Upgrade - 409: The WWDC Keynote Draft 2022

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

It’s time for our seventh annual competition regarding what will happen at Apple's WWDC keynote! In a surprise development, Jason and Myke are attending in person--but beyond that, they're totally in the dark. Will it be inside or outside? Will it be live, or recorded? Will there be new hardware announced? It's time to let our imaginations run wild.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 409 today's show is brought to you by uni pizza ovens zoc doc and mode my name is mike hur, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. That sound you heard there, Mike, was the Memorial Day Parade passing by, playing the Upgrade Draft theme. Isn't that nice? It works. The Memorial Day Parade, they get to the end of the parade,

and then they just turn a sharp turn and just go straight into the draft. Yes. You know, they're like, we're done with that part. part they go right down parade street and then make a right on draft avenue yep and here they are on the intersection of parades and drafts that is us that's us that is us we never has that been more true than today so we are drafting today for wwdc but before we get to that i have a hashtag snell talk question. Comes from Nico. Nico asks, if an Apple event was leaked online after the draft, but before the scheduled

time, would you watch the leaked video or wait for the official Apple release? I like things that are framed as sort of like spoilers. Like people talk about how we cover rumors and all that, and sometimes people view them like spoilers for Like people talk about how we cover rumors and all that.

And sometimes people are, they view them like spoilers for a movie or a TV show. But what I would say to Nico is if you were covering the White House and you got a piece of information about a speech that the president was going to give and you are working for a news organization would you wait for the president to give the speech and the answer is no because it's

your job so no if there was a leaked if there was leaked information beforehand i would absolutely watch it or get it or read it or whatever immediately because i feel like it's my job to see it and maybe write about it or do whatever is necessary. So I appreciate the fact that everybody out there kind of uses stuff from entertainment purposes, but for my purposes, it's what I do. So if something leaked, I would be there immediately. I just don't think I would be able to stop myself. You know what I mean? Like if it

if a video like this, I would just be like, there's no way I can't watch this. Just because for the like, how historic it would be that it even had leaked. You know what I mean? You'd be like, Oh, and then you got to watch the fair, the official one, and see if it matches up. Or does anything change? Yeah, I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I wouldn't be able to stop myself. Yeah, so we would not wait, Nico. Not at all. If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question

for us to open the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snow Talk or use question mark Snow Talk in the Real AFM members Discord. Since we last spoke, everything's changed. Ah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot happening. A lot happening.

Remember when we would idly discuss what would happen if Apple did go back to an in-person event? And we said, yeah, but, you know, COVID levels are rising and it's already two weeks away. Like, it's not likely that they would do something like that. Well, we'll be together next week, you and I. Yep. We're going down to Apple Park, Jason and I. I'm flying over to California at the end of the week, which is very unexpected and wasn't surprise wasn't at all

planned for gonna be uh out in san jose and san francisco for a bit um we are both going to apple park for the keynote as it stands right now don't really know what that means it's your first yes it is my first so it's pretty monumental for me. This is the first keynote that I've been invited for. It's the first keynote I will see in an official capacity. You did crawl through the piping and the ventilation shafts and sneak into a couple others. For all we know, I'll be sitting in a room or on some chair somewhere watching a video that I could watch at home. There is a strong possibility that that's the case.

You may literally just be sitting in the parking lot watching things on a screen. But nevertheless, they said, hey, do you want to come? And I was like, yes, I do. I do, in fact, want to do that. So we're going to be there for, we're going to be doing various things over a few days. Basically what this means, though, we do not know exactly when our post-WWDC episode will be recorded and released.

It will be Monday. Yes, for sure. We reckon it will be late afternoon-ish. So if you want to listen along live, we will be tweeting about it. We'll be posting updates as we have them listen along live we will be tweeting about it we'll be posting updates as we have them uh and then we will be recording and streaming as soon as we can if anything really it might actually be like it's been for the last few years where we've actually well i said last years the last few years of wwc in person like 2018 2019 yeah the pre-pandemic

it's gonna that's my guess is it's gonna be very much pre-pandemic. That's my guess. This is going to be very much pre-pandemic kind of thing where I go to the keynote and then sometimes there are briefings and things. So it gets pushed back a little bit. And don't hold us to this, but my guess is it's going to be more like a 3 or 4 p.m. Pacific record time because we're going to have to do whatever Apple has in store for us which i just want to be clear with a week to go we don't know we don't know we don't know anything really about what i have like time for the draft i mean honestly planning great for the draft yeah i mean i know what you mean but they're like hey just be available i'm like well i mean what else am i

gonna do you know i'm there whatever you want from me, you got me, you know? So I'm, I actually kind of like the mystery of it all at the moment. All right. This is my first time here. So I, I'm just going to take whatever they give me. Well, I'm a local, so I have to think about more logistics.

I can't just sort of like be there and I have family things that week and all that. So there's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts. We'll figure it out. But, but yeah, I think late afternoon,

hopefully we will do our thing and stream it live and do all that and then release the episode. So by Monday night Pacific, the episode will be out with our immediate thoughts straight from the ground in Cupertino. Yeah, and it's going to be, I have no doubt the vibe's going to be totally different because like I was thinking about this,

during the keynotes, I've like got my laptop open and I'm taking notes I'm not expecting to do that so I'm hoping to try and find some time after the keynote before we record to actually make a bunch of notes like I've decided

I've made the decision I'm not going to have a computer in front of me I'm just going to sit there and I'm just going to take it in whatever it is right Gruber the Gruber method John Gru john does that he has a little note he has a little notebook and he jots down little thoughts but that's it he doesn't he's not live covering it or anything like that no i think it's good as i have relied on you and the ones where we do it immediately afterward where i'm there and you're not um i rely on you to do the like legwork of the details because i'm in the room but if we're both in the room then uh we have we need a little a little more time to to

reflect about it'll be it'll be good it'll be great it'll be a fun experience it'll be different than the last couple of years um maybe more like wDC of years past. Maybe a different thing entirely. I mean, it will be unprecedented because we've never both gone together. So it's going to be different in that regard, right? And also, I have no doubt, whatever this presentation is, it is not going to be like any presentation we've seen before.

Because it's either going to be a weird WWDC, they're going to do the whole thing on stage, which I've been wondering is a possibility, or they're going to do it like some on stage, some video, or they're going to do all video, but there's an audience. Whatever it is, it's going to be different, and I am very excited about it. And I cannot believe we're a week away

because I have not mentally or emotionally prepared for the fact that I am leaving the country at the end of the week. And I should say all of this, test dependent for me. I have multiple stages of tests that I need to take before this can be a thing. So yes, it's true. Knock on wood. We'll see how it goes. But today we're drafting.

These are the rules and some information about results. We have done one draft so far in the calendar year of 2022. It was for Apple's March event, and Jason won that. Historically, we have completed six WWDC drafts, and we are tied at three each over the years. I won the first three. You won the subsequent three. Oh, boy.

But for this year, there will be three rounds, 15 overall picks. The draft is split into three categories. We're going to be doing six iOS and iPadOS picks, three macOS slash mac hardware picks, five picks for quote everything else, and there's also going to be a bonus round as well. Of course, there's always a tiebreaker, but I'll get to that in a moment.

