Insights From Apple's 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference

This year's Worldwide Developer Conference brings key updates on the status of web push notification support in Safari, lock screen changes, and other new features.

Safari Will Support Web Push Notifications

At this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC, Apple announced that support for Safari web push notifications is coming to iOS 16 sometime in 2023. Safari will use the standard W3C Push API that other non-iOS browsers —such as Chrome and Firefox— have implemented.

The switch to this standard W3C Push API is also coming to Safari 16 on macOS Ventura. Safari on macOS already supported push notifications, but this update will mean that more feature-rich web notifications can be shown.

A Note on Timeline: In 2022, Apple is releasing web push support for Safari 16 on desktops only. Apple will likely release web push support for mobile iOS devices sometime in 2023. (OneSignal will support both of these changes.)

A Note on Invisible Notifications: Safari won’t offer support for data push, silent or invisible notifications. This falls in line with other browsers.

Locked Screen Display Changes

Apple has also announced a change to how notifications display on lock screens on devices running iOS 16. Rather than appearing in the middle of the lock screen, notifications will roll up from the bottom of the screen. Apple implemented this change to provide more room for the lock screen widgets they are also deploying with iOS 16.

Notifications roll in from the bottom of the lock screen as they are received

New Live Activities Forecast

Live Activities are customized notifications that update in real-time. This feature will work with the new Live Activities API. These notifications will allow you to keep your users informed without disturbing them with frequent small updates delivered as individual notifications. The Live Activities API isn’t part of the first beta, but it will be available later this year.

Auto-updating notifications (AKA Live Activities)

Home Screen Widgets

iOS 16 also brings widgets to the home screen. Use WidgetKit to create widgets for the iPhone Lock Screen, as well as complications in watchOS.

Find more details on WidgetKit from Apple.

New App Intents Framework

WWDC also highlighted the new App Intents framework, which offers a programmatic way to make your app’s content and functionality available to system services like Siri and the Shortcuts app. This programmatic approach lets you expose all of your app’s capabilities, rather than limiting you to specific categories.

Read On About Updates From Google I/O 2022

Are you aware of the key updates announced at Google I/O 2o22? Read on to learn more: Highlights From Google I/O 2022

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