Both Apple and Microsoft nabbed top honors and best in class innovative awards for Brand Experience and Activation, a new category at Cannes Lions. Apple won the Big Lion for "Today at Apple" program that is bringing education experiences to Apple's 500 stores, and teaching Apple consumers how to use products.

Apple won a Grand Prix award in Entertainment Lions for Music for "Welcome Home," the stunning HomePod spot featuring singer FKA Twigs, directed by Spike Jones and created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab. The short film is very complex to shoot, but presented in a visually stunning way with the singer just saying one word to the HomePod and transforming her whole world.

As Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior VP for retail, spoke in a Cannes talk prior to the award ceremony.

“[Today at Apple] can have a big impact on the role these stores play in the community. It has to serve a bigger service than just selling.”

— Angela Arendt, VP of Apple Retail

Experiential design is essential for commerce today when you can buy and order practically anything online. To go into a store physically, then demands an 'experience' and one that complements what consumers are looking for naturally and provides ways to learn and grow is exciting. Understanding the customer journey is vital to brand engagement and business success. Angela Ahrendt has previously revitalized the British iconic brand Burberry, bringing in technology and heralding a new wave of popularity among young consumers.

“Apple for decades was known as somebody who makes magical products. Now I feel they’re making magical experiences, and important experiences.”

— Rob Reilly, McCann

At a time when retail is dying, Apple is reinventing the store experience and making it meaningful and enjoyable for customers.

Nick Law, chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe Global, served as jury president of Creative E-Commerce this year.

“This is the engine of our industry. It’s also a battleground for the new economy. If people don’t figure out their strategy for e-commerce, they won’t have a brand or business.”

— Nick Law, Publicis

Xbox Design Lab's "Fanchise Model" Campaign with McCann

Xbox Design Lab came up with a fun way to encourage gamers to create their own unique controllers by rewarding them with perks. These fan-created designs are rewarded based on the sales of their controllers, and are featured in Xbox marketing campaigns worldwide. Gamers are invited to create and claim their unique popular designs.

Cannes Lions is running now through June 22, 2018.

Here's Part 2 of our WWDC coverage. You can read Part 1 here.

Reviewed in Part 2

Security measures to stop retargeting and fingerprinting
Faster CPU performance
Siri improves and interacts with third-party media apps like Spotify
Dolby Atmos
WatchOS becomes more social
Mojave Stacks and more features
Health App AP opens up to developers

Security Measures to Stop Retargeting and Fingerprinting

iOS 12 and Mojave bring new security measures that we like such as the ability to restrict fingerprinting - a process by which data companies track individual users and their Internet histories, patterns and consumption. Coming off the heels of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Apple has clearly emphasized privacy with a new Safari feature that blocks tracking sites like Facebook’s Like and Comment feature and comment fields without your explicit permission.

Apple only only websites a simplified system configuration to prevent fingerprinting, a sneaky way that advertisers and hackers use to identify and fingerprint your device for advertisements or steal your confidential data.

macOS Mojave also has enhanced security and privacy, making it easier for you to create more unique, stronger passwords and also protect and limit app access to your camera, microphone, mail database, message history, Safari data, iTunes device backups, locations, system cookie and Time Machine backups.

Faster CPU Performance

Apple has double downed on performance, increasing CPU performance for multitasking and using power-intensive apps. Apps on the iPhone 6s Plus launch up to 40 percent faster, with up to 50 percent faster keyboard display, and a 70 percent faster shift to the camera. The increased CPU performance is visible on older models as well as newer ones.

Siri Improves and Interacts with third-party Media Apps like Spotify

Apple has opened the door to compatibility with third-party streaming services in Siri. Siri can control playback in apps like Spotify. Apple also demonstrated using Siri in a variety of situations at WWDC with an event-filled day for travel such as booking a flight, playing music, ordering food, responding to a Message and a variety of shortcuts for common tasks.

Dolby Atmos

Dolby Atmos is coming to Apple TV 4k on all supported movies, TV shows and music videos for free with tvOS12. You will also be able to automatically log into your streaming account with a new "Zero Sign-On" feature that simplifies the previously cumbersome cable authentication process. Apple TV will detect your broadband network and automatically sign you into all your supported app that you have with your cable subscription.

