Apple unveils lock screens, multi-task features, and more at its Worldwide Developers Conference

Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley reports from the Apple WWDC on the new features and safe chargers the brand unveiled, as well as the EU's ruling on universal charging ports for mobile devices.

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: Apple making some major product announcements at its Worldwide Developers Conference this week. And according to Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley, the company is giving customers just what they asked for. Now, Dan Howley is here with us. Now, as an Android user, I'm going to try not to be a hater. So Dan, what can you tell us?

DAN HOWLEY: Well, that's right. Yeah, and as you know, I am user agnostic or operating system agnostic as much as I can be. So I totally understand the Android part of this. But for Apple users, iOS 16, iPadOS 16, Apple Watch, Watch OS 9, the Mac, they're all getting changes that you've been asking for a long time.

Apple has this history of essentially figuring out what people want down the line and then offering it to them. Not necessarily always listening to what people want, but that's changing this time around with iOS 16. In particular, you can see here, this is the new lock screen. The lock screen's been basically unchanged for some time. Now you're going to get the ability to finally customize it.

Oh, my God. What a change, right? I'm sure, as an Android user, Rachelle, you can do this already. But now Apple users will finally be able to do so. You'll be able to do things like add your fitness tracking. You can add the status of battery for, say, your AirPods or your Apple Watch, things along those lines, as well as those apps at the bottom of the screen that you're seeing. Those are live updates for apps, things like sports, your run, and even your Uber status. And it's all without having to unlock the phone. Those are big changes that people are looking for.

I think the most important for iOS and something that Android doesn't have yet is the ability to recall text messages and edit them. That really got a huge pop when it was announced at WWDC yesterday. That's going to be something that I think a lot of people are looking to, especially since we've been talking about forever how Twitter needs to add some kind of edit button. And Apple's beating them to the punch.

Outside of iOS, the iPad is now getting more useful with that iPadOS update. They're going to let you multitask a lot more now. You'll be able to do resizable windows, actually lay on top of each other, just like a laptop. And then on the left side of the screen, you'll have four other apps. Those will all run live at the same time.

So you'll be able to use them, regardless of whether or not they're that main window or not. This really does kind of push home the message that Apple still wants to make the MacBook a separate type of product, but wants the iPad, the iPad Pro's in particular, to be a lot more production-friendly. So you're going to be able to be as productive as you want on those.

And then as far as that Mac I was talking about, they announced a new M2 chip. But more importantly, I think, for a lot of users, they're finally bringing back that MagSafe charger. That's that charger that would just stick to the side of your computer, allow it to charge, and then, hey, I'm getting up from the table. I'm going to go grab a drink. I accidentally kick the cord, it comes out no problem.

Now you have the USB-C chargers that if you kick your cord by accident, well, you're going to kick your $1,000 laptop off the table and onto the floor. And there goes the screen. So they're bringing back the MagSafe charger, something that people really, really wanted. So, a lot of things that people have been asking for. And it's good to see that Apple's coming through with that.

SEANA SMITH: Well, Dan, speaking of chargers, over in the EU, the EU introducing a single charging standard as early as 2024. And this means that all mobile devices will be required to support the same type of charging port. You're out in Cupertino. What does that mean for Apple? Because you would think, Apple would be against something like this.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, they were very much against it. They kind of said to the EU that they were interested in speaking with stakeholders, basically corporate lingo for, we still don't like this, but I guess we'll try to work with you. The idea here is that it's, A, more consumer-friendly because you don't need to have eight million chargers. The USB-C is built so that you can use one charger for multiple devices, meaning you can charge your laptop, you can charge your smartphone.

You can do basically anything, connect an outside display, a secondary display, transfer your data, all with USB-C. So that's a really powerful kind of connection there. Lightning can't do that. That's what you have on your iPhone. Apple has already changed the iPad over to USB-C, the Mac over to USB-C.

So changing the iPhone over to USB-C just seems to make more sense, although it's also worth pointing out that they've really been pushing wireless charging for some time. So who knows? Maybe they could just eliminate the cable entirely and go for Bluetooth or some kind of high speed connection, Wi-Fi, to get the data and then just charge via wireless.