1. iOS 14 introduces a ton of new features for your home screen. You can now place your most frequently used widgets, such as your calendar, weather or news alerts directly on your home screen so all the information you need is available at a glance.
"Even in quarantine, Craig's hair is beautiful." - Cody 
2. Another major iOS 14 update is the compact call alert. No more taking your phone hostage when a call comes in! Similarly, when you’re on a FaceTime call, you can now use picture in picture to continue viewing your call while looking at other apps on your phone. Need to check your calendar before committing to the next FaceTime call? You can now easily check that without ditching your video.
3. The Messages app also got some major updates. You can now use mentions to direct a message to a specific person in the group text, threads to respond to a specific message once the group chat has gone off on a tangent and even pin messages so you can always find your most important chats.
"Are Messages just Slack now?" - Marlee
4. While Memojis are certainly a lot of fun, they were somewhat limited in their options. Apple has now added age options so your Memoji doesn’t look exactly like your mom’s. You can even add a face mask to encourage healthy practices!
"Now my Memoji won't look like a child!" - Kyle 
5. For those who are looking for more environmentally-friendly transit options, Apple Maps now offers Cycling directions. This allows you to plan your cycling trip down to the level of elevation and street traffic. You can even use Maps to plan your trip with EV charging stations!
"One of my favorite features so far." - Andrew 
6. Apple introduced the Translate app, which allows you to have voice conversations across 11 different languages. You can even save favorite translations for easy access to important snippets! No time like the present to learn a different language.
7. Possibly the most useful update announced was App Clips. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you need a specific app but don’t want to download it, this solves that problem. Paying parking meters, renting scooters, viewing a product - these all can require app downloads. But with App Clips, you can simply view the information you need, without downloading the full app.
"That is incredibly smart." - Jai 
8. While we didn’t get a new version of AirPods, Apple did announce a few new tricks. You can now get a surround sound experience with just your AirPods Pro with a new feature called “spatial audio”. And moving between devices is now easier than ever with “auto-switching”.
9. Apple Watch also has some fun new features, including Sleep tracking, customizable (and sharable) watch faces and a hand washing timer. We also enjoyed the demonstration of the new featured workouts. Who’s up for a dance-off?
"They add Dance but refuse my request to add puppeteering." - Dan 
10. If you’re a fan of using your Apple Pencil with your iPad Pro, then good news, you’ll be able to do so much more with it now! You can now handwrite into any text field and it will read and understand the text. You can even copy and paste handwritten notes into a Pages doc and it will convert it into copy, in multiple languages!
11. The latest macOS has been dubbed “Big Sur” and it comes with some of Apple’s biggest design changes in 20 years.
"Just look at that corner radius." - Kris 
12. Last but not least, Apple announced that it will begin transitioning from Intel chips to Apple Silicon, returning to their roots of creating their own processors completely optimized for their devices. This transition will take up to two years.
"What, no Apple Car?" - Frank
To see all of the updates that were announced on Tuesday, previews for iOS 14, macOS Big Sur, iPadOS, and watchOS 7 are all available at Apple.com. There's A LOT to take in!
We hope you're as excited about Apple's new updates as we are. In the meantime, check out our previous round ups and stay tuned for updates of our own.
The Twelve: Apple Announcement Edition
