Apple Announces Digital WWDC 2022 Event Taking Place June 6-10

[DeepIn2U]

Developer here. I’m glad they’re staying digital. The developer videos from the last 2 WWDCs are WAY easier to follow than the live presentations, where presenters are often nervous and Apple is compelled to fill an hour of time. The pre-recorded videos are sometimes 10 minutes and get right to the point. They’re great! What I want to see:

- Big improvements to iPadOS
- I want SwiftUI to be considered the top way to make apps. I‘m rebuilding all my personal apps in SwiftUI and it is immeasurably easier to maintain and update these apps.
- Maps, maps, maps! It’s the 10th anniversary of Apple Maps and I’m hoping for some deep SwiftUI integration.
- Better SwiftUI integration with ALL Apple frameworks. This is already easier than UIKit, but there’s another level they can go.

For me it’s all about SwiftUI. It’s been the most welcome change in my development work and will allow me to make better apps moving forward.

Easier to follow, as in how?

Too many presenters with overlapping titles.
Presenters are TOO overzealous : knee bouncing, side stepping in pump heels (‘breath-taking performance’) is over doing it a LOT and in pumps not really family ideal but whatever. Seems like EVER presenter beyond Ternus and Federighi are trying TOO hard to mimic Tim Cook (knee bouncing, leaning, side stepping, overshooting their voice, etc). Everybody is AFRAID to be original, themselves!

The sudden bounces from presenter to product to section is still a bit too sharp, nothing smoothly blends like their product announcement video shorts. I’d still like to have a live presentation, were verbal mistakes can happen and funny if they do.

Honestly I’d rather see the nervousness, the slight mistakes and recovery, and the support from colleagues that’s there - reminding us all ‘we’re HUMAN’ and not some puppet that has to mimic the CEO for a presentation. The one thing of live presentations I do NOT miss:

The annoying and lame cheerleader cheers and woo-woos and whistles from front row employees and early developer greats of the App Store. That was getting lame to the point that even Samsung, etc have begun copying that - so I’m glad Apple doesn‘t have that anymore. I never understood why the developer for Smule was always shown for years in the audience for a few WWDC‘s when no new app from him was released (As an example of cheerleading).

 

[LonestarOne]

They can stream the live event like they always have for the past decade.

These overproduced pre recorded "events" with thousand different presenters feel completely unnecessary. Just give us a press release instead.

If you don’t like it, you can simply not watch, just as you always could have for the past decade.

 

[Pilot Jones]

I created a shortcut that, when tapped, pops up the battery percentage as a notification...

That's awesome! Would you mind sharing it with us?

 

[anshuvorty]

That's awesome! Would you mind sharing it with us?

It's such a simple shortcut though, even you can create it. Anyways, here it is: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/8b2aedc49a514640b256ed61f2698181

 

[iPadified]

… plus the fact that the Digital WWDC events are:
•free, not $1600+ hotels, travel expenses, food
• unlimited worldwide attendance, instead of being capped around 5000 attendees who can travel to or live in the US

Plus, for Apple, they can get as many of their people to participate virtually, instead of trying to stuff A certain amount of them into a convention center.
For both Apple and the developers, who this entire event is for, there are way more benefits to the digital events than there are drawbacks.

Outreach is essential. Costs and actual physical rooms are limiting attendance and hence the outreach of Apple ecosystem. Hybrid events are possible but very demanding. Thanks to corona, we have learned to travel virtually. About time too, I would say.

 

[jackietreeh0rn]

Now to wait for what Gurman says will be part of iOS 16.

 

[richest]

Is Gurman still predicting a new 27 in. Mac for this event?

Its getting close and he should have a clue yes or no by now.

 

[BvizioN]

Tim Cook resigns , replaced by Scott forestall

Luckily, that will NEVER happen. Forestall is far from the next Jobs.

 

[RedWeasel]

Right, developers don’t want to even travel a few miles for work anymore. SO, of course they wouldn’t want to travel hundreds or thousands of miles for work.

And rightly so. Travel is one of the major causes or contributing factors of todays problems. Climate change, pandemics etc.

Travel should be avoided as much as possible.

 

[RedWeasel]

I'm sure they're looking into going back to in-live events as soon as possible, since journalists can be there and directly report what's happening, also getting first look at things.

It’s s developer conference. No real need for journalists there.

 

[Steve121178]

Can't wait to see what Apple has been cooking

Lets hope it's nothing half baked like the last 6 or 7 years...

 

[svish]

Excited to hear more about the new versions of software. Wonder what changes will be present in iPadOS.

 

[Rychiar]

Because they're not stupid. They're one of if not the most valuable company in the world. Covid isn't over, the lockdown is. While they're busy being smart and reigning at the top, selfish randoms that only care about themselves are busy saying things like "Covid is over, why are they still doing this?" Lucky for us, better people are in charge.

How is it selfish to go back to living, every other business has been back to work for a year or more and concerts and sporting events still happen every day . Welcome to reality ??‍♂️

 

[Orange Bat]

Easier to follow, as in how?

I’m specifically talking about videos for developers, not the big keynote hardware announcements. Developers rely on WWDC videos to make apps and understand the new technologies. Pre-recorded videos have fewer distractions and tend to be easier to follow along with, IMO.

