Apple has launched a privacy-conscious update to its Safari browser that prevents browser tracking by third parties. The update came as part of its new macOS release, High Sierra, announced at WWDC 2017 in San Jose today.

Apple WWDC 2017: all the highlights from Apple's developer conference Apple Apple WWDC 2017: all the highlights from Apple's developer conference


Like most of the announcements at Apple’s developer conference, including iOS 11, there was a key emphasis on machine learning integration - Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, described the changes to the macOS as “deep technologies that provide a powerful platform for future innovations”. It hasn't completely moved on from the previous macOS, Sierra, just rebooted it with deep tech.

Machine learning powers much of the OS and is responsible for the new “intelligent tracking prevention” in Safari.

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“When you go to buy something, suddenly everywhere you go on the web it follows you around,” said Federighi. “It kind of feels like you're being tracked - and that’s because you are.”


There are already plenty of options on the market for blocking third-party cookies using plugins. Alternatively, you can wipe your cookie history and change privacy settings on all the main browsers, and Safari already blocks third-party cookies by default. The difference now is that Safari will use machine learning to identify trackers, segregate the scripting data, and in Federighi’s words “put it away so your browsing history is your own”.

Federighi also claimed Safari, run on High Sierra, is now the fastest web browser in the world, running 80 per cent faster than Chrome in its own benchmarking test when running modern Javascript. Chrome is by far the most widely used browser in the world, gaining around 54 per cent of the market share according to some analysts, versus Safari’s 14 per cent. The updated Safari browser also includes a handy block on autoplay.

High Sierra is released to developers in beta today and in public beta later this month. The free upgrade will be available on all compatible devices in autumn.

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Other updates include:


Graphics

Graphics improvements were key to both the hardware and software announcements at WWDC, with a new iMac line promising faster processing that would suit anyone creating virtual reality content. The 27-inch iMac, for instance, now comes with 5.5 teraflops of processing power. John Knoll, chief creative officer and visual effects supervisor of Industrial Light and Magic, came on stage to show off the results of creating VR games using the device and software.

The Metal API has had an upgrade with the release today of Metal 2 and an accompanying developer kit. It will provide support for external graphics units via a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, but the most exciting part - and another key theme of the evening - was the support for VR content, via a new partnership with SteamVR, Unreal 4 engine and Unity.

“It provides better debugging and performance analysis tools - we’ve taken the Mac window server and put it on Metal,” said Federighi. “We are doubling down on pro content creation in VR.”

Photos

A persistent sidebar will be included, with a new view where all imports are visible in chronological order. That view can be filtered by keywords or favourites. It will recognise ‘far more faces’ - again, due to new machine learning integrations - and once these are assigned the categorisation will be synced across all devices. There are a few new updates to its editing tools, and Apple is also launching new collaborations with third parties for printing photos or integrating them in websites (partners include White Wall, Wix and Shutter Fly).


Video

HEVC will replace the former H264 video standard resulting, Apple said, in savings of up to 40 per cent better compression.

Mail

The Mail app gets a simple boost with tools like Spotlight search which can be used to identify your “top hits”, split view for composing new messages, and the app will use 35 per cent less disk space than its predecessor.

Data

The old default file system has been replaced with the Apple File System, which is already run on iOS and tvOS. It has built-in crash protection, instant file and directory cloning.