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Apple has announced that its WorldWide Developer Conference will take place from June 5 through June 9, at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. Once again, this event is going to be open to the press and a small group of developers for the keynote on June 5. While all the sessions will be available online, as it has been since 2020.
In this article, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about WWDC. Like what is it? What’s going to be announced? and so much more.
What is WWDC?
WWDC stands for WorldWide Developer Conference, which is Apple’s annual developers conference that it has held since 1987. It has been held in various venues across the Bay Area since its inception in 1987. Starting out at the Santa Clara Convention Center, then moving to the San Jose Convention Center, then the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. It went back to the San Jose Convention Center in 2017 up until the pandemic in 2020 shut it all down.
Now, WWDC is held at Apple Park. And it’s really just the keynote that kicks off the conference, with all the sessions being available online.
Typically, at WWDC, Apple will announce the next versions of each software platform that it has. And sometimes we will see some new hardware. It is quite common to see new hardware, but it doesn’t happen every single year. So do keep that in mind here.
Remember that WWDC is a developers conference, so they do announce quite a few things specifically for developers. This is where Apple is able to court developers to get them to develop for their platform. And also provide new tools to make that job easier. As well as making money from it.
When is WWDC 2023?
As it has been for the past many years, WWDC is taking place the first week of June. That’ll be June 5-9, 2023.
It’ll take place at Apple Park, similar to 2022. It’s really just the keynote that will be at Apple Park. As the sessions will all be virtual. And the good thing here is that developers don’t have to scramble to get tickets and pay $1,599 to attend. Instead, it’s free to everyone.
What announcements are expected at WWDC 2023?
There are some things that we know for sure will be announced at WWDC 2023, like iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. But there’s also a few surprises that many are expecting to see. So that’s what we’ll go over here.
iOS 17 & iPad OS 17
Every year, Apple announces the next version of its mobile operating system at WWDC. The developer beta becomes available later that day, with the public beta launching the following month.
There’s been many rumors that this year, iOS 17 and iPad OS 17 will not be huge upgrades compared to previous years. Instead, this is going to be more of a bug squashing update. While that might sound boring, it is sorely needed. And Apple has done this before. Launching a new version of iOS with very few features, in the hopes of squashing some longtime bugs.
Though part of the reason for that is the fact that Apple has reportedly moved a lot of resources over to xOS or RealityOS, which is their new operating system for the AR/VR headset, which we also expect to be shown off at WWDC this year.
watchOS 10
There’s been less rumors about watchOS 10, which is actually quite common for Apple. But according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, watchOS 10 will be a “fairly extensive upgrade”. Gurman says that we should expect notable changes to the user interface. Which would be the first time we’ve seen substantial upgrades to the UI since the first Apple Watch, nearly 10 years ago.
However, the Apple Watch Series 9 won’t be major. Which is fine, there’s not much more Apple can do with the watch hardware, besides give us better battery life.
macOS 14
Then there’s macOS 14. There’s even fewer rumors about this than some of the other products here. We don’t even know what the name will be for this one. During the Mac OS X stages, they were named after different cats like Tiger, Snow Leopard, Puma, and others. In 2013, Apple started naming versions based on California locations. Like Mavericks, Big Sur, Yosemite and El Capitan. With the current version being Ventura.
Names being rumored for macOS 14 include Mammoth, Sequoia, Sonoma and Redwood.
There’s not many rumors about features here, so we could see another iOS 17-esque update for the mac. Where it is mostly a bug fixing update, which we wouldn’t be mad at either.
AR/VR Headset & xOS
Apple has been rumored to be launching an AR/VR Headset for many years, and they have been working on it for quite some time. In fact, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook was talking about it way back in 2016. And rumors are pointing to it being announced at WWDC. While the launch is going to be pushed back until later in the year. So it’s possible that Apple shows it off at WWDC to developers and then actually starts selling it in the fall.
The headset is not going to be cheap, we’ve seen rumors of it costing $3,000 and even $4,000. That’s quite pricey, but AR and VR combined into one headset is not cheap to do, and there’s not many competitors out there either.
Rumors point to this headset having over a dozen cameras around it that can read facial expressions, detect body movements and even map the surrounding area. It’ll use Iris Scanning for authentication as well. Apple is going to be using 4K micro-OLED displays inside, which are not cheap and are actually pretty rate. But for VR, you need ultra high-resolution screens, since they are so close to your eyes.
Mac Pro
Still a bit niche, but likely will get a bigger reaction than the headset, is the Mac Pro. When Apple announced the Mac Studio in 2022, it teased that it had one more Mac to move to Apple Silicon, the Mac Pro. But it has yet to talk about it at all. In fact, there’s been very few credible rumors about the Mac Pro, which is very surprising.
What is expected here is an updated design of the Mac Pro, with Apple Silicon inside. The design likely won’t change much. Now what chipset that is, is another story. It could be the M2 Ultra, but we haven’t even gotten the M2 Max just yet. Which has a lot of scratching our heads. But we are hoping this is announced at WWDC.
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