09 Jun 2024 - Tanner
Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) is tomorrow and I thought I would share my predictions and wishes before the event.
WWDC is an annual event put on by Apple for software developers. The first day normally features a 2 hour long keynote where Apple announces the next operating system for all their devices. They break down all the changes to a fairly detailed level so developers can start making changes to their apps to prepare. Sometimes new hardware is also announced, but the track record of that isn’t the most solid. Afterwords, a bunch of sessions and labs are opened up for people to be able to learn and practice with some of the new changes and ask questions about them to Apple employees.
I don’t have any crazy predictions for iOS. The biggest rumors that I agree with are being able to place icons anywhere on the home screen, which is long overdue. I also saw that Apple may improve app icon responsiveness to dark mode, which feels like a safe bet. I’m also 100% sure that something with “AI” will be released so they can jump on that bandwagon as well. I would like to have more access to the hardware, specially the radio antennas and the data associated. There’s a practice know as wardriving, which in the simplest form is just mapping all the wifi networks you can, just because you can. Apple doesn’t provide the info needed to do this, nor the controls. If they did, wardriving with an iphone could be possible.
Now that the new iPads are OLED, I believe an always-on display will finally come to the iPad! Other than that, I don’t think any other notable changes are going to happen, aside from some of the same stuff from iOS carrying over. My wild wish is that there would be either a better Playgrounds app or a “Xcode lite” that would be released to allow the iPad to be a bigger part of people’s workflows.
MacOS has been a bit strange as Apple seems to continue to blur the lines of what makes each operating system different. Overall, I suspect macOS will get some of the updates from iOS and not much else. The biggest thing I’m expecting is for Xcode to gain an on-device AI model for assistance in writing code and debugging. Not sure how helpful that will be, given that Apple’s developer documentation is sometimes seen as lackluster compared to their actual products.
I currently have a first-generation Apple Watch Ultra and enjoy it as it stands today. I wish Siri was better on the watch, but the Ultra 2 did improve that through adding hardware capabilities. I can’t recall what predictions others have made for the watch as I write this Sunday night, but I do wish the action button had more uses and that Siri could answer simple questions from the watch more often.
Widgets? Find My Device in the remote? Add more power and make it a console? I have the previous generation Apple TV before the remote change, and the latest Apple TV 4k, and both work fine for what they are. This is probably one of the only products that I simply turn on and use, so I haven’t ran into many “dang I wish I could…” situations.
Overall I’m fairly excited for the event! I always find the release of new operating systems (and maybe some hardware) to be important to follow. The things that are released by large companies have a trickle effect into other aspects of design and function for other companies as well.
I’m hopeful for some new hardware with the new M4 Pro/Max/Ultra and for a strange reason. Gaming. Recently a few studios have announced they’re bringing their games to the Mac, and releasing new hardware that’s even more powerful and portable could help shift the notion that “Macs aren’t for gaming.” Maybe it’s because I currently have a MacBook pro M1 Pro, but I really enjoy the portability of the device, along with the quite operation and performance. Imagine the high school grads of 2024 being able to buy one laptop that can take them through a day on campus while on battery, and then be able to get back to the dorm and play AAA games without an issue. Depending what’s announced, I may dig into that more.
Also I didn’t post anything last weekend as I took a vacation and tried to stay away from screens as much as I could and I was successful.
If I remember THIS will take you to my thoughts post-WWDC event…