June 6 marks the start of Apple’s annual developer conference, WWDC. The week-long event kicks off with a keynote at 10:00 AM PST on Monday, featuring announcements of new software features across various Apple platforms.
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, WWDC will also have a significant audience. And there will be countless sessions throughout the week on programming APIs, Swift functions, and so on. But for most people around the world, announcements of new operating systems and hardware are the main attraction, and we’ll see some of them during Monday’s keynote.
It’s important to note that WWDC doesn’t typically focus on consumer product announcements. This is where Apple introduces developers to new technologies and tools.
There have been some exceptions over the years, and while new developer announcements have usually been about software, sometimes they have been about hardware as well.
Any new hardware will likely be Mac desktops or laptops, or new categories that Apple wants developers to start supporting.
So what exactly are we expecting? Let’s start with operating system updates.
iOS and iPadOS 16
As is usually the case in the past few years, we expect the next major release of iOS to be the star of the show at WWDC.
Last year we knew a bit about what to expect from iOS 15 even before it was announced, but there isn’t much to say right now. The best source we can lean on is a recent email newsletter from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who stated he was aware of some upcoming changes. He wrote that the iPhone could get an always-on lock screen like the Samsung Galaxy (or, of course, the Apple Watch). It will dim the display and limit the refresh rate to 1Hz to save battery life while still displaying important information.
Gurman also wrote that iOS 16 will feature updated Health and Messages apps, as well as general user experience improvements, but didn’t go into details. In another newsletter, Gurman wrote that Apple plans to update notifications in iOS and iPadOS.
As for the iPad, the Bloomberg report added to a bunch of recent claims that Apple will rethink multitasking on the iPad to try and make it more laptop-like. Presumably this includes Mac-like resizable windows in one form or another. That said, multitasking limitations weren’t the main reason we noted the iPad wasn’t ready for high performance in our recent iPadOS reviews. Rather, it’s all the little things, like controlling sound sources.
But Apple may address these issues in a new version of iPadOS as well. If Apple does, we’ll hear a lot about it next week.
macOS 13
Apple will definitely announce a new version of macOS at WWDC, but we don’t know much about the update. Once again, the best source we have is a newsletter from Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, which claims that Apple will overhaul the System Preferences panel in macOS to make it more like the one in iOS – more one step in a long series of changes that harmonize macOS more. close with iPhone software.
We’ll likely also see various updates and redesigns to built-in apps like Notes or Safari, as well as a few new accessibility features. Also, your guess is as good as ours, but we don’t expect it to be a particularly notable upgrade compared to some others.