The winner of the previous draft gets first pick as litigated extensively over the last few weeks that will be jason that's right people were like but that gives that person an advantage yes doesn't matter that's what we're doing the items are chosen from a predetermined list of choices which we have agreed of uh which we have agreed are verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious that's the way that they will be scored. So they must be on screen, not obvious. For an item to count, it must be either clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation.

This must be verifiable from the keynote itself. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of a scoring stalemate, there'll be no partial points awarded. The points awarded on the episode are final and finalized during the scoring segment. In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question.

The loser gets pick of the tiebreaker and the tiebreaker as always will be event duration, right? You happy with that? Yep. The winner becomes draft champion and displays the champion pennant. The loser becomes draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant yes there will

be score cards as always created and maintained by zach knox upgrade.cards and there'll be a link in the show notes so you'll be able to find that for yourself so jason tiebreaker yes do you want to pick an event runtime for me i'm gonna say wow this is a tough one this is a tough one i'm gonna put it at 119 minutes okay that is one minute less than two hours right yes wwdc 2021 video he googles That was 1.46. 2020 was 1.48. An hour and 48. So this would be longer than the last two WWDCs, right? Yes. Oh, this is big for me.

Because we're going to get into this, but it's the question of what is in and what is out, right? It is. If a headset is in, it's easily over two hours. Yeah, this is, yes, that's true. If there's no headset, in my opinion, less than two hours. I'll throw in one other wrinkle just to give you all the information that I've been thinking of when doing this,

which is one of the things we think might be a possibility is that there is an a a wrapper around the event that is um the framing sequence if you were of tim cook live right like one of the possible scenarios here is that they actually will start live with tim cook and then they sort of throw it into the videos it may not be an entirely live presentation. It may be, who knows, but let's say that a lot of it is video. I do wonder if that is a potential complication, where the fact that there is a live component and that they're doing that in addition to the videos might make the runtime longer, that they might build something that's a certain length, but then they have padding on the beginning and the end and that adds and there may be applause and stuff like that.

And then you add a little complication beyond what they would normally do with their completely edited together calculated time. Or they factored it in. I don't know. Less. Less than 190 minutes under. Okay. Under. Yeah, I think you're right um i really went back

and forth on this i mean i first off i didn't prepare i didn't think of it and i didn't do any research i might have said it a little bit lower but i think ultimately this is the question which is why i went straight up to the the two hour mark is i think the question is is it so packed that they blow past two hours or is it complicated by the live thing that might happen so they go past two hours? Or is it a more traditional WWDC runtime for online, you know, just the streaming stuff, and in which case it will be like the last two years and it will be under?

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Jason Snell, are you ready to get into our first rounds of the draft? Oh no, it's always... I'm always a little filled with trepidation here, but we got to do it. We do it all the time. It's a little scary, but we got to do it. So we're going to start with iOS and iPadOS. We've combined these into one round. Yeah. What's your first pick? um well proving that i am like charlie brown trying to kick the football i'm doing it again one of these days it'll be true apps can run on an external display on ipad os that is a bold first round pick man there it is wow okay i feel like maybe it's gonna happen this time i mean that's that what can i say that's that's what i think is uh i think that's where we are is um is that it's gonna happen

that we're gonna get uh we're gonna get it we're gonna do it the display is out there and they're gonna announce an os update that supports that external display now that Apple has their own compatible with iPad external display. And it's going to be in the next version of iPad OS. And they're finally going to do it. They laid the groundwork last year and they're finally going to do it. And when it doesn't happen, you can say, I told you so. And that's fine. I will have heard it many, many times before before but i'm gonna i'm just gonna keep picking it and i think this is this time for sure mike this time for sure i think it's really gonna happen so there are there are other things to talk about here that i think

are pretty like hand in hand with this right because i want to talk about multitasking but i guess we should wait because i i'm gonna i will assume probably that one of us could potentially pick more stuff about this because i feel like that this has to go hand in hand with that if it doesn't we don't neither of us pick that i want to circle back to this but i don't want to spoil that or tip the draft in favor of anybody else right now you've gone pretty extreme i think for the first pick i'm going really safe new privacy focus features oh new privacy focus features well that yeah that's a super boring Pretty extreme, I think, for that first pick. I'm going really safe. New privacy-focused features. Oh, new privacy-focused features.

Well, yeah, that's a super boring pick, Mike. But how can you pick against it? Apple's whole branding. I think if you're a product manager or somebody at Apple who's like, here's the feature that I want to do, You'd be wise to pick a privacy-focused feature, right? I feel like, because they're going to be like, yes, yes, that's exactly what we want. Because it fits. They can market it.

They can promote it. What's the next one? Now, what would that be, Mike? What do you think? What would that privacy-focused feature be? Again, we met some of these things. Who knows? Could come up.

But I could imagine an expansion of the private relay thing. Maybe they do something more within apps as well as just within web browsers. I'm sure some other thing around tracking, you know, they just continue to crack down on tracking in all of its forms. There is always the possibility of just a VPN that Apple could make at some point. Now they have iCloud Plus. There's more features they could do there, which like that VPN, right?

Which could actually cost money for Apple to run, but they could make money from it. So less of a thing and beef up that as another service. Like the way, one of the reasons I picked this is I feel like this was mostly enforced last year, I think, but it's been like trickling in over the last few years. They effectively have a privacy section for each of the OS releases now. So like as part of the conversation,

they're like, and let's talk about privacy, right? Like as Zach mentioned, 2021 had a whole privacy segment itself. It ended up bleeding into other areas, like it will come up in other parts. But now as well, considering Apple's, you know, everything they do is so intertwined, right? From the operating systems, sharing stuff,

then to having the services that go between them, being able to link it all together. Privacy is basically one of their platforms and they keep talking about it. As you said, it's kind of in the DNA of the company at this point. And they're just going to keep pushing on it and pushing on it and talking about it. As you said, it's kind of in the DNA of the company at this point and they're just going to keep pushing on it and pushing on it and pushing on it.

It could just be an expansion of stuff they've already done. It could be new features. They honestly, they surprise me with the things that they do. I never would have predicted the mail tracking thing from last year. That never would have even crossed my mind. So I expect them to do other things along those along that ilk now the way that this is worded in our document is new privacy focused features which implies that they're not just updates but they're new and they're multiple

you comfortable with that uh well i would say like it this is this is a good good question it's one of those tricky things right of like if it's an existing thing, but they add new stuff to it, what does that mean? Right, do you know what I mean? Like if it's, let me think. That would be new features in a feature. It would be new features. Yep.

You confused me there. New features in a feature is new feature. It's new features. It's, okay, we know when we see it. I'm just saying if they only announce one privacy-related thing and it's just a small update to an existing feature, we might have to have a conversation about it, but I doubt that will happen.

Yeah, I think that's fair. All right. Okay, my next pick. I'm going to go with the reverberation of two years ago finally making a prioritization for this version of iOS. And I'm going to say user controllable design and theme, theming on iOS and iPadOS, more user controllable design and theming.

