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

[garylapointe]

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

Good catch!!!
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The very first front-facing iMac redesign since October of 2009.

"Front-facing" obviously applies to "redesign", not to "iMac". The iMac has had two redesigns since 2009, but neither noticeably changed its front-facing appearance. The first made it slimmer, and the second gave it a retina screen (granted, the latter changed its appearance, but only when on).

So, if the rumors are correct, this would indeed be the first redesign to the iMac's front-facing appearance in over a decade.

Obviously my "rear-facing" comment was meant to be humorous, but I honestly had NO idea what you were referring to.

That said, the options are limited. A display and a camera probably at the top. It's an iMac on a stand, there is only so much you can do (that's why it hasn't changed). I'd love a camera in the middle-ish so you're looking at who you might be talking to and at some point being bezel-less was going to happen (realistically, this probably only matters if you're trying fit it in a computer hutch).

If someone hasn't bought an iMac in the last 11 years because they were waiting for this, I'd be interested in why...

 

[SeattleMoose]

New Emojis incoming 🥳

 

[ZMacintosh]

hopefully this will be watchable or enjoyable as previous WWDC keynotes, have a feeling it may be a bit of an awkward pre-recorded compilation. aside from that, really looking forward to macOS receiving a better, improved, or just refreshed platform, Catalina is/was a joke.

 

[0924487]

For Airtag, I think Apple is not having hardware issues, but rather, legal issues. Maybe they gone through another round of the review and found a potential patent issue with Tile, etc. Everything else about Airtag is ready.

 

[cmaier]

For Airtag, I think Apple is not having hardware issues, but rather, legal issues. Maybe they gone through another round of the review and found a potential patent issue with Tile, etc. Everything else about Airtag is ready.

it would be highly unlikely that a company would search for patents before selling a product; if they know about a patent they are far more likely to be held liable for willful infringement, which can greatly increase the monetary payment they have to pay if they are found to infringe. And knowing about it doesn’t much help - they can think they don’t infringe, be wrong, and a court can decide they should have known better.

 

[Gerdi]

It might be possible to run an Arm version of linux, tho drivers might be a problem

Both ARM Linux and ARM Windows will run within a VM. Of course driver support is always an issue but the generic display, mouse/keyboard and network drivers typically work.

 

[avonord]

I had been waiting for a proper iMac redesign for 5 years. I'm still using my mid-2011 iMac, and it's killing me.

Anyways, wasn't the iMac leak substantiated by some kind of regulatory filing? And wasn't there only one new iMac model being filed? This is making me nervous. If it's really a redesigned iMac, I would expect at least two models, one for the 21" and one for the 27". Maybe even one more for the iMac pro.
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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.

VM can simulate CPUs as well. An ARM mac will be able to run Windows OS by simulating intel CPUs. If the ARM processor is as powerful as we think it is, then maybe it's still usable depending on your use case. I think for most use cases, it should be fine.

 

[Kcetech1]

I had been waiting for a proper iMac redesign for 5 years. I'm still using my mid-2011 iMac, and it's killing me.

Anyways, wasn't the iMac leak substantiated by some kind of regulatory filing? And wasn't there only one new iMac model being filed? This is making me nervous. If it's really a redesigned iMac, I would expect at least two models, one for the 21" and one for the 27". Maybe even one more for the iMac pro.
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VM can simulate CPUs as well. An ARM mac will be able to run Windows OS by simulating intel CPUs. If the ARM processor is as powerful as we think it is, then maybe it's still usable depending on your use case. I think for most use cases, it should be fine.

Emulating a different processor architecture is not exactly easy from my albeit limited knowledge of programming for it. My Husband used to do lots of emulation work on some of the older game systems and at that time ( 2004 - 2010 ) it was rule of thumb that the processor doing the emulation, ( if the emulator software was coded very well) had to be at minimum 4X faster and in many cases 10-20 times faster. I know when I was in the switch from PPC-Intel years back running PPC apps many times were crawling at a snails pace on a CPU that was 2-3 times faster. One example I was given was how long was it before we could emulate a Super Nintendo on a computer very well .... and its CPU was an antiquated W65C816S chip running at under 4Mhz. and it took a decent Core Duo @ 1.7Ghz or a Raspberry Pi 3+ to do some of the latter of the Games from my understanding.

I have seen what windows 98 emulated on a Pi 4 is like and thats abysmal for a chip well ahead of the old 80486 cpu at 66Mhz and 24MB of Ram of the 1997 era

 

[ChrisA]

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.

Second computer? I'd drop Apple's ecosystem if the Mac gets locked up like an iPad. Macs were very niche products and had poor market shar untill they went with the Intel CPU. They "took off"after the switch. Going back to using their own chips will make Macs like they were, something few people wanted.

As for performance, I own a 4 years old used HP "Z" workstation that came off-lease. I paid $500. It has a 16-core Xeon processor and then I dropped in an SSD and Nvidia GPU. It runs Linux. It outperforms the new Apple Mac Pro.

Will the Mac Pro be obsolete after the switch to Arm?
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I had been waiting for a proper iMac redesign for 5 years. I'm still using my mid-2011 iMac, and it's killing me.

