What to Expect at WWDC 2020: New iMac, Custom Arm-Based Chip Unveiling, iOS 14, macOS 10.16, and More

[cmaier]

I just bought a 16 inch MBP. What's the main difference between Arm and Intel processors? I'm completely ignorant when it comes to that. I will be pretty bummed if they release a new 16 inch MBP with them and it's significantly more powerful than the one I just bought though.

Arm will be faster with longer battery life. There will be new functionality like better video processing and artificial intelligence features. Existing iOS apps may be able to run as-is in windows on arm machines (there are beginning to be technical clues that Apple has that in mind based on things people are seeing).

 

[matram]

The ISA for one, CISC vs RISC

This is technically correct but nothing an enduser will directly see.

I guess short term we will see better performance and lower power consumption especially for the smaller systems like the Air. Maybe a fanless air.

Long term Apple will be able to better integrate HW and SW with the possibility for more dedicated silicon like the current T2 chip.

 

[Lepton]

When dictating, I want a verbal command to end the dictation. currently you have to use the screen. In Music, support landscape, because that gives you stereo music in the speakers.

 

[garylapointe]

Is that a Retina 4k or 5k rear-facing design?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I really hope the ARM Mac rumor proves to be false. I'm going to miss being able to run all kinds of x86 VMs on my Mac and it's going to suck to need a second computer for that.

I think you mean:
I'm going to miss buying a new computer and expecting to be able to run all kinds of x86 VMs on my Mac and it's going to suck to need a second computer for that.

Because,what happens on Monday will not affect your ability to run all kinds of VMs on the Mac you currently own.

 

[cmaier]

What I’d like to see:

• A stability pass for macOS, so I’d be willing to touch it with a ten foot pole. Call it “macOS Avalon”.
• Bug fixes for iOS. Tons of little things to fix.
• More refinements to cursor positioning on iOS - too often it’s too damn “helpful”, like being unwilling to let me drop the cursor in the middle of a word (“no, I know you touched the middle of this ten character word, but let me help you by putting the cursor at the beginning or end of the word”), ideally including the return of the magnifying glass (make it an accessibility toggle option) - too often the place I want to position the cursor is obscured under my finger - move the finger a little for a better look and the cursor moves to another line. Or it jumps a little bit when you let go, necessitating starting over. Often I just give up and select and retype the entire word, because it ends up being less work than fighting the text input system to fix one wrong letter in the middle of a word.
• Also the text selection code can be damnably perverse at times, “helpfully” extending selections beyond what you were trying to select, and then refusing to select less. Particularly offensive is a behavior where double tapping to select a word will select more than one word, rendering a fundamental capability completely useless. Also, I want a gesture, and an iPad keyboard button (next to undo/redo/paste) for “Select All”.
• Related, I’d like text transformations in the context menu you get when text is selected - things like converting the selection to uppercase, lowercase, or title case. Ideally with an API for user-added transformations. I’d write a bunch of transformations for myself (like sorting lines of text in the range in various ways, looking up included URLs and adding their titles in markdown format, etc.)
• Some sort of support for widgets on the home screen would be nice. Think in terms of keeping the grid, but having an option to enable specific apps to have actively drawn icons, that could be resized to cover 1x2, or 1x3, or 2x2 (etc) normal grid spaces, so they could display updating information. This would be something where the app would start out with the usual 1x1 static icon when installed, and then it’d prompt you to allow it to show you a (possible larger) active icon, and you’d grant it permission just the same way you grant permissions for camera use or push notifications.
• An official and well-supported WeatherKit API for DarkSky, now that they’ve bought it. It had a lovely RESTful JSON interface before. I’d settle for something that gave the same data, but via a Swift API.
• Huge improvements to Siri, so that she can more completely understand sentence structure, and so that she can remember context from one sentence to the next, so we can carry on a rudimentary conversation. As well as some meta syntax - for instance, I want an editing mode, so if Siri is steadfastly misunderstanding, say, a restaurant name, I can say, “let me spell that for you” and then proceed to spell the name.
• I’d like to see AirTags released. If they’re as cute as the Mentos renders, I’d buy a couple to play with. They seem like they’d be fantastically useful for people prone to losing things.
• An Apple TV refresh. Make it even faster and more capable.
• Give me an updated AppleTV remote with the same control layout, but a more ergonomic chassis, so don’t have to put it in an ill-fitting third-party case to make it sufficiently easy to hold and orient in the hand. Hell, they could keep the remote the same if they sold a fantastic first-party case for it that made it more grippy and rounder (like the long since discontinued Griffin SurvivorPlay case, but up to Apple’s high standards).
• HomePod Home Theater. Make a HomePod center channel speaker, or HomePod SoundBar, and, ideally some HomePod Mini speakers that can be used for surround channels (bonus points if they have upwards firing drivers for Atmos). Make them have a very good persistent connection to the Apple TV, or, ideally, an HDMI connection that supports HDMI-ARC (like Sonos does), so any sound that your TV gets from other sources (broadcast, cable box, BluRay, game console) comes automatically through the HomePod Home Theater.
• Heck, maybe combine HomePod Home Theater (whether center channel or sound bar format) with an (updated more powerful) Apple TV, so that the single HDMI connection can send the built-in Apple TV’s content to your TV, and channel all TV sound to/through the HomePod Home Theater. As well as doing all the other HomePod things.
• Release an ARM Mac Developer’s kit. I think Gruber is right and this won’t be a consumer-facing machine, it’ll be for developers only (when they transitioned to Intel, the developer machines were intentionally boring and leased, not sold). I suspect that eventually - not right away, but once they get portable power use and sleep/wake completely fleshed out (lest people start predicting performance of consumer ARM laptops from this) - they may make it possible (for developers only) to run macOS ARM on an iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard.
• I’d like to see a WatchFaceKit for watchOS. I’m not sure if I’d buy any third party faces, but I’d like to write a few for my own use.

