Something Apple This Way Comes: Everything We’re Expecting at WWDC.
This year’s kick-off event at WWDC will likely have a developer focus, given the nature of the event, but there will plenty for everyone to pay attention to, especially if you’re a fan of iOS, OS X or the latest new Apple device: The Apple Watch. Once more Apple is preparing for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, and while the attendees will be focusing on the many sessions and demonstrations, there is an anticipation around the keynote speech from Tim Cook and his team that will open up the event on Monday.Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is just around the corner, and with it the potential unveiling of the latest operating system update for iPhone and iPad, iOS 9. Here’s a roundup of what’s likely to go down at WWDC this year, along with a few far-out wishes and some cold water for previously rumored possibilities. Gather round once again, and join us as we take a speculative spelunk into the dark chasm of Cupertino’s software recesses to see what the future holds for Apple.
The regular ‘Apple Loop‘ column here on Forbes has been keeping track of the potential announcements, but with the event just a few days away let’s take a look at the rumors circling around WWDC 2015. It’s likely that iOS 9 will be compatible with iOS devices which use Apple’s A5 processor, meaning all iPhones up from the iPhone 4s, the iPad 2 onwards, all three iPad minis and the fifth generation of the iPod touch. It’s almost certain that Apple will follow the yearly update schedule for its mobile operating system, which means developers can expect to see iOS 9 announced from the stage. Apple purchased the audio equipment and streaming divisions of Beats Electronics for $3bn (£1.8bn) a year ago now, and we’re still waiting for an official first partnership announcement.
This is the OS that will drive Apple’s next generation of iPhone handsets, which are typically launched in September with the new OS, and then older devices can receive the over-the-air update. The company is likely to use WWDC as a platform to announce a long-rumoured revamped version of Beats Music, either integrated into iOS 8.4 or iOS 9 under the reported name Apple Music.
Before then the public beta test will be under way, and WWDC will either kick off this process, or preview iOS 9′s developer preview availability ‘in the very near future’. The cloud streaming service will reportedly prioritise a user’s music library, integrating personal playlists and deploying a new search function for locating tracks within the iTunes/Beats catalogue.
Part of Apple’s aggressive development cycle, which now pretty much guarantees big yearly updates to both of its primary software platforms, is a pace of new feature releases that can be at cross-purposes to providing a stable, bug-free experience. Existing Beats Music accounts will supposedly be able to merge with iTunes or Apple ID accounts, though this only applies to US users as Beats Music is currently still unavailable to those based in the UK. Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine (L) pictured with Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, Dr Dre and Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue Apple purchased UK music analytics start-up Semetric, whose services are used by major record labels and rival Spotify, in January. That said, Apple is unlikely to drop a major point release without introducing anything new – even Snow Leopard got quite a few new user-facing features along with its general improvements. As the iPhone has grown to become the single most dominant smartphone in the world, it’s mobile operating system’s importance at WWDC trended upward in kind. iOS 8 saw a continuation of iOS 7 in the looks department but added a whole bunch of stuff, like Handoff, Apple’s desktop-smartphone workflow solution, and third-party keyboards.
The purchase was believed to be be part of Apple’s efforts to gain insight into the industry ahead of the launch, including data on a band or artist’s sales, social media demographics and most popular songs online. Let’s look at what we’ve heard is coming in terms of brand new abilities and apps in iOS 9, which will mostly likely be available as a developer preview as of Monday, with a wide launch coming alongside new iPhones in September. Sources allege that the company has approached artists including Taylor Swift and Florence and the Machine about exclusive streaming partnerships, which could limit how much of their music will remain available on other streaming platforms. These work with Siri out of the box, letting you issue voice commands at home (or away, with a 3rd generation Apple TV) to do things like turn your lights on or off. With the debut of Apple’s wearable, we saw a new font (San Francisco) and an all-new look for Siri—both of which will be making their way to the iPhone.
But it’s more than cosmetics; Siri may also be getting a much-needed API overhaul, called “breadcrumbs,” that would allow third-party developers limited access to Apple’s voice assistant. Home will also provide key guidance in setting up HomeKit and HomeKit accessories, and sounds like a key component in making Apple’s connected home play more user-friendly. The ability to run multiple apps simultanously is the only thing preventing the iPad from being as effective a business device as its Microsoft and Lenovo rivals, and is a feature that was allegedly intended for iOS 8 before being branded ‘too unpolished’ and pushed back into development. This ties in handily with reports Apple is working on a 12.9-inch enterprise iPad called the iPad Pro, destined for potential release in the autumn and possibly shipping with iOS 9.
Apple’s Siri has improved a lot since its introduction, but it still isn’t the kind of anticipatory feature that operates more predictively like Google Now. A report from 9to5Mac last week suggested that Proactive, a new feature in development that uses Siri as well as Spotlight, will provide that true Now competitor. It’s uncertain if the implementation of this augmented reality will be from a street-level view or a more traditional birds-eye-view that draws on previous searches to populate important information. Apple’s desktop operating system will also go through its annual update cycle, and just like the update to iOS, the OSX refresh will focus on stability and getting things right, as opposed to pushing new features out the door and into the public eye. There is also weight to rumours Apple is planning to introduce multi-user log in, allowing multiple users to maintain individual profiles within one iPad – particularly useful for families or small work teams.
