Today was Apple's annual WWDC Keynote, an event I've been anxiously circling on my calendar every June for at least the last decade. Some years are more underwhelming than others (last year's was particularly unmemorable), but I felt like this year actually brought a number of significant quality-of-life changes that will make each interaction with my phone or Mac a little bit more pleasant even if the way I interact with them as a whole will not fundamentally change. This theme — many useful incremental improvements rather than a handful of quantum leaps — probably summarizes Tim Cook's CEO tenure and Apple's product strategy over the last five years as well as any (although if anything recent in tech is deserving of "quantum leap" status, it's probably the Mac's custom silicon transition).
Here are a few thoughts and reactions I had while watching the keynote.
Part of me feels like Apple's understandable desire to keep adding features to iOS is putting it in the crossfire of antitrust regulators. So many of the features Apple added to iOS this time around — Apple Pay Later, Order Tracking, and multistep routing in Maps, for example — feel like they were plucked straight from top-performing apps on the App Store. This isn't fundamentally illegal; Apple is allowed to steal great non-proprietary ideas. But I can see a world where if they do this enough, regulators could crack the whip considering Apple has an unmistakable competitive advantage over other developers by making them default iOS features, similar to the accusations made when Apple launched Screen Time a few years ago.
I think this same desire to keep adding features to their operating systems is also beginning to significantly clutter the previously simple user experience. I consider myself a pretty tech-forward person but even I only use maybe 20% of the new features they put into iOS every cycle mostly because I just forget the other 80% exist. In fairness to Apple, I think they still do a great job of making new features stupid simple to use to help drive early adoption, but I think Apple's operating systems might be hitting a level of short-term saturation in "net new" features. It might be better for them to spend a larger percentage of time in the future fundamentally rethinking how traditional tasks and workflows are done — such as they did in the new Stage Manager multitasking view — than to keep shoving new toys into the same six-inch iPhone screen.
Apple users are consistently dumbfounded at how Apple can wait so long to bring certain no-brainer features to their operating systems, such as banner-sized phone call notifications or a freaking weather app for the iPad. I doubt this is intentional, but it does seem like they save a lot of these no-brainer, highly requested feature announcements for years with fewer marquee updates to talk about. It definitely helps raise morale even when the keynote as a whole is relatively unsubstantial all things considered.
I think it's brilliant that car makers might leverage Apple to redesign their entire interior software UI. Car manufacturers have always been catastrophically bad software designers, which is understandable considering that's not their job. They're car manufacturers. Apple stepping in seems like a great mutually beneficial option.
There were at least two occasions — talking about key sharing in Wallet and Matter in HomeKit — where Apple claimed they were helping to develop a new "industry standard" that will make collaboration between devices and different platforms easier. This both feels like a way for Apple to show regulators, "See, we open the gates to our walled garden sometimes," and a way for Apple to ensure whatever standard gets accepted in the long run for these technologies works as optimally as possible on Apple products. After all, Apple developed it. It's pretty savvy if it works.
I cannot physically look at this Maps overhaul and all the work Apple is doing with Memoji and not be convinced they're laying groundwork for their eventual AR/VR headset pivot. The design language just looks far too "metaversey" to not have that dual purpose.
Speaking of that, thank God we got some news clothes for our Memojis.
Apple Pay Later feels somewhat like another attempt to be benevolent vultures, similar to the original iPod. Apple is seeing what is happening with companies like Afterpay and Klarna and telling itself, "We can take advantage of that same value proposition but package it in a way that feels far less predatory." It has worked for them in the past, and I have no doubt it will work for them this time.
The astronomy-inspired watch face now updates in real time to show cloud coverage around the world. Dope.
It feels like we're hitting a dead end with watchOS innovation. Sure, adding new workout options is cool, and medication tracking is a nice supplement to the existing health features. But I haven't been really excited about something they've launched for watchOS in at least three years, and that's not great.
Let's give it up one more time for the Apple silicon team. They knock it out of the park every freaking time.
As much as I think the redesigned MacBook Air looks great and there are a lot of amazing things happening in the Mac lineup right now, I think the product line is getting a little bloated. Apple now sells an M1 MacBook Air, a redesigned M2 MacBook Air, a 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, a 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro, a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and a 16-inch M1 Pro Max MacBook Pro. It feels like we're starting to make the choice too complicated for customers. I think part of what made shopping at Apple so seamless over the last decade was that they made it dumb easy for people to self-sort into what device they probably need. Now it's getting much trickier.
It's about freaking time the Mail app got some of these features.
I don't automatically think Google should be trembling in fear over some of these very Google Drive-like collaboration features that Apple is adding to its operating systems, but at the same time, it will be much easier for Apple to match what Google is doing with productivity software than it will be for Google to match what Apple is doing with hardware. So if I were at Google, I'd still be getting pretty wary.
In the keynote, Apple showed a demo where an iPad with a keyboard case was plugged into an external monitor, and the user was able to use the trackpad on the keyboard case to elegantly navigate around the iPad's UI, drag and drop files into other windows, seamlessly transition between windows with Stage Manager...if Apple is trying to keep the Mac and the iPad lines unequivocally distinct, they're doing a pretty poor job of it.
Is it just me, or is Craig Federighi featuring more and more in every keynote we watch now? I love him, but dang. He really is the whole show at this point. Can't help but wonder what future they're preparing for...
Let's just cheer one more time for iPad getting a weather app.
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