I’d like to see some user-interface consistency in macOS, particularly with built-in apps that are using catalyst. As part of that, catalyst should make it a lot easier to make mac apps that conform to macOS HIG and standard macOS behaviors.

I’d also like them to fix the damned bug where network shares that you’ve connected to cannot be connected to again unless you restart finder, connect to them by IP, or re-connect to them by using smb://<full network name>

 

[Falhófnir]

Is that a Retina 4k or 5k rear-facing design?

5k, you can just about see the RAM door through the power cord cutout in the stand which doesn't exist on the 4k.

 

[Neepman]

A new buggy OS every 12 months ....said no one ever.
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Let's hope Apple is going to focus back on quality.

My latest Apple products, both hardware and software, were a disgrace.

Disgrace might be a bit harsh. But your point is well taken. Apple is getting closer and closer to pretty much a subscription model with hardware that effectively terms out in 1200 days...if that. And you better rent a terrabyte on iCloud because now any hardware failure takes all or your data along with it.

 

[cmaier]

A new buggy OS every 12 months ....said no one ever.
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Disgrace might be a bit harsh. But your point is well taken. Apple is getting closer and closer to pretty much a subscription model with hardware that effectively terms out in 1200 days...if that. And you better rent a terrabyte on iCloud because now any hardware failure takes all or your data along with it.

Or just back up to a NAS or external hard drive using Time Machine?

(You seem to be assuming that a hardware failure is more likely than an SSD or drive failure, which is not a very safe assumption)

 

[Zdigital2015]

AMD doesn’t even make processors that would work in Apple’s entire line-up. And if they did, a year from now when AMD inevitably ****s up, Apple would have to switch back to Intel.

The cracks are already forming in their carefully cultivated facade. Small, hairline cracks of missed dates and pushing back releases...still just whispers and rumors, but persistent. The absolutely glacial pace of GPU (RDNA 1 & 2) releases doesn’t help either. Walking and chewing gum just doesn’t seem to be their strength.

It will be interesting to see if this rumor proves to be true - https://wccftech.com/intel-tiger-la...amd-renoir-ryzen-7-4700u-cpu-3dmark-time-spy/

 

[Johnny907]

ARM cpu from apple will blow intel out of the water ... looking forward to ARM

Apple will make most powerful machines with having full control over
- OS
- hardware

Profit margins. Full control over profit margins is what you meant to say.
Also: anyone who knows anything about how CISC vs RISC processors really work knows your statement Apple “blowing intel out of the water” is nonsense.

 

[redneckitengineer]

Ive been on the fence about switching out of Apple phones. This keynote will probably answer the questions I have.

 

[ndfan77]

This is technically correct but nothing an enduser will directly see.

I guess short term we will see better performance and lower power consumption especially for the smaller systems like the Air. Maybe a fanless air.