The idea here is when you look at widgets and the whole trend of having everybody kind of like personalize their home screens using widgets. Um, I think that, that we're going to see, um,

something like that, uh, expanded with a theme system. I mean, it could be user controllable design in detail. If you think about what Android does, like they, they let everybody control everything it seems to me that it's far more likely that apple will do um a set of themes that are kind of like an expansion of light mode and

dark mode that are you know a few different modes and that uh apps will be able to change and the fact that they announced in their accessibility thing that the Books app is going to have different themes, that makes me think that this is more likely because it's in line with that, the idea that there is a theme control, which allows Apple to define what the themes are and control them, but still make it seem like you've got some user customizability. But whatever it is, I'm really just saying it's going to be the, you know,

they got the signal two years ago that, oh, people like the widgets and being able to customize. So let's give them a little more control over what the look and feel of their devices. So this is like either it changes the home screen or it's like a preference that you set and it carries across app to app, right? Because as you mentioned, we already know there's theming in the books app. So that wouldn't get it for you. Yeah, the existence of that doesn't count. theme either it's system-wide uh theming or other customizable design controls or it's very specific new themes in places right so it could be only for the home screen but it would need to be a substantial user controllable design change to the home screen that would allow this to be there

or if like every stock app gets themes and like maybe developers can can tie into the theme control or something we'll know what when we see it it really is the it has to be a significant lesson though right of two years ago and they're they're uh putting their you know their time in to make more customizability so people can control the look of their devices this is interesting this one so again like as we say we have this list and then we each like pare down that list for our own picks. This one didn't make it to my short list. I want it.

But then I started thinking about it. I was kind of like, I don't think they're going to do it, though. I want them to. But I think I'm kind of in that feeling of like, but will they? You know, like this. Oh, yeah. Will they? I don't know.

To Apple, is like light and dark enough? Like, I don't know, right? Like, I would love something a little bit more. I think it'd be really fun. But like, is the existence of themes in the book app, books app, just because paper comes in different colors? Yeah, or because they don't want to put themes in the OS, but they will put it in that app.

But again, the reason I like the theme idea is that it's like, how does Apple allow you to personalize and customize your device? And the answer is they devise a way to do it where they choose for you. Right? But you could personalize it from any of these five choices. Oh, great. Well, that's not

really personalizing, but that sounds very Apple to me. My first two picks I'm dedicating to Tim Cook because my second pick is new AR features. Ooh. Now... What does this mean?

My expectation is iOS and iPadOS will have new features in ARKit, things that ARKit can't currently do, and that they will spend some time showing what that stuff is i have said on the show and many times in the past and maybe i'm going to say it again today that they're i think the likelihood of a headset is is slim but i think they want to start preparing people for it and that's going to be even more stuff that ARKit can do

that could potentially end up tying into this. And I'll say it could be ARKit, it could be ARFeatures app or ads into their own apps, you know, but like there's going to be new stuff in AR that we couldn't do on our iPhones or iPads before that we'll be able to do with iOS 16. Yeah, I think this is interesting because, first off, if they announce, well, this is an iOS and iPadOS pick.

So regardless of the status of the headset, what you're saying is there will be AR features, AR functionality in the next version of iOS and iPad OS, and that they will talk about it. And that the scenario here really is that they're cloaking the open secret that they're working on a headset in iOS and iPad OS extensions so that the developers can work on those while we all know what's really happening behind the scenes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, like, again, they showed off some,

again, it doesn't count, but like the door detection and all that kind of stuff with the accessibility features, like there's still areas they can push on, you know. A friend of the show, CGP Grey, loves to talk about maps and there's, I'm sure, new stuff they could add to maps

that is taking advantage of AR because that seems like one of those, like, really easy places to add AR stuff. And so I honestly expect a combination of things that Apple are doing plus things that they're going to be giving to developers. But just we'll see what it ends up being, but I expect new AR features at WWDC.

All right. It's not, I mean, I think the only complication is what if it's not. It's not, I mean, I think the only complication is what if it's not because it's all in the headset, but I think you're right.

But I think even with a headset, they're going to have new stuff for iPhone anyway. Yeah. You know? And just, this is like,

you're playing to win today, right? Because you're picking things that are hard to bet against Apple talking about privacy, hard to bet against Apple talking about privacy. Hard to bet against Apple talking about AR. As you said, this one goes out to Tim Cook.

This one goes out to Tim Cook. That's where my Tim Cook round ends. But like that's, you know. We know what you like, Tim. It's my boy, Tim. Yeah, that's right. Good morning. You get to hear that in person maybe.

Maybe. Maybe in person. I'm going to go. Hat tip to the sheriff of the rumor roundup finally he did he did something for us you know uh yeah i'm gonna go with i'm gonna go with widgets or widget like features on the lock screen yes and this is mark german now this is another one of these great things where it's like the feature behind the feature where you can see where apple's going what mark german reported this week this weekend is that apple's actually been working on an always on lock screen which since they have oled displays on their on their

on their phones they really should have done probably a while ago but they haven't and they thought about it last year and then they chose not to. But it sounds like what Mark Gurman says is this year, the new iPhone Pro models will support an always-on lock screen. So there'll be a low-power lock screen like on the Apple Watch that can show basic information. And he says as a part of that, logically, you would have more interesting information on the lock screen that you could control. And so as a part of that, he suggests they're working on some changes that will add more widgets or widget-like features on the lock screen. So I don't know what form this takes,

but we know what this is, right? It's like your ability to put some customized information on your lock screen instead of having to swipe to a different screen or something like that. Yeah, I wrote the pick out this way because the way what mark's actual quote is including wallpapers that have widget-like capabilities and that doesn't sound right to me i don't think that's accurate like i can't imagine apple like there are these 10 wallpapers and like yeah they you can choose

the weather wallpaper. And that doesn't sound right to me. Like what I imagine is going on is what we're saying. So, but basically if that's what it is, this will count. That's why it's like widget-like features. So like it's dynamically updated. If the way Apple chooses to implement this is something like instead of wallpaper on your home screen,

you can put a weather status and it will color based on the weather status. And it'll have a little line that says what the weather is. And there are a few of those that are like active wallpapers for your lock screen. That counts. It's adding more information on the lock screen. Widget-like. That's what widget-like. That's right.

If it's a widget that is the size of your screen and lives at the bottom level of the of the z-axis that's weird but it would count it doesn't sound i mean this you know what i mean this sounds like one of those things you could be told a thing but that doesn't sound right to me like i can imagine to say like it's on the lock screen and you can see stuff you know it could look like complications could look like the widgets we have now i don't know but like your entire wallpaper doesn't sound right to me. You may just be able to drag a widget onto the home screen, right? Like on the lock screen, right?

I mean, why not? That should be the way that they do it. But we'll wait and see. I don't know where notifications will go, right? Like that's the thing. So they're just in a little blob and you have to tap to expand them or something. I don't know.

Talking about notifications, I'm going to pick for my third round pick new notification management tools parentheses outside of focus modes so i wanted to add this because focus mode is another thing and honestly it's i i consider these separate like in my mind so i wanted to separate them that way i think there will be some kind of notification management stuff added in we could see an expansion of time sensitive. Maybe they change some stuff like that. Maybe they go back and kind of rethink those summaries or just more tools to help us stay in control of our notifications. I would like to see that. I always want this to be a thing.

