Apple wants to replace physical keys with an iPhone and the brand has announced a new feature at WWDC 2020 to make this possible. Digital keys are stored on your iPhone and can be used to unlock the car with just a single tap. Furthermore, you can share the key with your friends and family via iMessage.

Emily Schubert, Apple senior manager of car experience engineering, demonstrated how a driver can tap the door handle with their iPhone to unlock the sedan. To start the car, just keep the iPhone on the car’s charging pad and you’re good to go.

The technology leverages NFC (Near Field Communication) to interact with the car. The Wallet app is a safe haven for your keys and this is the same app where your Apple Card, as well as other tickets, are stored.

On the automobile side, BMW will be the first marque to introduce it to drivers. The digital key functionality shall feature first in the 2021 BMW 5 series this July. Apple said more cars that work with the system will come to the market next year. For electric cars, the tech giant is also working on its mapping application to show nearby charging points.

While Tesla owners will not be surprised by this announcement, it can bring a monumental change for many since it relies on existing technology and can support cars that are already on the road.

Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, said the tech giant is working on a standard with industry groups to realize a secure, “real” keyless experience by next year.

A lot of things happened during Apple’s WWDC 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Apple made this an online-only event.

There are a lot of announcements including the new iOS and iPadOS home screen widgets, macOS redesign, new watchOS features, and more. If you missed the chance to watch the whole 3-hour keynote, we made it shorter for you.

Watch our highlights video here.

At WWDC 2020, Apple confirmed that it’s moving away from Intel’s chipsets and will be replacing them with its own silicon. The company uses its proprietary processors on the iPhone and iPad. Now, even Mac will get the same treatment.

The company is ditching Intel’s traditional so-called x86 desktop chips for Apple’s own processors based on ARM designs. The latter is already found on mobile phones and hence, Apple also showed off macOS can now run iPhone apps without a glitch. This transition means that Apple is trying to bridge the gap between a mobile, tablet, and a laptop with a singular operating system.

Besides, the shift to Apple’s own ARM-based chips gives the firm even greater control over its hardware and software. This closed and tightly controlled infrastructure ensures maximum optimization. However, Apple’s new silicon isn’t a standard processor.

It promises very powerful machines that are drastically more efficient. This means it can deliver high performance without draining your battery in an instant. Furthermore, it could bring the option of having on-board data connectivity via cellular services.

While Microsoft has been trying to shift Windows to an ARM-based architecture, the results have been mixed. Apple, on the other hand, has already ported all its apps to the new ARM-based chips, including its professional apps such as Final Cut Pro. It also showed us a live snapshot of editing on Adobe Photoshop and confirmed that Office apps are also good to go.

Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs. The company has confirmed that it’ll take two years to completely switch to ARM-based chipsets. In the meanwhile, a few more Intel-powered Macs are in the pipeline.