Long term Apple will be able to better integrate HW and SW with the possibility for more dedicated silicon like the current T2 chip.

And disenfranchise everyone that needs x86 for VM's and high-end performance (think x-plane)? Brilliant....!

 

[topdrawer]

I expect more restrictions on app distribution outside of the mac app store.

 

[ndfan77]

If you have ”heavy dependencies” on x86 and you are using an Air, you may want to make better life choices.

The (mostly cynical) suggestion was to throw the MBA users under the (ARM) bus, since they're probably more sensitive to battery life and not as likely to be running Windows and Linux VM's in Parallels (which of course needs a strong x86 CPU).

My MBP is a 2018 15" Core-i9 with 32GB, which was a pretty expensive life choice! I'd (very much) like my next MBP (in a couple years) to be a 16" Core-i9 with 64GB to 128GB of memory (and if they'd really like to make some of us happy, drop the useless touch bar!).

 

[albebaubles]

How much time are they going to spend on AR that 1% of their base uses?

This comment will not age well.

 

[Zdigital2015]

And disenfranchise everyone that needs x86 for VM's and high-end performance (think x-plane)? Brilliant....!

Staying tethered to Intel artificially for the duration to keep a tiny percentage rate of users happy is the definition of insane thinking. This isn’t knee jerk on Apple’s part. Intel has ****ed things up over the past 5 years, so much so that no company in its right mind with a chance to smash those shackles would willingly stay with such a piss poor partner. The Mac is the only product in Apple’s lineup that DOESN'T use an Arm CPU. I’m sorry for the inconvenience it will cause you and others, but it’s time for Intel to go right into the bin.

 

[Mdracer]

This comment will not age well.

TBH, I love AR, however I see so much of the development burden falling on the 3rd party developers. It is still in its infancy and people still do not know what to do or expect from it. I feel as though it’s a dog chasing a car. It has no idea what to do once it’s gotten a hold of it.

 

[cmaier]

And disenfranchise everyone that needs x86 for VM's and high-end performance (think x-plane)? Brilliant....!

Yep. All two-dozen of those people will run to Dell.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

This comment will not age well.

Many comments in this thread won’t age past Monday!

 

[ian87w]

Am I the only one that thinks these "events" are not that big of a deal anymore?

Way back when, these events were fun, mainly because of Jobs. And also because everybody else just sucked at their keynotes (Sony with the CEO holding their device upside down, Samsung with the Michael Bay meltdown, etc). But nowadays, everybody have copied Apple style. Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, they're all doing the same format keynote. It's no longer unique in a sense.

Google did it right by cancelling I/O. Sure there's concerns for COVID-19, but the software is very mature at this point, that having an event just because there's some minor tweaks imo is really not worth it.

And lacking a keynote doesn't mean it's bad for a hardware release (if there's going to be one). I mean look at the iPhone SE 2020. Seems to be doing great on the market. iOS iPhone OS is mature already. Imo this "forced" yearly new releases is only making things worse (bugs, etc). With an old iPhone 6s also getting the update, maybe just remove the number altogether. That way, the engineers can focus more on stability and squashing bugs instead of being pressured to put in a new feature just so they can show something every year.

 

[martin2345uk]

Keeping everything crossed that iOS14 will finally let me choose a default email app... cmon Apple... CMON!!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Am I the only one that thinks these "events" are not that big of a deal anymore?

WWDC never really was that big of a deal except to the developers that need to understand where Apple’s headed. They would rarely drop or define new hardware, but even when they did, it wasn’t earth shattering.

I WILL concede that for some folks that have not followed a WWDC event before, it could be exciting to think of the technology and software they may see emerge and pore through the docs even if they’re NOT a developer. But after following 10 or more of these, they’d also start to feel that they’re not that big of a deal anymore.

 

[CarlJ]

Keeping everything crossed that iOS14 will finally let me choose a default email app... cmon Apple... CMON!!

The good news: you’ll be able to choose your default email app!
The bad news: your only choices will be Apple Mail and new Apple Mail Jr. for Kids!
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Yep. All two-dozen of those people will run to Dell.

Once you’re running a VM anyway, you could just have it running on a headless Intel box in the corner, and connect over the network. Arguably the bigger loss is not being able to use Boot Camp to run the latest PC games.

 

[nickgovier]

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