It's WWDC Eve, folks! It's finally here, and I must say, I'm super hyped about it. I was sitting here, trying to think of a clever way to re-theme 'Twas the Night Before Christmas to a WWDC theme, but it's already done by Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels.
'Twas the night before Dub Dub, when all through the house,Not an iPad was stirring, not even with a mouse;iPod Socks were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that Hair Force One would be there;The developers were nestled all snug in their beds;While visions of new APIs danced in their heads;With STS in his 'kerchief, and Marco in a cap,Had just settled their plans to rewrite some apps.When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,Siracusa sprang from his bed, dreaming of Chris Lattner.A crash in the window due to old Flash,Casey monitored his shutters without spending much cash.The moon lit the floor as the Mac Pro fans blow,Gave a lustre of midday to SwiftUI below,When what to our wondering eyes did appear,Not a Hey update, but Apple's stream far and near.With a dad-jokey intro so lively and quick,I knew in a moment he must be St. Tim.Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels
Now that you've got a good chuckle, it's time to get down to business...
First off, WWDC means new software, so we'll definitely be seeing iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, tvOS 15, and a new macOS (name TBA). While we haven't seen a lot of actual leaks regarding the software this year, recent rumors about iOS 15 include food tracking in Health, improved notification settings and appearance on the Lock screen, Dark Mode UI tweaks, and iMessages could see a big overhaul.
Personally, I'm pretty excited if Apple does bring food tracking to the Health app. This, when paired with a possible Apple Watch Series 7 with blood glucose monitoring, would be a perfect combination for those who are diabetic, like myself. I know it may seem like another silly addition, but when you need to monitor everything you eat because you need to know and understand how it affects your blood sugar levels, it's important to log everything. And if Apple adds it to the Health app, you won't need to download yet another third-party app (like MyFitnessPal) and create another dang account to keep track of that and only be able to view that data in that specific app. I would much rather consolidate all of my health data into the Health app, so I really hope to see food tracking added in iOS 15 and blood glucose monitoring with Apple Watch Series 7. This could be game-changing for many.
If you take a look at Apple's YouTube live stream, you'll see a plethora of Memoji characters with various iMessage speech bubbles, tapbacks, and emoji. This could be hinting towards some big changes coming to iMessage, which seems to be a central theme for iOS 15 and considered Apple's invisible social network. Some rumors that we've seen in recent weeks include sending an automatic reply to messages depending on current status, similar to how you automatically send a response if you're driving. Since I use iMessage almost exclusively, I'm hoping for some big changes, but also improvements to the current system better. After all, I still can't just leave group chats if there are SMS users, like why?
I also really hoping for a more streamlined customization process in iOS 15, and for the love of god, let us put widgets anywhere we want in iPadOS 15, and give us the App Library. It still doesn't make sense to me why this wasn't a thing in iPadOS 14, so let's remedy that, okay? Speaking of iPadOS 15, I'm hoping that we're getting big changes to how iPadOS works because with the iPad Pro (2021) having an M1 chip, it definitely feels like it's incomplete without significant software changes. But no, let's not just slap macOS onto an iPad because that's a cop-out.
Other big WWDC related news is the fact that we may see some new hardware dropping this year, specifically some new MacBook Pros in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes. It's been a while since we've seen any hardware reveals at WWDC, so this will definitely be out of the ordinary from recent years. But the 16-inch MacBook Pro is long overdue for a refresh since it debuted in 2019, and well, everyone has been clamoring for a 14-inch MacBook for years. This would definitely be an opportune time to drop them. Oh, maybe they'll come in colors like the new iMacs too! I'll take a mint green or rose gold 14-inch MacBook Pro, please.
Anyway, all will be revealed in less than 24 hours from now. Are you ready? Are you pumped? Bring it on, Apple!
- Christine Romero-Chan