This is, again, there have been some rumors, right, along these lines. And I would like to just continue to see this as a thing that Apple gives us more tools, more notifications, like let us get rid of them, let us triage and manage them in all different ways. It should always be a thing they keep pushing on. interesting question here about, I just talked about customization and how they're really, we're talking about widgets two years later and that Apple sometimes takes two years to respond to something. They're on that kind of cycle. I wonder about that with notifications and widgets and I think what, or in focus mode. And I think what it comes down to may be, is this a year where they actually go back to a thing they introduced last year and think about it and overhaul it?

And I'm thinking of focus mode. Or is this the kind of year where they tinker around the edges and next year would be the first time you'd really see them reacting to what the issues are and limitations are of focus mode? I like your pick because it's saying the first or the second one is true, right? It's saying they're not going to necessarily overhaul focus mode right away. And the two-year cycle seems frustrating, but on another level, it seems logical. If you really think about the fact that they ship the OS and then they start working on the next OS, they don't

really have a lot of time to gather feedback and to let it sit and figure out what works and what doesn't in it. And by the time they do, it's kind of late in the game to put that in the next OS cycle. So it gets bumped to the following OS cycle. And so maybe this is a tinkering with notifications and adding more features in there rather than a wholesale focus mode change. That's, I think, reasonable. Round four. This is tough. I'm going to go with an iPadOS feature because I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do in iPadOS other than, of course,

running apps on an external display on iPadOS. And I'm going to go with global keyboard shortcuts for shortcuts. Yep. This is the idea that Apple introduced, first off, Apple introduced the globe key as a shortcut key in the last version of iPad OS. And the idea there is that the globe key is sort of for global shortcuts.

Get it? You know, global shortcuts. And there aren't very many of them. And shortcuts is right there. Now, there may be like a third third party app API where you can assign apps can assign this and it'll bring the app forward or do something. But I think the best way to implement this and also the easiest way perhaps for Apple to implement this is to let you bind keyboard shortcuts, which by the way, you can already do on the Mac, on the iPad. So you're in wherever you are and you do globe P because you've mapped that

globe shift J and a shortcut runs. And what does it do? Whatever you want it to. So I think again, Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown here, but it's all set up for this to be a feature. It's not a huge feature but it would really actually be a great productivity feature for people using the iPad with a keyboard whether that is in like a keyboard case or maybe attached to a big display, who knows? So I'm throwing it in there.

I'm, yeah, global keyboard shortcuts for shortcuts. We've been speaking about this for years, right? And then Apple gave it to us, but on the Mac, right? So now they should return in kind. Which shows that they get it, right? And I know that there are challenges with the entire concept on iOS and iPadOS of a global anything, right? Because so much of it is so siloed. And yet, you know, you can adjust the the volume and like i mean there are media keys and then adding that

uh globe key i think was lighting the way which is like here we are shortcuts already can operate in the background via the widget so it's not yeah you know they have the underpinnings there yeah right it's all there it's all there it's just it's just a matter of hooking it up uh right so that's my pick global Global keyboard shortcuts for shortcuts. I'm going to go for my fourth round pick. New features added to messages. This is a Mark Gurman rumor too, isn't it? This is.

This was something that I had already put in the document because I think it's time to add some new stuff to messages anyway. Amen to that. Messages, I think is... Mike, I wrote a whole column for Mac world about how bad messages is and how it's one of Apple's most important apps and important features and feels abandoned. So yeah, yeah. Let's make this happen. I want it to happen.

Maybe like maybe second to Safari or like neck and neck with Safari, I would expect is the most used app on people's iPhones, like in overall, you know, like if across Apple's entire user base, those two apps I'm sure have got to be like right there with each other. And I feel like, you know, the chat app landscape continues to evolve and messages is falling behind a little bit mark

gorman was talking about audio messages being more of a thing which i don't use them we don't use them but i know they're used right like i see people using them all the time and that would to me that would be one of those things where they like they look at their user base they see what they're using they see it's audio messages they know that their function is not very good for it and they want to keep maybe making that easier for people i don't know um but i want to see more added here in general you know there's things that other chat apps do one that federico always mentions and i think is about time is the ability to retract like retract a message so you can like unsend it from something if you send it

to someone on iMessage like basic things like that that they don't have you know the ability to edit a message after you've sent it um may i would love them to rethink the reply mechanism i use the reply mechanism but it gets messy so fast right and so like you know the fact that you get that little like it opens up into its own like kind of nested window and it like obscures what's behind it's like that's not very elegant like it feels very much added on top so i and as kate's saying one that i want definitely and kate's saying it'll just go more tap back reactions emoji or just more tap backs than the five that you have right so it's this is it kind of surprises me really that messages doesn't get something every year but no matter what it has been many

years since anything significant has been added i think like the reply system is good but it wasn't really significant i think like it was an it's an addition but again to say a little bit clunky was that added in 15 or 14 the reply feature i don't remember now i want to say okay oh i don't know someone in the discord will definitely confirm that for me in a second but nevertheless like no matter when it was interesting it's something this is again as you said it's not super interesting and they kind of didn't do it very well um i would love and that's one of my one of my criticisms of messages in that article that i wrote is apple when they do roll out an a messages feature it feels like they just roll it out and walk away from it and they don't fix it or make it better or and the reply thing

is one of those where it's like okay there are a bunch of things that are that are not great about it you could make it better and that hello hello is anybody there and there's just nobody home and that's that is the story of messages so there's so much fertile ground there but they actually need to put some effort into it replies what i was 14 so now i feel even more vindicated that it's been two years time for more stuff yeah two cycles that's the that's the trick yeah oh it's getting tough here we got two more picks in this how is that even possible that's a lot of picks yeah but we have like kind of the 30 something things in here but it gets hard right you get up in the get up in the rarefied air quickly yeah yeah well that's good though that that's you or you and i

were talking beforehand about how many picks we're doing it's like i think it's actually better with more picks because it drives us to make more esoteric picks, which makes the scoring more fun because we're not just picking obvious things and getting them all right. I'm going to make a very esoteric WWDC pick here because it's just, I have no information about this happening, but following on from last year, it feels like something they would do. And I'm going to pick it, which is there's this thing called Carkey. Apple announced last year the idea that Carkey was going to work in like two companies of cars. So I'm going to go out there and I'm going to say it. This year, Apple is going to mention new Carkey partner or partners the idea that they're going to say and now it's going to be an old mercedes or whatever right whatever it is for this car thing because i think it demos well and for them to mention you know fabulous car companies that are partnering with apple

um yeah it's a it's a total random pick but it feels very wwdc stagecraft to me i don't have a ton to say about this but i can see where you're going with it. Right. You're right. I mean, again, it's, it's totally random and it,

and it probably won't happen, but I like the, I just, I can picture them saying, cause it's a new thing and there's not a lot of support for it. They announced, I think two companies that were eventually going to support car key. It's a really cool.

