We ’re now just a week away from Apple ’s Worldwide Developers Conference , which — in case you missed the many memoranda — will be held virtually for the first time in its 33 - year history . Last week , Appleannouncedthe schedule for the event , confirm that it will kick off with the traditional tonic on Monday , June 22nd .
So . startle your engines and let the speculation start out . What precisely will Apple be discussing in sound out keynote ? Which promulgation will they make ? What rumors will instantly dissipate into dust ?
Of course , my Magic 8 - Ball is only as skilful as any you’re able to get from a toy dog store , so I ca n’t tell you precisely what Apple ’s going to show off . But what I can tell you is what Iwantto see from the company . Here are a few of the thing that I ’m the most unrestrained to hear about when Tim Cook maltreat into a virtual keynote in just seven short days .
During the PowerPC to Intel switch, Apple had Rosetta to help developers with the transition.
ARMs up sleeves
Was there any incertitude that the rumoredARM transitionis at the top of that list ? Here ’s what I want to hear : that the fellowship is in the end quick to transition to its own custom - built processors , which will convey higher-ranking performance per James Watt , meaning both more powerfuland , more importantly , more vigour effective Macs . It ’s 2020 : time for a Mac laptop computer with all day electric battery spirit .
The item are where it get interesting . I imagine the top priority is for Apple to minimize gap to developer . The caller capably navigated transitions from 68k Motorola central processor to PowerPC and then PowerPC to Intel , and while neither of those moves were without their hiccups , on the whole , they were middling smooth .
I hope Apple bring its experience there to a likewise multiprong approach here . First , I hope ( and fully expect ) the party to say that porting most apps to the new architecture will be as round-eyed as re - compiling in Xcode .
During the PowerPC to Intel switch, Apple had Rosetta to help developers with the transition.
During the PowerPC to Intel switching , Apple had Rosetta to help developers with the transition .
Second , for the apps that may take more time and work to adapt to a fresh computer architecture , I ’d hope to see a technology standardized to the Rosetta interlingual rendition layer that helped ease the teddy to x86 , so that existing Mac apps compiled can flow on the new processors , even if that means a functioning reach . Such a technology would be a proxy , allowing users to keep lam critical software until the developer can make a version native to Apple ’s fresh architecture .
Finally , I ’m hopeful that developer will get some form of accession to Mac hardware using the novel processors . Many software program creators are going to want to try out their applications on real computer hardware before they actually go forrader and ship updates . Whether that hardware take the bod of a ho-hum beige boxful with usage internals that the fellowship offer to developers for a fee , or perhaps by letting developers install a version of macOS on an iPad Pro , I will certainly be fascinated to see . ( And if lets me muck about with a version of macOS on my own iPad , well , so much the better . )
Time for some major changes to the iOS Home screen, don’t you think?
Thirteen going on fourteen
Last year ’s iOS release was , to put it lightly , a bit of a mass . Bugs and other problem had many user leery of the update , so I ’d certainly wish to see iOS 14 swing back in the other direction and make stability a centering .
clip for some major modification to the iOS abode covert , do n’t you think ?
But I ’d also hope that Apple will deem it clip to ultimately rethink its approaching to some longstanding features that have begun to finger a bit see . For one , the Home screen . A grid of picture may have been acceptable back in 2007 when we we were all just trying to figure out how to use this amazing supercomputer that fit in our pocket , but after 13 years , I think we ’ve get the hang of plunge apps . Let ’s leverage Siri ’s Proactive news sport to surface stuff that we might ask right on the screen where we use stuff the most . Or at least offer widgets like iPadOS ( but effective ) .
Speaking of iPadOS , I hope for yet another thrust at multitasking . For me , it remains the biggest watery point of the tablet operating scheme . It ’s particular and simply too hard to order which side of a Split View is currently active , plus the multi - window app office introduced last year remains puzzling . This continue to be one place that the Mac and its windowing organization have a substantial leg up .
And , overall for fluid devices , I ’d badly like to see the companionship take a hard looking at at its autocorrect system in text , which seems to have grow more and more aggressive — and increasinglywrong — over the last several year . It ’s time for a definite re - tuning of how we type on our devices .
Dressing up Catalina
Like iOS 13 , macOS Catalina has had a rough year . novel security features prove well - import but burdensome , and combine with some bugginess , a not insignificant bit of user have held off update until they absolutely had to .
Whatever macOS 10.16 is codenamed , it certainly has its employment swerve out for it . While this might seem like a good opportunity for a “ Snow Leopard ” vogue performance release , there are a number of places where Apple ’s older platform has fallen behind iOS , and I ’d desire to see the troupe restore a fiddling bit of that parity .
Updates to the Music , Podcasts , and TV Mac apps would be nice .
Asmy confrere Jason Snell bring up recently , Messages is in dire motivation of an update to work it into line with its iOS twin . More recently , Apple added a Look Around Street View - like characteristic to Maps on iOS that the Mac version still lack . Likewise , the Music , TV , and Podcasts app , design with the first ( and somewhat rudimentary ) version of the Mac Catalyst engineering science , could all use update . And Photos on the Mac has never experience as powerful as on iOS — not to advert it urgently require stableness betterment .
Overall , the Mac seems most in want of culture this time around , though Apple will no doubt have some young shiny features to win over people to make the upgrade . But let ’s desire that , as with iOS 14 , stability is the name of the plot . What safe is a great newfangled feature article if you ca n’t rely on the political machine it ’s running on ?
