With not long to wait until Apple’s WWDC developer extravaganza, we have all the rumors and news right here so you know exactly what to expect at the show.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is one of its biggest tech events on the calendar every year. This year’s show is due to run from June 7 to 11 and will be entirely online (like many of Apple’s recent events). What can you expect to see at the show? Will there be any exciting new hardware reveals and software features? We have all the answers you need right here, with a rundown of everything we expect to see at WWDC 2021. Two of Apple’s most important platforms are those that run on the iPhone and on the iPad. The company always uses WWDC to shed new light on upcoming versions of these operating systems, and this year will be no different. Details surrounding these new versions (iOS 15 and iPadOS 15) are thin on the ground, but we can make some educated guesses. For one thing, we expect Apple will continue its trend of allowing more freedom when changing default apps. You can change the standard web, mail, and music apps right now, and we are hoping that will expand to cover things like the calendar, reminders, camera, and more. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is working on contextual notifications, and this system will be unveiled at WWDC. For instance, if you got an alert during the night (and were not running Apple’s Bedtime feature, which disables all notifications), the alert would arrive silently. During the day, it would play a sound. You might be able to set a status — like Working, Driving, or Sleeping — and have your device handle notifications in an appropriate manner. This could also auto-reply to the alerts based on your status. One of the biggest changes in iOS 14 was the introduction of widgets. In iOS 15, we expect Apple will further refine these, perhaps by adding more widget options for its own apps, more functionality, and more sizes. It is rare for a WWDC event to focus exclusively on software, and this year could be no different. Apple launched a lot of hardware at its spring event in April, but that still leaves plenty of possibilities on the table. Leaker Jon Prosser has claimed Apple will launch new MacBook Pro models with an upgraded Apple Silicon chip, possibly called the M1X. It will have eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores in its CPU, while the GPU will come with 16- and 32-core options. That backs up an earlier report from Gurman claiming the same chip configuration. Apple’s latest WWDC 2021 invitation also depicts three Memoji characters using MacBooks, which might be a further hint at a MacBook Pro update. That said, according to Nikkei Asia, Apple has delayed the production of two MacBook Pro models until later in the year, meaning an October or November reveal is possible. There is also a good chance Apple will discuss the tech powering its Macs — namely, new Apple Silicon chips and the future of its transition away from Intel. A clue might be found in Apple’s original WWDC invitation, which features a Memoji character looking at a half-open MacBook in much the same way Craig Federighi did while talking about Apple Silicon at last year’s event. We know Apple is working on a raft of updates to its chip platform, including processors with 32,16,12, and eight high-performance cores (alongside two or four high-efficiency cores).