I think. Yeah. It's a really cool idea. And I feel like it's something that they want to talk about in terms of the utility of i of of the iphone and ios and that if they have uh some partners lined up which i don't know if they do but like this would be a good bit of stagecraft to say and look now we've got five different companies that are supporting this so you're going to be able to unlock your uh your car with your iphone my next pick is it's interesting i actually thought you were going to

go with mine it's wwdc it's a developer conference so i'm going to pick for round five enhancements to swift ui swift ui is supposed to be the future right is at some point they need to do more with it is what i get from listening to my developer friends i didn't have it on my list because i'm actually skeptical that they're going to do this and talk about it on the keynote and all that but it absolutely needs to happen i think the most illustrative thing about this is yes all of our developer friends who've tried to use swift ui um say basically like they can get 80% of the way there actually pretty easily. And they're like, oh, I see what Apple's saying here. And then they get to the last 20 or 10% and they slam into a brick wall. And the classic example here is, I believe, shortcuts

on the Mac and actually across done in SwiftUI and that it's like the best example of Apple, you know, dogfooding SwiftUI and coming to terms with the fact that it's not all there yet. And this is supposed to be the future of Apple, you know, app development. So wouldn't it be great if there was a major new enhancement to SwiftUI that Apple extolled the virtues of in the keynote

and in the State of the Union and in a bunch of sessions. I hope it happens. You felt more comfortable betting on it than I did. I realize, honestly, this is the riskiest pick I've made so far for a number of reasons. One, they might not do anything. Two, they might do it, but it would be in the State of the Union. Could be.

Right? Hard to believe they wouldn't mention it, though. I mean, we'll find out. I don't know if SwiftUI belongs in the keynote now that they've announced it, but I think it should. And again, this is going to have to be one of those things where we've been through this before

with, like, Catalyst apps. They have to say SwiftUI stuff. If we can point to an app and be like, oh, that's made in SwiftUI, and they say it, and it's doing a bunch of stuff they couldn't do before, it's not going to count. They need to call it out as like, this is new for SwiftUI

or here's some features for SwiftUI or we've added a bunch. And honestly, I'll tell you the place that I feel like I could get this, Jason, is like one of those word clouds. You know? They're like something, something, is like one of those word clouds. They're like something, something, something in SwiftUI. That might be where they go with it.

I don't know. But I do actually think this is probably the riskiest pick that I'm making as part of these iOS and iPadOS picks. That's okay. I picked Carkey. It's fine. You sure did, didn't you? That's why I thought, all right, now's the time. Now's the time.

Okay, I'm going to wrap up my iOS and iPadOS pick round with an item that actually was not on my list of top choices, but I don't want to double down on either of the remaining items. So I'm going to go with this one. Rumor has been that it's out there and that it's going to happen and it still hasn't happened. Well, we're almost at WWDC now. So it's probably where Apple will finally officially announce its classical music app. Boom. I was wondering about this one. I think it exists. I think we've seen so many hints that it does exist and they bought it and all of that. And so if you're laying out the groundwork for the fall, it's got to be in there,

right? So now they may announce it and say it's actually shipping in a week to existing iOS customers, right? Everybody will get it right away. It may not actually be a thing that is all the way in the fall. But if it's going to exist and yet it doesn't exist yet, why would you not announce its existence on your stage, right? It's an iOS feature, even if it's not in the next. And remember, we're not picking things announced for the betas of the next iOS. We're just doing announcements.

And it's like, it's sitting right there. How do you go all the way to fall, essentially, without admitting that the classical music app exists? So gotta mention it. Now there's, you know, and they'll just throw it in. They'll be like, oh, and we're doing a classical music app. Yay they'll move and because apparently kermit the

frog is hosting that segment anyway he's in the audience you know so there it is yeah most of the time he's just sitting there sipping tea but he gets very excited about classical music he's listening to classical music while sipping the tea you you know? That's right. He's strumming along on his banjo. Fancy frog. There is definitely a history of music stuff in the WWDC keynote that does not deserve to be there. So, you know, they have a history of putting music in the developer keynote. So it could happen again. They really do.

I was reminded of that on Connected last week, right? The idea that they announced Apple Music and had a musical guest during the WWDC. I remember that. I remember sitting there thinking, really? That was the worst. WWDC keynote?

Really? My final pick, I'm picking this purely because I want it to happen. I don't necessarily think it's going to happen i just love it that's part of the draft mike we it wears us down we we do these certain picks and we're like oh but i also need to conjure something into existence by picking it i'm manifesting here all right yes and it is a redesign of the home app because the home app is bad. It is bad. It's a bad app. You are putting a lot of weight into Apple

fixing its wayward apps in this round. Yeah, it's like, look, hey, oh, you want to turn off a light in this room? Oh, you don't have it in your favorites? Click over to this tab and swipe three pages. Why? Why? Show me all of my turned on lights. We hear that Apple is committed to the home

again right that they're working on stuff and there are rumors about new home pods and all sorts of other stuff going on and the center of it all is the home app and it's awful it's so bad so i'm right there with you i i mean this is you know i try i you know this mike i try to be a very measured person and be like look you got to see both sides of it and it's more complicated than than the easy takes would have you believe and all of that so with that said let me say best solution to the home app is to just start over yeah there's nothing to be salvaged from the foundation like the visual foundation is real bad like underpinning it i'm sure it's terrible you know like whatever like you you've built all the stuff and i would say apple's home

app throw it away it's fast it's faster than any of the other things that i've used and that's why i like it home kit the actual like you press a button and the light goes on like it's faster than the other applications that i've used so whatever they've got underneath great but the application itself is such a mess unsalvageable i'm officially saying it here please i hope if they do this they are not trying to tweak what's there because what's there is just bad it's just it's just bad think it rethink what you want a home interface to. That design was built in a different era for smart home devices.

And theoretically, Apple knows what the current era is like and what the future is going to be like with Matter and all the rest and that there should be a home app that is designed around what an actual set of smart devices in homes will look like. And that app ain't it. So give us something new.

If I'm supposed to have smart devices in every room of my home, the home app is failing, right? The way that it shows that stuff to me. And I understand that they would prefer me to have HomePods and I'll speak it, but it's just not always going to be the case. And I don't always want to do it that way. So give me a better way to manage all that stuff.

I'm right there with you, Mike. Let's go, Mike. Let's go. I'm going to be rooting for you now. You got me pulling for one of your draft picks now. I'm very excited. That's how it goes. So that's the end of our iOS and iPadOS round.

Six picks down. So I'm going to come back to the first one. Apps can run on external displays on iPadOS. Now we didn't come back to it, which was if there would be a new windowing or multitasking mode external displays on iPadOS. We didn't come back to it, which was if there would be a new windowing or multitasking mode or something on iPadOS. I took it to be that if I went...

I was taking it the extra step. I don't think you can do apps can run on an external display without having some new modes. Fundamentally, it would be a multitasking mode. But when we got to the end, you decided not to counteract my pick pick and I decided not to double down on it. But I think that's the implication is that, is that, uh, if Apple is allowing apps on external displays, there probably has to be some new tiling or floating window modes. I would think that they

would also allow, especially on the larger iPad pro, but probably all the iPads, the ability to undock something and have it be a floating window or have some other kind of mode that it goes in that is a multitasking mode that is maybe more Mac-like or tile-like in some way. Now, if they do that, but say you can't put it on an external display, then I lose my pick, I guess. But I want it to go all the way because I think they go hand in hand. Yeah. And obviously this is different to like the mirroring, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's the point is having an app on an iPad that outputs video to the second display or some other thing or is a mirror to the second display.

