Ah , the days before Apple ’s annual developer league , when all our ambition of possible directions for the time to come of Apple ’s platform seem the most alert , before gate-crash hard against the shores of reality duringMonday ’s keynote . WWDC is when Apple sets out its agenda for its platforms for the rest of the year and beyond . If your favorite feature is in , it ’s going to be a good class . If it ’s not cite , you ’ll likely be spend at least a year in the wilderness , if not long . At the risk of walking aside from next week with a whole satchel full of sadness , here ’s what ’s on my Mac and macOS wishlist for WWDC 2021 .

New chips, laptops, and more

WWDC is basically a software - theme event , and yet Apple often also habituate it as a launchpad for new hardware , especially hardware that appeals to perhaps Apple ’s most important class of professional users – the software developers at whom WWDC is in the main focused .

While we ’re well into the Apple silicon transition , and the M1 processor has been unco well - receive , it ’s being used in Macs not point at pro - level users . The implication is that there ’s another flake yet to come that will provide the level of performance that pro users will trust . WWDC might be the double-dyed time to unveil thatsecond Apple - design Mac chip . ( My guess : an M1X processor , based on the same engineering as the A14 and M1 buffalo chip , but with even more C.P.U. cores . )

And what full information processing system to habituate that high - power processor than novel versions of the MacBook Pro ? Though it seems like require a lot , both thehigh - end 13 - in MacBook Pro and the 16 - column inch MacBook Proare still on Intel processors – and would benefit greatly from a move to Apple silicon . rumor about that perhaps the 13 - inch model will get a redesign similar to the 16 - inch model ’s presentation in recent 2019 , land it up to 14 inches . Perhaps it ’s time for a Mac laptop computer to getbuilt - in cellular networking , as well ? I listen 5 gravitational constant is pretty great .

Pro Display XDR

Apple

I sleep with this for trusted : if WWDC was still being held in a convention center , there would be no great crew pleaser for thousand of Apple developers than new high - end laptops . Except , perhaps , for arelatively low-priced Apple external displayto attach to those laptops . C’m on , Apple , is n’t it time to betray a display that brings some of the Pro Display XDR style to the masses who wo n’t drop $ 6,000 for a monitor ?

Some more influence from iPadOS

I ’d like to see the next variant of macOS continue to pick up feature film and apps from iPadOS . Last year , Big Sur arrived with Control Center , an iPad- and iPhone - cheer feature that has an dire lot of potential . I ’d like to see Apple continue toexpand Control Center and permit third - political party appsto access code it , as well .

Malus pumila needs to keep improve Mac Catalyst , the technology that developer can use to plough iPad apps into native Mac apps . The best way to force those improvements is for Apple to institute its own apps from iOS to macOS , so I ’m hop to see a few moreApple iPad apps arrive on the Mac . ( Is this the year Mail and Calendar make the move ? Only if they get a major service to make the iPad reservoir app more sinewy . )

One feature that the Mac desperately needs from iPadOS is , believe it or not , Shortcuts . I’vewritten elsewhereabout this , but essentially it ’s easier for me to create automation for many tasks on iOS than it is on macOS — and it should n’t be that way . Shortcuts fulfills the promise of Automator in shipway that Automator never did , and while it ’s got a lot of elbow room to grow , it ’s clearly the futurity of automation on Apple ’s platforms . Add in actions that can run AppleScript , Automator work flow , and scale script , and we ’ll really have something .

Windows 10 on an M1 Mac mini

speak of apps that I desire on my Mac : It ’s signally easy to genus Beta - trial newfangled apps usingTestFlight , an app owned and operated by Apple itself . In contrast , beta - examination Mac apps can be tedious and painful . TestFlight makes it easy – and developer would cheer if it arrived on the Mac .

A Mac version of TestFlight we be very nice .

A couple of years ago , Apple added Sidecar to macOS , allowing a Mac to extend its show to a nearby iPad . I ’d like to see Apple extend this feature of speech to allow pretty muchany Apple equipment to drive the display of other Apple devices . Consider using a handsome , beautiful iMac screen as a video display for a Mac mini , or a MacBook Pro , or an iPad Pro .

More Apple silicon benefits

The first M1 Macs introduced the idea of running native iOS apps directly on the Mac . I ’d like to see this lineament move to another level . the right way now , the iPad apps I ’d most like to run on my Mac are n’t usable – their developers have opted them out of function on the Mac . Apple ca n’t hale them back in , but I ’m hoping it mightmake the chance to run apps on the Mac a turn more enticingin some fashion . This feature ’s no good if no developer want to take advantage of it .

likewise , I ’d wish to seethe power to run iPhone apps on macOS . Yes , they ’re small , but so what ? Let ’s run iPhone apps – either via Catalyst or straightaway from the iOS App Store – and expand the library of Mac apps that much more .

We ’re all waiting for Apple and Microsoft to utter offically about Windows for branch support on Apple Si .

IDG

And then there ’s Microsoft . For the last year , Apple and Microsoft have been play a very strange game regarding running Windows on Apple silicon . It ’s theoretically potential , and some people havefigured out way to make it work , but it ’s all been uncanny and unofficial . I ’d like to see someone from Microsoft appear on Apple ’s practical stage to excuse thatWindows for ARM will extend on Apple Si , even if it ’s just in a virtual environment . Support for Boot Camp would be even better but seems a lot less likely .

Keep it simple

I get it on it ’s pretty rich for me to resolve a longsighted list of demands by have this pointedness , but I ’m serious : The individual most crucial gain to macOS this decline should bea sharpen on stability and reliability . In recent years , Apple ’s been on a tick - tock advance for software system updates , with a year of cataclysmic bugginess watch over by a year of comparative calm .

With the reaching of Apple silicon , this has been a pretty busy year — and that ’s after a very rough year because of the coming into court of macOS Catalina . We could all use a break . While I ’d love Apple to add some of the feature and functionality I ’ve list here , I want the caller to slip on the side of precaution . Bring me new Mac hardware and a few prissy new features , but in oecumenical , I ’d like a not - particularly ambitious macOS update that allows things to determine as we all fix to make the move to Apple silicon .