There are three days left of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and already we have enough new hard and software to keep us busy for the next year or so.

The annual conference is used to showcase what Apple is prepping for its fans. This year? Wow. Just wow.

Although only available to us in “fall” – our Spring – iOS 11 will come packed with a whole lot of upgrades and new features that have long been called for.

From Gizmodo, a few you can expect:

Apple Maps

Finally, Apple is giving its Maps a little love, popping in speed limits, lane guidance warnings and 3D maps for various indoor buildings, like airports and malls.

Redesigned Control Center and Notification Center

Apple is streamlining its Control Center [sic], putting all of the options in a single screen including playback and AirPlay controls. The Notification Center and lock screen will also be merged into a single screen.

Siri Upgrades

If you’re in love with Siri, it’s getting better with improved translation skills, including English to Chinese, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. Siri will also attempt to learn, on a per device basis, what a user is interested in, or needs, based on their location, or information they’ve already asked for.

Files App

This is the big one:

After a decade of updates, Apple is finally giving iOS a dedicated File Manager app called Files—at least on the iPad. But it won’t be as robust as Finder is on OS X, as the iPad’s core file structure will still remain hidden to users. Files seem more useful as a central place to find or delete files when your device runs out of storage space.

But Files also has access to stuff you’ve stored on iCloud, and other online storage services including Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive, so you don’t need to hop from app to app to find a document you need.

And that’s just the software. In terms of hardware, Apple announced a new everything except, of course, for the next generation of iPhone.

There’s the HomePod (above) – a fabric-covered smart speaker controlled by Siri; new iPads – possible worthy replacements for a laptop; iMac Pro; new Macs and MacBooks; VR on Macs; watchOS 4; Apple TV; AR Kit.

You can read about each of them here – but we all know you’re just waiting for the iPhone. Soon, my dear, soon.

Digicape is on it.

[source:gizmodo&quartz]