We know that that's what it does already. This is a new thing where you can take an app and just run it and it's on an external display and you can control it and it's running and you see it and it's the whole UI and it's not mirrored. It's running on that external display. So we'll see. I also didn't double down on shortcuts because I had a very vague automation improvements that I was thinking like being able to run a shortcut every 10 minutes or whatever, right? And that would run a shortcut every 10 minutes or whatever, right? And that would be a thing I would like to see, but I already made a shortcuts pick there. So I decided not to double down, but I like it. We both made some weird picks and we both made some dream picks and we both made some realistic picks. So it's a good collection there for the

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me a bunch of mac os features and you know it's not as simple as you may think for as it is for ios and ipad os i feel at this point i i agree i i struggled a bit in fact you put down one of the first ones that you put down was focus on stability and bug fixes which is the most boring pick ever but you know it might be it was it was a struggle here to think of things that aren't i mean i did think about like putting in kind of duplicates of things that we put in the other round but the truth is a lot of the ios stuff will also appear in some form on the mac and it seemed a little silly to have those like i could put in some like uh some sort of theme that is similar to the themes that are available. I don't need to pick that.

So we have a smaller selection here. I'm going to go with something that I thought of this morning and I talked to you about that I think is an interesting thing to predict but is inevitable, which is at least one feature will be for apple silicon max only oh this is a good pick this is a really good pick i like they have to say it i guess right but i imagine they'll say on now we're using the power of apple silicon we can do this because we're we are i think going to get to the point here where uh mac os updates still happen for intel for a couple of years but um the the a lot of banner features just won't work on intel yep it feels inevitable like it also feels like if that's not going to happen why do all of this yeah you know like you want to show it off right the the assumption is one of the reasons

that they went to their own silicon is so they could do things that they've otherwise been held off from doing. And this has already happened, right? There's some features that have been Apple silicon only. There was some that they announced as such, and then I think LiveText it was, and then they found a way to bring it to Intel Max. But this is going to be a thing that continues.

And it kind of should, in my opinion, like you got to take advantage of the hardware that you're on and this can be from either just a pure power perspective or the neural engines or whatever um but otherwise you know just why keep doing it like they'll keep updating mac os for years as they should and keep doing things that are important for it this is this is the question is processor transition. What I want to say is the end of the line for Intel Mac OS updates will come faster than you would think. Apple's been so good at providing compatibility. I do wonder what the form of the end of the Intel era takes on Mac OS. takes on mac os and is it like is it that it goes for a while and most of the new features work on intel is it that it goes for a while but while all these new features come to apple silicon the intel version doesn't really get them or is it more that it goes for a couple of years and then the intel version of mac os gets like security updates but it doesn't get anything else after that i i don't

know how they're going to handle it it'd be interesting to see because one way to do it is and they do some of this on the iphone a lot which is you're still updating to the new version of the os but some of the features just aren't there if you're on old hardware and it allows them to get all those people updated and they're on the same version but there's a bunch of stuff that just doesn't work on your phone because it's too old and they could do that with the mac they could be like yeah you're totally on mac os 17 but the eight banner features at wwdc that year like only three of them actually even function on it because the rest are apple silicon only and that's kind of a bummer but the alternative i think is probably not getting an update at all. For my first pick, again, I'm channeling my previous energy in the iOS round.

Love it. To fix what I think is the worst thing on macOS. Dream pick. New way to access widgets on macOS. Oh, yes. Yes, please. Adding widgets to macOS Montereyy we're on monterey right i always forget i don't know why i struggle with this monterey it's monterey last year was big sir this year's monterey yeah we're gonna go with that the worst thing i did to monterey was put

widgets in it because it the widget experience is bad and it ruined notifications. I just want them to do a different thing with it. Whether they put them on the desktop or bring back dashboard or whatever it is they're going to do, do something. Get rid of Launchpad and put widgets in instead. I don't know. But the way we currently have it is not great. I'm going to say this pick was originally a better way but i thought that's a weird thing to judge so i've changed it to new way so if they just keep

them in the notification thing but they do it differently that's not it new way to access widgets on mac os i think they gotta break them out of that sidebar yeah one notification center widgets aren't notifications so what yep is happening uh two they are out of sight out of mind which is always my problem with dashboard too they're just kind of off on the right there and the fact is there are good widgets there are good widgets from ios there's there's good stuff on on mac os i have find my widgets for my family yeah so instead of launching find my and seeing you know is is my wife at the store or what, you know, what's going on. Um,

or is my daughter back home so I can call her or whatever it is. Like I have to swipe and the little cards are there and it's nice, but it's in this really not great location. And I would rather have them in a floating layer or drop down from the menu bar or on my desktop or whatever. So some, some better showcase for mac os widgets i agree round two mike i'm gonna do it uh-oh i'm gonna do it what's he gonna do new macbook air oh okay

okay mad lad well i'm worried about the supply chain but they've also been trying to ship that product for like more than six months apparently that's what we've heard right september was the first expected chip date coming up coming up nine months that they were planning on shipping that product the chip before yeah this thing yeah is there a developer conference angle to it not really but it's a big uh event for. Are they ready to ship it? Maybe. Maybe they have been working on building these things. And even though they've got all sorts of supply chain issues, you know, one of the things that they want to do is ship a new MacBook Air.

I think it would be a good seller for the fall. If they are ready. I'm not sure I believe it either, but they've been trying for so long. And the stories seem to suggest that it's basically ready to go. And that the question is, like, how many of them could they build? How backordered is it going to be? All of those things are going on. But I want to believe, and I also want to believe, that they really want to kick off the next era of Apple Silicon and be able to make a case to developers about where they're going with Apple Silicon on the Mac,

which the developers care about. And so even though it's not a developer machine, it's a MacBook Air, I'm going to say we're finally going to get a new MacBook Air. I hope you're right for two reasons. One, I want colorful laptops in the world, right? Right. That's what I just want it. Two, I want a hands-on area.

I want to experience a hands-on area at wbc yeah they have a new macbook air possible yep possible they need new products to have hands all the colors you know then that would be great like and go into a little thing see what they got going on i'd be excited about that jason I'm jumping in with you here. Uh-huh. New Mac Pro. New Mac Pro. Yeah. I was thinking of picking that next. So, new Mac Pro. And, of course, it may not, you know, be anywhere near shipping.

No, no way. They just need to announce it. Yeah. Look, we spoke about this. There's so much precedent for this. Like, there's so much precedent for this like there's so much precedent for this to me this feels like to me it feels like the most locked hardware because they can the mac pro is unlike anything that they do in the mac space they can just they can talk about this thing six months before they ship it and it doesn't matter um and we know it exists because they told us it does right

and i feel like they mentioned it three months ago. For them to then wait six months, maybe, before they mention it again would be odd, right? Like, going all the way out to the fall. This is the audience for the Mac Pro. They're probably even less likely to buy it now that the studio exists, but, oh boy, developers, do they love powerful Macs, you know what I mean? you just tell them there's a powerful Mac there and they're going to go wild for it so I imagine new Mac Pro that's what I think we're going to get announced at WWDC

maybe so maybe so that would be nice I am going to go also with it's kind of something I want but it's also I feel like a logical next narrative step for them. Last year, they announced that shortcuts was the future of automation on macOS. And so I'm going to say,

improvements to shortcuts for Mac are highlighted at some point. So the idea there is, you know, last year we introduced shortcuts on the Mac and it's great. And we got a bunch of, I mean, even if it's literally Craig Federighi saying, and we got a bunch of Mac improvements this year, that would count, right?

