are about to get much more efficient and streamlined.
- Webkit Security Improvements - support for the latest web standards and improvements bringing new security technologies in Webkit
- Safari Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.0 - increased protections to block tracking users around the web and device fingerprinting.
- Beta Tester Public Links in App Store Connect (Formerly iTunes Connect) - support for the ability to invite users to join TestFlight beta builds of iOS and MacOS apps. We look forward to opening a public beta program for Duo Mobile later this year.
- Apple Business Manager - a new tool for enterprises to configure, deploy, and manage Apple devices.
- Restricted access to user content on macOS Mojave - further protections from applications accessing user data.
iOS-specific Improvements
- Official Depreciation of UIWebView in favor of WKWebView
- ASWebAuthenticationSession API - a new mechanism for creating SSO experiences between native apps and safari.
- Grouped Notifications
- Interactive Notifications - a new feature to make richer more interactive notifications that we will be considering for support in Duo Mobile to streamline Duo Push approval.
- iPhone X-like gestures on iPad - we love the iPhone X and it’s fluid gesture interface, we’re thrilled to see that consistency being brought to iPad.
You can learn more about what’s new on all of Apple’s platforms by checking out these “what’s new” developer pages: iOS 12, macOS 10.13 Mojave, watchOS 5, tvOS 12, Safari 12.
There were some other fantastic WWDC presentations that we really enjoyed watching, and recommend for your viewing:
- Designing Fluid Interfaces - Learn how to design gestures and animations that feel intuitive and natural and will make your app delightful.
- Better Apps Through Better Privacy - Learn how to apply privacy engineering techniques to your apps so you can build trust with users to unlock better experiences and engagement.
- Intentional Design - Learn key techniques for being intentional with your design by choosing appropriate metaphors, making extreme choices, and making every interaction feel more authentic and natural.
- Your Apps and the Future of macOS Security - Learn about new protections for user data, new capabilities with Developer ID, and how you can best secure your apps.
We are still digging into everything Apple announced at WWDC and will be considering how that will impact our product. I can say, however, that we will have support for iOS 12 in Duo Mobile on day one when it is released to the public later this fall. We will also be ensuring that our Mac Logon solution is compatible with macOS Mojave.
At Duo, we attend these industry developer focused events to learn what’s new and how it might impact our products and our customers. We investigate and explore these new technologies to consider how they might improve our product in the future and to ensure we’re bringing our customers the latest capabilities for greater security and better usability. Be sure to keep an eye on our blog for future announcements of support for these new technologies once they are released to consumers this fall.