Reid Main

Let's see how my predictions for the WWDC 2017 Keynote went.

I broke them down into three categories, likely, unlikely and batshit crazy, so I shall evaluate them in the same manner.

Likely

New developer hardware

I was pretty spot on here. The MacBooks, MacBook Pros and iMacs all got Kaby Lake CPUs as well as minor bumps to SSDs, GPUs, etc.

The one thing that I was not expecting was the iMac Pro. I really would love to know how long this has been in development because it feels like a direct response to those people who complained that there wasn't powerful enough Mac hardware. 8/10/18 core Xeon processor. AMD Vega GPU with either 8 or 16 GB of memory. Up to 128 MB of DDR4 RAM. Up to 4TB SSD. Four Thunderbolt 3 ports on a 27" Retina 5K display. Basically a 🖕🏻 to everyone who was complaining.

Improved Siri API

Pretty spot on here as well. Craig Federighi talked about a bunch of the new actions that third party apps would be able to take with Siri and how on-device machine learning is going to make Siri present even more relevant information.

Slightly revamped UI

Like I predicted the design of Apple Music reached out and permeated the rest of Apple's iOS apps, such as App Store and Messages. The Control Center update was another nice little UX tweak that I think is going to be awesome and finally push some consistent usage to 3D Touch.

It was nothing as drastic as iOS 7 but you will definitely be seeing some apps tweak their designs in the months leading up to and just after the release of iOS 11.

Multiple user accounts

Not even a peep on this. I really thought this was the year but with the big push for accessing the "file system" in iOS 11, that may be laying the groundwork for getting user data into iCloud and then adding user accounts to iOS next year. If all of your data is synced via iCloud then logging into a another iOS device would be a piece of cake.

Dark mode and/or more customization

Another rumor that I shouldn't have bitten on. Absolutely no mention of customization of the UI in any regard, so who knows, maybe Apple is never going to implement this.

Improved iMessage apps

Nothing was said about additional capabilities of iMessage apps but they did demo a new app drawer to make finding and accessing apps even easier so hopefully this will drive usage/adoption. I'll give myself a half point for this prediction.

Unlikely

New iPads

I did say Apple could announce new iPad Pros alongside new APIs focused on pro users and that is exactly what happened. The new iPad Pros look amazing and at 120 hz refresh rate I can't wait to see how the scrolling feels on one of them in person. Also the new drag and drop APIs and multitasking interface are going to open up a whole new way for users to create on the iPad so I am very excited to see what comes out of that.

Shared replacement of UIKit and AppKit

While the iPad is starting to look more and more like a Mac, Apple has remained mum on any replacement for UIKit and AppKit. Who knows when this will happen. We'll just have to wait and see.

MacPro reveal

After the iMac Pro reveal I am much more confident in my prediction that the new Mac Pro will be announced at the next WWDC and release in late summer, early fall 2018. I am also fairly sure that we will see the new Retina displays at that time as well. Could also line up with a MacBook Pro refresh so that pro users have portable and desktop hardware to choose from with beautiful Retina displays.

YouTube TV competitor

This should have been a batshit crazy prediction because Apple barely said anything about tvOS. Their only announcement was that Amazon Prime Video was coming to tvOS later this year. I really have no idea what Apple's plans for the Apple TV are at this point.

Batshit Crazy

1. iPhone 7s/8 reveal

Like I said, I can't believe this needed saying. Free points.

2. Anything to do with augmented or virtual reality

Sweet Jesus I could not have been more wrong. Not only did Apple mention both augmented and virtual reality but they demonstrated the HTC Vive on-stage and revealed ARKit. To rub salt in the wound they then talked about how there are hundreds of millions of AR capable devices out there because Apple has been putting the necessary hardware in their phones for years.

It really seems like Apple is going full out on selling macOS and its hardware as being the primary development machine for VR. Steam, Unity and Epic are all onboard and released updates to their engines to support the new version of macOS. That is something I thought I would never type.

I could not be more excited because I have wanted to try VR development for a while but could just not stomach the idea of trying to develop on a Windows PC. I swear my eyes bleed when I have to look at the text on a Windows PC. Retina displays have ruined me.

3. Amazon Echo and Google Home competitor

Again I could not be more wrong. I figured after Apple revealed three hardware refreshes I was in the clear and they wouldn't announce anything else but low and behold their final announcement was the HomePod.

I am moderately excited about this. I liked how much they focused on the music rather than it just being a Siri input device. I am most interested in if two HomePods can be a decent middle ground between a full on entertainment system and the shitty speakers built into TVs.

4. Settings default apps

Pretty much got confirmation that Apple sees Universal Links and drag and drop as the way for apps to communicate with one another. Like I said, giving users this ability would only hurt Apple and with the constant improvements to Maps and Mail the number of detractors will continue to shrink until there is only a very small vocal minority clamoring for this feature.

macOS 10.13 will be called Rancho Cucamonga

High Sierra is even fucking better! 🌲🌿👌🏻