That's what I'm envisioning is a little bit of a check-in on the fact that last year they did shortcuts on the Mac. And this year they're doing more or improving it in some way. And if they talk about shortcuts improvements on iOS and they don't't mention the mac then it doesn't count but i think uh they're going to want to check in on the mac in fact it wouldn't surprise me if uh they they had a mac shortcuts segment like in the max segment especially since as we've said a lot of this stuff one of their challenges when they have a lot of things on all their platforms is when do you announce it yeah like the Mac segment could literally be, you've seen all the features of Mac

because they were also the features of iOS. So there's nothing new here. So you hold some things back. So maybe the shortcut story gets told in the Mac segment. And this is also true in iOS, but we made some improvements here. I don't even know what those improvements are. There's a lot of things they could improve,

but I want to predict that they're going to touch base on shortcuts this was going to be my next pick basically for some of the reasons you mentioned one nice which is that like it was a bit of a hit right i think maybe shortcuts for mac may have surprised apple like people have been really excited about it it had a rocky start but like where we are today the community loves it and i think that the shortcuts team clearly show they don't stop working and I imagine they've got some stuff. But I mean, you know, Shortcuts has

had improvements every single year. It is unlike basically anything else Apple does. It has changes every year. You know, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, sometimes they work it out along the way. But every year since they joined, since Shortcuts was announced, they're always adding new stuff in. I cannot since Shortcuts was announced, they're always adding new stuff in.

I cannot imagine Shortcuts' improvements finding their way into the iOS portion either, especially because now it is an easy story in the Mac segment. Yeah. This is a perfect place for it. Unless it's like the keyboard shortcuts thing. But even there, I think they could say, and you know, by the way, everybody really loves that we added keyboard shortcuts support to the Mac.

So we also put it in iOS, but they could still do that in the Mac part of the presentation. Yeah, I think this makes a lot of sense. And because there is definitely room for them to continue with shortcuts for the Mac. And I expect if they're going to do it, they're going to talk about it here.

All right, so this is the last pick in the Mac round. So what I'm torn with right now is whether I make a software pick or a hardware pick. My concern with a hardware pick is if there's no hardware at all, I'm kind of wrecked, right? Which is a possibility. So I'm going to go back to the Sheriff.

I think one of the only things that Mark Gurman mentioned about macOS in his newsletter was a redesign of system preferences oh yeah basically to make it the settings app and that is much needed because system preferences is only becoming more and more complicated to try and work out where things live. You know, I love that it looks so... And it looks untouched since the beginning of Mac OS X. Well, except when they added all the weird icons years ago. Well, yeah, but the whole premise of it is this app that's got all the icons there and you click

and then it opens a pane and all of that. It's like, it's been there a long time. And a new take on it would be welcome. I just would love, you know, settings. And it's like, I don't know, it looks more like iOS, but just read kind of move stuff around, put some new stuff in there, make it fresh. You know, I, that's what I would love to see. And I almost, I was kind of toying with us

a little bit of like if they did that would they even would they even show it like is it worth showing and then i'm like i think that would kind of play to the crowd yeah you know i think that's exactly it i can see fettariki smiling and being like oh we, we got you here. Look at this. You love some sentence. You bunch of nerds. Yep, exactly. I don't think he'll say that, but if he did, I would applaud him. It's implied strongly, though. I would applaud him.

All right, so that's Mac. That's the Mac rounds. That's all taken care of. Yep. This episode is brought to you by ZocDoc. There are amazing doctors out there, right? But really, the ones that matter are the ones who actually take your insurance. With ZocDoc, you can focus on doctors who are in-network,

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So we are now in the everything else round. A round that is increasingly growing. The everything else round, just for a bit of context, includes watchOS, tvOS services, headset, other hardware, and miscellaneous stagecraft picks. So this year we have increased the amount of picks that we're doing here than years previous

so there's going to be five rounds. At this point honestly, without Mac hardware, macOS could fit in here, so who knows how this is going to shake out over the next few years. Things kind of rebalance themselves maybe. But we're in the everything else round.

And Jason, it's over to you for your first pick. Mike, I'm going with a StageCraft pick first because sometimes I like playing to win. And so I'm going to pick under everything else, Craig Federighi appears. Done it, Jason Snell. You think he'll be there? Will Craig be there? Oh, I hope so. I hope so.

I hope so. Honestly, out of everyone else, I could imagine Tim taking the week off. You know, Craig Federighi? No way. Yeah, you got it. You got it. Okay, there's my advantage, I guess, is going first. Is that one.

I almost thought, I mean, you could argue it's so obvious that it shouldn't be on the list, but you put it on the list and it was on the list. Come on, you know. You never know. You never know, but this is how it goes. You never know, but it's probably going to be there. All right, my first pick then. Some portion of the program is live

all right that's a good one the idea here is they're doing this event and they're inviting developers and again it could literally be like you know the olympics where they like show the people cheering back home at the minimum it's that right they have like a shot showing people like it as the opening or something right i could imagine because you know how you know how they love this kind of stuff they've got like a pre-recorded drone and it like goes through a tunnel when it comes out and it's live you know because they're like yeah we got you you know like some little fun thing um but if they don't do this that would be wild to me and i don't know what you think like, there is a part of me that's like,

well, what if they just do the whole thing on stage in front of an audience? Like, the whole thing. They just invited us all there to sit and watch a video with nothing even indicating that we're there. Seems weird, right? But they could do it. It's possible. I mean, what if they did the whole thing

like they used to? Oh, the whole thing live? Oh, yeah. I think that is possible. I think that's possible. I think it's going to rely on more taped stuff, but I think it's possible that they'll have... The simplest version is Tim beginning and end

and then there's a pre-taped thing in the middle. They could break it up into segments and have Craig come on stage and then do his. Because if you think about the way those things are structured, right, they're all like nested parentheses. So there's like there's Tim and then you go to the Craig segment. And then Craig will give an overview and then throw it to the individual people. Well, I could see a scenario where the Tim segment and the Craig segment are there and the Jeff Williams segment is there, right? But when they throw it to other people, the other people are all in a pre-taped segment.

