*By Alisha Haridasani*
Apple unveiled one of its first built-in AR apps for the iPhone on Monday when it introduced updated AR software and operating systems at its annual developers conference.
The changes included in the iOS 12 operating system aim to streamline the user experience and indicate the company's priorities for the year ahead, which will focus on software that makes existing products more essential, rather than introducing game-changing new hardware.
At the World Wide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Apple veered from tradition slightly and stuck only to software updates, said Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures.
“We went back and looked at the last 17 years, they’ve really never had a developers conference and it was entirely software related,” Munster said in an interview with Cheddar's Hope King.
Apple kicked things off by introducing a new AR file format ー .usdz ー that is compatible with creative software, like Adobe, and can easily be shared via email and text. The updated mobile operating system will also come with a tool, Measure, that lets a user measure the dimensions of objects through his or her device's camera, one of Apple's first native pushes into AR.
The company’s upgraded ARKit, the development platform for third party AR apps, will allow for Shared Experiences, a feature that will give Apple a boost in the AR gaming world.
“It may sound small but it’s a big deal in the AR world so they really moved that forward,” said Munster.
In addition to the AR fodder for the almost 6,000 assembled developers to nerd-out over, Apple also introduced new iOS updates designed to improve the way regular iPhone and iPad users interact with their Apple devices.
Munster said Apple was trying to hit hard the message, “that the user is always right.”
The most highly-anticipated reveal was Apple’s new tools to help users manage the amount of time they spend glued to their screens. The new Screen Time function in iOS 12 monitors how much time users spend with each app, how many times they pick up their phones, and which notifications catch their attention. It also lets users limit how much time they spend with a particular app, and will notify them when they near that threshold.
“Screen Time empowers you with both insight and control over how you spend your time,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
The updated operating system will also group notifications by app, topic, and thread, making them less overwhelming. “With a single swipe, you can triage a whole group of notifications away,” said Federighi.
Apple’s push to wean users off their devices, even just a little, is unusual for a company that makes most of its revenue from selling devices. But it seems to be the company's response to criticism of the potential addictiveness of its iPhones and iPads.
“I thought it was an amazing moment, a real milestone,” said [Arianna Huffington](https://cheddar.com/videos/arianna-huffington-on-apples-ground-breaking-moment-at-wwdc), founder of the Huffington Post and the new health and wellness start-up Thrive. “The world is recognizing that being always on, becoming increasingly addicted to our phones, and all these apps and social media, makes us less productive.”
Last month, Google also announced similar tools to help its products' users manage their digital habits.
Apple announced changes to its voice assistant, Siri, as competition with other voice assistants heats up, and the appeal of Apple’s robot has [dipped.](https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/siri-usage-and-engagement-dropped-since-last-year-as-alexa-and-cortana-grew/)
Siri Shortcuts allow users to integrate more third-party apps into the voice assistant’s ecosystem. This would allow a user to create a voice activated shortcut for "Heading Home," for example, that will automatically text someone the user's estimated time of arrival, play a podcast for the journey, and bring up traffic updates.
The iOS 12 operating system, which will be rolled out later this year, will also include group FaceTime chats for up to 32 people at a time and animated emojis that look like a user, also called "Memojis."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/gene-munster-apple-quietly-called-out-facebook-google-at-wwdc).
Bed Bath & Beyond delivered disappointing fiscal third-quarter results for 2022. Shares initially dove more than 9% in premarket trading on the news but finished the day up nearly 8%. Bed Bath & Beyond has been a meme-stock target for online investors in the past -- so was meme-stock mania a factor in the recent stock movement for the company? Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of the subreddit WallStreetBets, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell for more, as his forum helped spark the meme stock phenomena. He also discussed some decentralized finance services and trends for the retail investor to watch for in 2022.