 

[Orange Bat]

Can you elaborate with an example? I'm curious about this because managing state is a crucial part of an app but every time I look at a SwiftUI video from Apple regarding passing data I get confused about how that is better than having things separated e.g. like VIP does (view, interaction, presenter).

Sure, SwiftUI does a lot of the heavy lifting but sometimes that can lead to obscure bugs where you expect the framework to do A and it does B.

I have an app that has a variable that is used by every single view. I have 2 choices in how to manage this variable: as a singleton, or I can pass the variable back and forth between views. I use a singleton as it’s easier to maintain. But of course I have to make the singleton observable and create a protocol to publish changes to other views whenever a view changes the variable. It creates a mess of code and I have to remember exactly where the variable is used anytime I need to make changes.’

With SwifUI I declare the variable as an @Environment variable and just share it wherever I need to and views update when the variable updates. I haven’t run into any bugs and it works as advertised. I manage the variable in one place and that’s it. I make no observable and I don’t create my own delegates. SwiftUI is essentially doing the same thing my app did, but it’s all included.

However, I still can’t get completely away from UIKit. I still use it when I must, but so far it’s a bit easier to maintain and update than before.

 

[Paradoxally]

How is it selfish to go back to living, every other business has been back to work for a year or more and concerts and sporting events still happen every day . Welcome to reality ??‍♂️

Because concerts and sporting events are not the same without a live audience. The venues play a big role in acoustics, environment, energy, and a lot more. Artists and athletes live to entertain their audiences and that's where they make the big $.

For tech events like WWDC, that is not required. Apple makes profits from hardware, software and services sales. They are announcing major software releases, and you can easily pre-record that which is cheaper, can edit out mistakes, and the overall presentation is way more professional.

(Oh, and you also don't pay $1,600 for most concert or sports events - and that's just the event.)

 

[yegon]

I want a “randomise Home Screen” button on iPadOS 16 so I can automate the absolute disaster that happens when you dare to rotate the screen! All the fun of bad design without having to physically rotate the screen!

Apple figured this out years ago, for people who don’t use widgets (me!) let us have icon placement consistent in landscape and portrait. Widgets have caused such a regression in some areas.

 

[yossi]

Do you think we will ever see a massive overhaul of iOs GUI or is there really no where to go with that?

 

[Paradoxally]

Do you think we will ever see a massive overhaul of iOs GUI or is there really no where to go with that?

Ever? Yeah, we'll see one someday. Something like iOS 7 was vs iOS 6.

In the near future? I doubt it.

 

[dwaltwhit]

Fully. Agree. In a live setting, with an actual audience, there is a cyclical energy transfer happening that connects the messenger and the receiver to the point those roles are blurred. Everyone is feeding off each other. With pre-recorded, there is a sterile, disconnectedness that can be off-putting - even on a subconscious level. Whereas live events ushers in a bit of risk and excitement. There are small imperfections that resonate because life is imperfect. We're not robots. Well, most of us.

I've said it a few times around here over the years... One of the decisions that did the most damage to the brand (though likely resulted in way more sales, hence why the decision was made), was the day they killed the in-store queuing for new product launches. I think back to '07 and that almost mythical in-store iPhone launch... Those hours long lines, that energy and buzz, the community, the camaraderie - they were the soul of the company. The moment they removed those aspects, they became just another [at that time] computer company. I know there's no going back. But I do think there could be ways to facilitate that community vibe a bit more than they have of late. Community and camaraderie lost out to convenience and sales - which is too bad. Seems there's never been bigger need for community and camaraderie than today (hyperbole alert). ?

Sterile is the exact word! I agree with your summation of the launch day excitement. I don't think we can ever put the genie back in that bottle, but it really was a visual representation of the dedication people had to the brand.

 

[dwaltwhit]

Do you think we will ever see a massive overhaul of iOs GUI or is there really no where to go with that?

I think if/when the form factor changes drastically enough, it might. People have become to comfortable with it, so any drastic changes would be met with riots in the streets, or worse, a decline in sales.

 

[Solomani]

Are live conferences and live attendance conventions a thing of the past? A roadkill due to the COVID pandemic?

 

[MacNerd01]

Are live conferences and live attendance conventions a thing of the past? A roadkill due to the COVID pandemic?

I really hope not. WWDC as well as the apple events seem to lose their charm without a live audience. I enjoy seeing the presenters mess up and simply act like human beings as well, and that’s lost in the pre-recorded stuff.

 

[mikethemartian]

Because they're not stupid. They're one of if not the most valuable company in the world. Covid isn't over, the lockdown is. While they're busy being smart and reigning at the top, selfish randoms that only care about themselves are busy saying things like "Covid is over, why are they still doing this?" Lucky for us, better people are in charge.

But at the same time they are requiring their employees to come back to the office or was that changed again?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Sterile is the exact word! I agree with your summation of the launch day excitement. I don't think we can ever put the genie back in that bottle, but it really was a visual representation of the dedication people had to the brand.

In the later years, it was a visual representation of the scalping community, though. Those fights are not what Apple wants around their stores.