There are also some nice new aerial screensavers with images from the International Space Station. Apple TV has also more improvements such as AutoFill passwords from the iPhone and an Apple TV Remote that is automatically added to the Control Center on the iPhone or iPad. Apple TV support is also available on Home control systems like Control4, Crestron, and Savant.

WatchOS becomes more Social

With watchOS5, Apple has improved workout capabilities and ways to connect with others and socialize. There's a a new Walkie Talkie app that merges real-time voice conversations with spontaneous messaging. For motivation, there is tracking and progress reports regularly as well as ways to compete with friends and family. New workout options such as Yoga and Hiking have been added. There's also an automatic workout detection works with Outdoor Run, Indoor Run, Outdoor Walk, Indoor Walk, Elliptical, Rower, Pool Swim, and Open Water Swim. You can also just raise your wrist to speak to Siri, instead of asking, "Hey Siri."

We are happy to see that podcasts are finally now on the Apple Watch via a Podcasts app that syncs with the Podcasts app on your iPhone.

Mojave's Stacks and More Features

Apple's latest desktop operating system, Mojave, has several neat features. Desktop Stacks organizes all your desktop files into piles arranged by type, date, or tag. There's a new Gallery View in the Finder, enabling you to preview files one after the other, rotate photos and edit files without leaving the Finder interface. QuickLook view now offers Markup, a way to make simple, quick edits to your files. You can even trim video and audio clips without ever opening an app using QuickLook.

The Preview Pane also now shows the full metadata for a file. This helps with managing media assets. Finally, in Keynote, there's a new tool which enables you to quickly sync up with your phone and add photos you just took, immediately into your working files. The ublic beta is now available at beta.apple.com.

Apple Opens Up Health App Data to Developers

Apple also released a day before WWDC a new Health App API enabling developers to access health data. This is a significant leap forward in terms of proactively managing medications, nutrition, conditions and diagnosed diseases. This allows patients to access information from 500 health institutions, hospitals and clinics on one iPhone easily. This will help patients get a broader, holistic view of their health. Learn more here. Health records data is encrypted nd protected with the consumer’s iPhone passcode. When consumers choose to share their health record data with trusted apps, the data flows directly from HealthKit to the third-party app and is not sent to Apple’s servers.

This allows sharing of data and tailoring apps for individual experiences with the user’s permission, based on the user’s unique health history for medications, planning nutrition, managing diseases and for medical research using the Research Kit app. We are excited to use this new feature in apps we build.

And a Few More Updates We Like...

Like prior Apple WWDC events, Apple only shared major highlights. There is too much to cover in the time allocated for every detail. We've listed a few more features and updates that Apple has brought in iOS 12 and Mojave that deserve a mention.

Smoother Animations

Apple announced that apps would launch faster. iOS 12 also has faster animations, making them smoother and avoiding prior odd experiences such as stuttering, frame rate drops or other aspects because of slow-loading animations.

iPhone X-like gestures on the iPad

This is a fabulous new feature for the iPad where Apple has brought some of the iPhone X's swipe gestures to the iPad. When you swipe down from the top right corner, you bring up Control Center, and a swipe from anywhere on the dock will bring you back to the home screen. This is also possibly a way to prepare for a future iPad Pro without a home button and employing Face ID.

Critical Alerts that can Bypass Do Not Disturb

iOS 12 offers new critical alerts that you can opt in as a user such as receiving urgent messages from health care providers even when you have Do Not Disturb activated.

Improved RAW Photo Support

Apple offers improved RAW photo support on iOS, making it easier to edit on iPad Pro. Some of these updates were available on the iPhone in iOS 11 but the latest update takes it further. Apple's iPhone X photography capabilities got a boost from the the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which ruled that Apple's iPhone X did provide studio photography capabilities despite complaints. The iPhone X uses a 50 mm focal lens, the most popular lens used in commercial studio photography and also offers a range of studio lighting options.

That wraps up our WWDC coverage for 2018! You can download the public beta at beta.apple.com. Also check out prior post Part 1.

View coverage from last year.

Happy Fourth of July

Apple and Xbox both win Cannes Lions Experience Awards