Digital medical care provider Pear Therapeutics rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq Friday and President and CEO Dr. Corey McCann, joined Cheddar to talk about how the company plans to grow the business of software-based therapeutics and how the first FDA authorized prescription digital therapeutics company will go about treating illnesses like insomnia and addiction. "These really are pieces of software. In many cases, they're apps and in the cases of our addiction products, these are based on something called cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT," he said. "These products change the patient's brain circuitry to help them be abstinent, to help them stay in treatment, and that's exactly what we see in randomized clinical trials and that's what we see in the real world." He also addressed the ongoing mental health crises brought on by the pandemic. **copy updated to remove IPO information as Pear Therapeutics went public in December**
Gamestop shares were up on The Wall Street Journal report that the video game retail company plans to enter the NFT and crypto space. Adam Hollander, the founder of Hungry Wolves NFT, joined Cheddar to break down how it could be a lifeline for the struggling meme stock darling. "They're not resigning themselves to becoming the next Blockbuster story, and so while people may not be buying as many video games in a retail environment anymore, NFTs, in particular, people are starting to expect more gaming utility on the backend — at least for a variety of projects — and I personally think its a very smart move for them to do this," Hollander told Cheddar.
On Saturday, New York will join neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut in authorizing mobile sports betting. Matt Kalish, president and co-founder of Draftkings North America, joined Cheddar to talk about the landmark change that is estimated to rake in $500 million in annual tax revenue on a potential billion-dollar market. Kalish also addressed the possibility that legalized sports betting in the Empire State could cannibalize his company's revenues in the bordering states. "It's pretty inconvenient, you know, to go across the border to make a bet. And people were doing it, but I think it really stifled a lot of the opportunity," he said. "So while there's some of that going on, I think really a tremendous amount, like a giant percent, of New York will be very incremental."
Ben Armstrong, founder of Bitboy Crypto, joins Cheddar News to discuss Bitcoin's downward trend and what's next for crypto after protests in Kazakhstan cause crypto miners to shut down.
Jake Carbone, senior data analyst at InfluenceMap joins Cheddar News to talk about a new report by The Guardian and InfluenceMap that reveals how companies are creating fossil fuel ads designed to look like Google search results.
Satoshi Island is looking to become the world's first blockchain-driven economy. James Law, the chief architect of the planned private community, joined Cheddar to discuss the vision for the potential crypto capital of the world and how it will be brought to life. For people looking to live on the island, Law said they will be able to purchase land and homes and even design their own dwellings both in real life and via the metaverse. "Satoshi Island has already been digitally scanned. We have an absolute digital twin already in our metaverse," he said. Citizenship applications are expected to be launched via NFTs, he told Cheddar.
Satellite launch service Virgin Orbit has gone public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisitions with a valuation of about $3.2 billion. CEO Dan Hart joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" from in front of his LauncherOne rocket in New York City's Times Square to talk about what's next after the IPO, an upcoming "Above the Clouds" mission to deliver commercial and national security payloads, and the benefits of their rockets being launched from commercial 747 aircraft. "We can launch anywhere in the world," he said. "There are almost 80 space agencies across the world, for instance, and about 10 of them have space launch. We can give them a space flight capability overnight by taking a runway and turning it into a spaceport."
Tech and entertainment giant Sony appears to be getting serious about automaking. An electric concept SUV — the Vision S-02 — was unveiled at CES 2022 and is slated to be produced by a new subdivision, Sony Mobility. This comes after the company revealed the Vision S concept Sedan at CES 2020.
The highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 has forced school districts nationwide to return to virtual instruction, but there remain concerns about the quality of education students are receiving online. Andy Bird, CEO of Pearson, an education publisher and assessment service provider, joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to talk about steps educators and parents can take to make the remote learning experience an easier one, noting that one of the biggest advantages teachers can have is flexibility. "You cannot take a rigid timetable that works in the analog world and replicate that in the digital world. You need to have flexibility. Asynchronous learning, I think, is a very important part," he told Cheddar.
