Just like clockwork, Apple announced that WWDC will be held in early June. And this year it will be from June 10 to June 14. There hasn’t been any theme announced yet, but there are some hints of things that might come based on what Apple executives say and the general industry trends.
Hardware Updates
WWDC is usually not the place the Apple does hardware updates, but every other year or so, they do drop new hardware. And since this event is geared toward developers, most of the hardware will be more developer-relevant.
Mac Desktop
Apple dropped the entire M3, well almost, late last year with the MacBook Pro update. Right out of the gate, we get the base M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. Just this month, Apple updated the MacBook Air with the M3 chip. We expect that Apple will complete the rest of the set with the M3/M3 Pro on the Mac Mini, M3 Max/M3 Ultra on the Mac Studio, and the M3 Ultra on the Mac Pro.
The M3 Ultra will be interesting to watch since reports show that the M3 Max does not have any extra etching that points to the UltraFusion connect bridge like in the M1/M2 Max. And since Apple went with a distinctive design between the M3 Pro and the M3 Max, we figure that Apple might take the bespoke route for the low-production run for the M3 Ultra. Maybe a solution for the M3 Extreme for the Mac Pro? Not counting on it, but one can dream
iPads
2023 is one of the rare years when Apple did not update their iPads, the most popular tablet on the market. Perhaps Apple can take WWDC to showcase updated iPads?
Software Updates
New software features from Apple are very hard to figure out since they are a lot easier to guard their secret than hardware which exchanges a lot of hands before going into production. Greg “Joz” Joswiak did say something peculiar that the WWDC 2024 will be Absolutely Incredible. So AI features then?
We are in the middle of AI mania where there seems to be a new Large Language Model, text-to-video, and “replace the developers” tools that come out faster than a javascript framework. So, it would be no surprise that Apple will showcase some AI libraries. However, Apple is not accustomed to being a trend-follower. Major events like WWDC are where Apple usually introduces concepts that will be trendy in a couple of years. In other words, they are the tastemaker. The trendsetter.
One thing that Apple has a leg up on compared to their competitors is they put the most powerful consumer AI chip in their every major product. It’s the Neural Engine that is in every modern iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and more importantly, Mac. They have libraries like CoreML which handle Machine Learning, but they are not as powerful or popular as Keras or Tensorflow. So this might be an area where Apple might improve.
End of the walled garden?
It is very early to say since Apple’s anti-trust lawsuit trial hasn’t started yet. But one would think that this lawsuit will compel Apple to have their APIs to be more open than before.
Regulators in both the USA and EU are not by any means good developers, but they have the law to back them up and compel Apple to do things that they usually won’t do.
Updates
This page will be updated as the event date approaches.
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| Base | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| iPhones | iPhone 16 / iPhone 16 Plus - (Amazon) | iPhone 16 Pro / iPhone 16 Pro Max - (Amazon) |
| Watch | Apple Watch SE (Amazon) / Apple Watch Series 10 | Apple Watch Ultra 2 (Amazon) |
| AirPods | AirPods 4 (Amazon) | AirPods Pro 2 (Amazon) / AirPods Max (Amazon) |
| iPad | iPad 10 (Amazon) / iPad Mini (Amazon) | iPad Air M2 (Amazon) / iPad Pro M4 (Amazon) |
| Laptops | MacBook Air M3 (Amazon) | MacBook Pro M3 (Amazon) / MacBook Pro M3 Pro/Max (Amazon) |
| Desktop | Mac Mini (Amazon) / iMac (Amazon) | Mac Studio / Mac Pro |
| Displays | Studio Display (Amazon) | Pro Display XDR (Amazon) |
Other Ecosystem Items