Anyways, wasn't the iMac leak substantiated by some kind of regulatory filing? And wasn't there only one new iMac model being filed? This is making me nervous. If it's really a redesigned iMac, I would expect at least two models, one for the 21" and one for the 27". Maybe even one more for the iMac pro.
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VM can simulate CPUs as well. An ARM mac will be able to run Windows OS by simulating intel CPUs. If the ARM processor is as powerful as we think it is, then maybe it's still usable depending on your use case. I think for most use cases, it should be fine.

In most cases, Arm will be fine. But "most cases" is watching videos and reading emails. No, you can not emulate a CPU without a huge performance hit. No one has been able to do that.

Also, I doubt the Arm is really that fast because why else is Apple using so many cores?

Apple is figuring that 99.99% of their user base is just casual users who are looking at Youtube and reading emails. This is for them.
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.. it was rule of thumb that the processor doing the emulation, ( if the emulator software was coded very well) had to be at minimum 4X faster and in many cases 10-20 times faster.

This is exactly true. In special cases the hardware only needs to be a few times faster but in the general case, it needs to be an "order of magnitude" faster, about 10X is right.

The VM, on the other hand, is almost as fast as the actual hardware. VMs don't have much performance hit.

But if we need to run lots of different software the best solution is likely Linux and then run MacOS in a VM. There is little need for Mac hardware.

 

[borntrouble]

I'd love to see AirTags being revealed tomorrow!

 

[dumastudetto]

The world will stop for these announcements on Monday.

iOS 13 is already so far ahead of Android, all the untapped potential of iOS 14 must terrify Google.

New products always welcome. Not going back to the Mac though, not when the future of advanced computing is clearly iPad Pro.

 

[Alaxlmartin]

Max

Max Weinbach- No Hardware tomorrow
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Jon

Jon Prosser confirms no hardware as well

 

[theorist9]

Max

Max Weinbach- No Hardware tomorrow
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Jon

Jon Prosser confirms no hardware as well

If they're right (which I hope they're not--and they themselves hope they're not), then it will be just like WWDC 2005, when Apple announced the transition from PPC to Intel. That WWDC was completely software-focused, and the only new hardware was the Developer Transition Kit.

 

[glindon]

I'd like to hear that AAPL has Kicked Off work on a 2nd iOS App Store, "one for Adults" that does NOT include ANY Game Apps & does NOT include Apple Arcade !

And of course, NO Little Kids apps !

If that doesn't happen, I'd like to see AAPL add "Filters" to the iOS App Store App section of the Settings app:

[specifically, three switches]

1.) NO Game Apps

2.) NO Apple Arcade

3.) NO Little Kid Apps

NO in-app purchases. Be nice to have a section where I can just buy once.

 

[BayouTiger]

I think that many that don't think emulation can work may be underestimating what can be done with coprocessing units today. In my case, not being able to run Windows apps will be a deal breaker for my work machine. I not only need to run them, but I need flexible USB I/O with real time timing. Even Parallels has always struggled with this, though Fusion has typically been flawless. I don't need a lot of horsepower, but I do need to connect to outside systems and do tasks like firmware and flash writes and data collection.

I do think that Apple does understand their users better than what you would think if you watched any YT channel. There are lots and lots of users that do not work in media creation that have been using Macs since 2006. The door to the Mac in the business world was kicked open with the Intel swap, but it can slam again very quickly.

There are still many very important apps that are not on the Mac (Revit comes to mind) or are crippled (Autocad). Another that is indispensable in the construction world is Bluebeam and they abandoned the Mac last year. They are owned by Nemetscheck so who knows what is planned for Vectorworks.

 

[Stromos]

My vote is iOS 13.7 with because 2020. See y’all next year.

 

[smulji]

 

[RandomDSdevel]

-----See also the macOS 10.16 wish list thread.

 

[D.T.]

• 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.

Terrific post! (edited it down a touch for this reply)

Down with all your iOS/iPadOS suggestions, I'm hoping the iPad get a good bit of external peripheral improvement, notable, more use/extensions for the trackpad - and my biggest iPadOS wishlist item: resolution independent "desktop" extension (or at the very least, res-indie mirroring).

Tiles. Yes.

The suggestion of moving into integrated home theater is super interesting, they've got lots of interest in that space (and audio in general), a central "hub" with the ATV, etc.

My $0.02 is the (with the assumptive "if") ARM dev kit will be a black box (so to speak), all they really need is an ARM core machine, a dev "black box", doesn't need to be provided in a notebook - just let a dev hang it off a TB port, and use the host machines peripherals (or the same over your network), make it a compiler target like we do with an iOS device.

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.

I love the idea of a directional locator with an AR visualization for the AirTag product - so as you get close you get a floating "call out" type display that points down to the tag (and my lost car keys )




Oh yeah, I got this for Dad's Day, seems appropriate for today

(The artist is Stephen Poon, he's done a ton of these for various characters ...)

 

[evilaci2]

I find it awkard to post all this 8 hours for the show.

 

[avonord]

Jon Prosser confirms no hardware as well

Oh God. I don't know if I can survive with my mid-2011 iMac for another year. Kill me already.

 

[hagjohn]

Frankly, I'd like to see new featured stopped for while and have Apple just get the bugs out of the existing software.