Apple's big controversy

Yesterday Apple hosted its annual WWDC event – dub dub as the cool kids call it – to unveil all the new things they've been secretly working on.

But before that, we asked the Product Hunt community to share their predictions. Unfortunately we didn't see a Daft Punk AR helmet. Or a privacy-focused search engine to compete with Google. Also no wild 4 camera iPhone.

But, Tim Cook and team revealed a few exciting things:

iOS 13 now with dark mode (queue the applause).

macOS Catalina now with less iTunes (now you can stop using this).

iPadOS now with its own OS (best feature: multitasking).

watchOS 6 now with a dedicated App Store (and ways to stay fit)

New Mac Pro now starting at $5,999 (but it's powerful).

They also unveiled more Memoji customization, AirPods audio sharing, and better photo-sharing. But the most important and surprising announcement:



Apple is creating a privacy-focused identity layer for the future. Sign In with Apple comes a decade after Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Connect which has become the preferred login for millions of people and arguably their greatest innovation to date. 😯

It's given Facebook tremendous amounts of data, made it easy for users to bring their information (friends, likes, identity) with them across the web, and created lock-in among consumers and makers.

Of course this move from Apple has been in the works a long time as they've been laying the foundation for your digital identity. Memojis = Your digital avatar. Apple Pay = Your digital wallet. Contacts = Your digital (and “IRL”) friends.

We're excited to explore it at Product Hunt although us and many others have major concerns. According to Apple's updated App Store guidelines:

“Sign In with Apple will be available for beta testing this summer. It will be required as an option for users in apps that support third-party sign-in when it is commercially available later this year.”

Translation: Apps in the App Store that support Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other 3rd party logins will apparently be forced to integrate Sign In with Apple. That's very concerning and frankly a surprising bet from Apple as it and other big tech co's risk anti-trust regulation.

We'll see how it plays out. In the meantime, share your thoughts in the thread.

This is really cool: The Hustle just launched a new tool to discover up-and-coming trends in tech. They call it Trends, appropriately.

It's similar to a community favorite, Glimpse, which identifies and breaks down Google Trends data to understand why canned wine is rising and in popularity and why StockX is blowing up.