Though news of Apple’s next Godzilla-sized foray into tablets has been rumored for a while, the Wall Street Journal seems to think the big tab will make a fall showing rather than at WWDC. Underneath that, you’ll be presented with info from Apps, Contacts and Maps that is auto-populated based on contextual cues taken from your phone, including things like whether or not you have a boarding pass in Passbook currently, or if you have upcoming appointments booked in Calendar.
The key will be the continued integration of OSX with iCloud and iOS, allowing Tim Cook’s team to promote the Apple way of doing things, tying in data on the desktop, on mobile, on the wrist, and in the cloud. Force Touching an Apple Watch, for example, pulls up the menu to change the watch face, while Force clicking using a trackpad reveals locations when used on maps, previews a file’s contents or adds an event to a calendar invite, and so on.
The feature will also introduce new developer hooks for Siri, which is not a full API but which will let the service know when users have accessed it and index their content, which will then help contribute to and populate the Proactive screens. If you’re playing ‘Keynote Bingo’ the connected world demonstration is the most likely time for “This is something only Apple can do” to make its regular appearance.
Apple Maps is said to finally be getting Transit directions, a long overdue addition after those were removed when Apple went native with its iOS navigation application in lieu of Google Maps. Assuming all the contracts with the record labels are sorted in time (and that’s not a given), Apple’s purchase of Beats may finally start to deliver the music to iTunes and the Apple ecosystem on Monday. Another rumoured addition to iOS 9 is all-new security system Rootless, designed to put an end to customers jailbreaking their iPhones, or on the flip side, malicious individuals hacking into them.
Much like iOS 9, OS X 10.11 will be a quiet year focused on enhancements, security features, and slimming down the operating system, similar to the Snow Leopard release back in 2009. Apple has been keen to emphasise the company’s commitment to preserving user privacy and data protection in the wake of last year’s celebrity nude picture leak, in which a hacker claimed to have extracted intimate pictures of some of Hollywood’s biggest female stars from Apple’s online storage service iCloud. Widely expected to be powered by Apple’s A8 processor, support for Siri, and a dedicated storefront, Apple TV has been the perennial bridesmaid, with expectations ahead of every event that ‘this is the event where Apple TV grows up’. Apple’s next major OS update is also definitely coming at WWDC, and it will probably keep up the naming convention of the past two big updates, meaning it’ll bear the name of some significant place in California.
The kernel-level feature will work across both iOS and OS X, though it can supposedly be disabled on OS X, and will prevent even administrator-level users from accessing certain protected files – which could potentially spell the end for jailbreaking iOS devices to install unauthorised apps. Macs and iOS devices will use more heavily encrypted connections when attempting to join unknown routers, while connecting to authorised networks without the need for additional security measures.
There are a number of hardware lines that Apple could refresh this year, although I feel it is unlikely that we’ll see any major hardware announced at WWDC. Rumors suggest Apple is building a service to rival that of Spotify, complete with access to an on-demand library of content for a comparable subscription price of around $10 monthly. Proactive is reported to integrate Siri, Passbook and third party apps as a competitor to Android’s Google Now amalgamator, displaying locations using Apple Maps on an augmented reality interface and displaying news results when searching for topics. Apple has so far only taken a few tentative steps into streaming with iTunes Match and iTunes Radio, but this sounds like it could be the next big thing in online music delivery.
For one, Apple might release a native SDK, meaning apps can actually run ON the watch (like all the first-party apps) instead of being piped in from your smartphone. The technology, which allows customers to pay for goods and services using the near-field communication (NFC) chips in their iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch, has been available in the US since October last year. Said improvement would include the addition of human-curated and human-hosted ‘stations’ for the streaming radio product, which currently offers a limited number of branded playlists alongside algorithm-generated genre and artist stations. That might change in the next few months, and if so expect an update and perhaps a demonstration of HomeKit in action with some third-party accessories. Its overall service offering could become more ‘everything to everyone’ in digital music, which as CEO Tim Cook is fond of saying, is indeed part of the company’s DNA.
If it’s going to make an appearance on Monday it would likely be a very early build, because there is no indication that production has ramped up to meet demand. The biggest addition of course is a new streaming service, much like Spotify, Rdio, and sure, I guess Tidal, that will charge a $10/month subscription fee for access to millions upon millions of songs. Native apps could be a major addition to the Apple Watch’s overall value proposition; one of the primary complaints of the current version is that apps from people other than Apple tend to be sluggish, and this could fix that – likely at the cost of some battery life, but so far no one seems to be complaining about that.
New Apple TV hardware apparently isn’t quite ready for prime time, owing at least in part to Apple’s inability to get the proper content deals in place for the announcements it was hoping to make at the event. But Apple had a last minute change of plans, first saying that the new Apple television service was facing some delays, and a New York Times piece also says the Apple TV set-top box is also hitting a slight snag, meaning we may not hear about the future of Apple in your television until the fall.
It’ll be interesting to see if Apple does announce a native Apple TV SDK however, since theoretically apps could run on current hardware, and so wouldn’t require that a new device announcement take place. Additional first-party Apple Watch straps, the first third-party options, or new first-party Watch faces would be great, for instance, and help continue the conversation about the new product as Apple expands international and retail availability. We’ll be there live, bringing you all the news as it happens, so head right back here Monday morning for the keynote, which kicks off at 10 AM PT/1 AM ET from the Moscone Center in San Francisco.