They could also just do the whole thing live. Yeah. But, you know, will they? I don't know. I don't know. Probably not, but you never know. Because there is this thing I've been thinking about, right? Like they have an audience. We don't know how big this audience is but it seems like

the audience is growing right we don't know how big it is we don't know where it'll be we don't we don't know nothing but as well as inviting media and we don't know genuinely do not know if we will be in the same place that the developers are i have no idea nobody knows right now but it seems like they have been increasing the amount of developers that they have been inviting like it seems like they keep giving out invites now whether they're just filling in people who can't make it i don't know but there seems to be multiple rounds they got some extra folding chairs for the rainbow stage there's something to be said that you're doing a presentation right yeah that like maybe you want people to cheer like they always have

done yeah well that that was always my argument. When we were talking about WWDC coming back, one of the arguments that I made was maybe they'll just do a keynote as a media event. They'll invite some developers. It's very much like what we're seeing here. They'll invite media and they'll invite some developers and maybe they'll put them in the Steve Jobs Theater. That might not happen this time, but I think that that would be where it's heading. And like, why do that? Well, because not only do you have some media there who can do the hands-on, but you have developers there who will cheer and you're now live in front of a studio audience. And that has a stagecraft bonus,

right? That is a benefit to have reaction shots from developers and cheering from developers and all of those things that you want to show off and it's your hand-picked developers right like it yeah there's there's a lot of advantages to doing that as a as a live event even if you try to keep the best of the pre-recorded and i imagine i can imagine them not always doing this like the ip iPhone events, or product events where they just invite media. Just have the media sit in a room and watch the screen and then go to the hands-on. But WWDC,

I could imagine them doing a full live or more hybrid approach because they have an audience. I would never have suggested this if there was no audience, right? That they would be doing it live, because what would be the point? But we'll see.

We'll show round two. We'll know in a week. I guess we will because we'll be there. I am going to go with, again, based on a Mark Gurman rumor, and it's also something I want to have come true. I'm going to go with

old watch faces upgraded. Can I make my pick? Yeah. New watch faces. It's the watch around. Now here's the issue. I see this, the same issue for both of us is like,

they do not need to do this as part of WBC. Like both of these things. I know. September, but it's watch OS. That is watch something about watch what else they got you know watch faces yeah and so what one of the rumors is what mark german reported was that they were going to revisit some old watch faces and update them

and as a user of some old watch faces like modular, one of the things that kills me about it, or sorry, utility is the one that I really like. Utility. Is that it's basically still designed for the original Apple Watch. It's gotten a little bit bigger, but like it doesn't use any of the new complication styles that they've introduced over the last five years or whatever. It's still living in the past and um and what i want to believe for both of our sakes and for our picks sakes is that what the new version of watch os is going to have an upgrade to watch face technology probably including complications and that they're going to get everything on the new whatever it is right and like now they're all using this format now they all use these

complications now there are you know and and because really the face picker and all that it's evolved a little bit but it feels very much like it's still evolving the first version of it and i wonder if they'll do a new take that will encompass new faces and upgrading the old faces to be more modern i I think they're good. I think they'll do something. But if they literally, if they put up one of those old watch faces and it's got a complication style that is not currently supported, that's what I'm talking about here. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, and they've had a combo of both, right? They've done new watch faces at WWDC. They've done, and then they've also had some in September. We'll see. I think the only wrinkle i could imagine for your pick here is if like there's some kind of design change to the apple watch again and they update the old watch faces for that so they wouldn't want to show it too soon but possible but we'll see i'm going to stick uh mike with watch os we're just going to keep it rolling here

hard to believe that we're doing this, but we're doing it. Especially considering how little time watchOS got last year, right? I know. I don't even think it really was in the keynote at all. But this is like one of those bread and butter things, which is a new health-focused app in watchOS. Yeah. I don't know even what it is,

but they always like to add health features to watchOS. So let's throw it in. I'm willing to take the risk. If they're going to do something to it, that's always a solid bet, right? Unless there's a new sensor on a watch in the fall that they save it for,

but they really like doing this. They really like adding some app to do something. And, you know, watch OS apps aren't exactly heavy lifting. They can add a fairly basic new thing and say, look, we added, you know, maybe more than one. They added this and this. And isn't that basic new thing and say, look, we added maybe more than one.

They added this and this, and isn't that great? And we'll be like, okay, that's a new health-focused app. That's what the product is for. Last year, they didn't add a new app, but they updated one. They had updated the Breathe app to include mindfulness. Yes, and changed its name. I think it's still called Breathe, isn't it?

No, it's Mindfulness now isn't it no it's mindfulness now okay well there you go so that would be the new app right that would work for you my third pick I'm doubling down on stagecraft okay and I'm going to say that

Tim Cook presents in front of an audience okay this is what I consider to be the minimum amount which is that tim does his good morning so excited for you to be here today you know he stops for five minutes for applause because it will be raucous applause uh and he says how happy he is for everyone to be here and he's so excited to see uh developers here at apple park we're so happy to welcome you all here you know that kind of stuff we've got a great week planned for you all and for developers watching live at home you know and then he comes out at the end and he's like wasn't that great we can't

wait to see what you do with it right i think that feels like the minimum part i agree i agree and and and zach pointed out uh tim cook presenting as he did last year in front of an audience of me emojis does not count if they do that this year what are they doing you know what i mean like you've got actual people that no this is an audience of human beings yeah i'm gonna um because you're picking up some potentially easy wins here i'm gonna throw in a view of the Steve Jobs Theater, including lobby and entry level. Now, this is important because

is the presentation going to be in the Steve Jobs Theater? Maybe. But they also use the big lobby area for an entry level area for demos. So we need to see at least the lobby and entry for this to be correct? Is that what you're saying? It just needs to be something in that Steve Jobs theater, the big round building.

Now, they usually do a prerecorded presentation from the because they built that whole building. And during the pandemic, there's been nobody in it. Right. So even if they don't use the theater, if they use the lobby or entry level, that will work. One of those big circular spaces. There's the one with the two elevators and the stairs, and then there's the top level that's just the big round thing with the windows looking out.

Any of those, including the inside theater portion, but just something in the Steve Jobs Theater. Before we make it a bit more simple, inside view of the Steve Jobs Theater. Okay. But it could be any part of it. We know that the Steve Jobs Theater is Okay. But it could be any part of it. We know that. Any part of it. The Steve Jobs Theater is that entire building.

Whole building. So if anybody presents anything from inside of anywhere, we'll know. Yep. And that will count. And that's a good pick

because if they do the pre-recorded video, they'll do it. If they do a presentation from in there, they'll do it. But I don't know. I think so.

It would be odd to present from inside of the Steve Jobs Theater if everyone's outside outside but we'll find out all right all right i'm putting my i'm gonna put my my here we go in the ground no ar or vr hardware announced or pre-announced? All right. It's what we call a buzzkill pick, but it's consistent with your other thing, which is Apple's not going to announce the headset.

They're not going to pre-announce anything about it. They'll do the major head fake, you wink, wink, nudge, nudge gesture thing with AR and VR features in iOS, but they're just not going to talk about it. Now this pick doesn't include the operating system right this is the hardware however i also think it's the same but it's not in my pick i think it's the i think it's the same because um you know you're you're picking a different version of a of a pic i put in there that i'm still tempted to pick but it's apple's apple acknowledges

existence of headset but doesn't announce headset, which is a similar thing, which is they could say Reality OS for a forthcoming product that we're not going to announce today. That's just not happening in my opinion. None of it is. Like, I just... They don't need to do it now.

They just don't, right? Like, in my opinion, it just seems like it's too early. And I know there's been lots of stories about trademark filings and that kind of stuff, but i've seen some reports saying that this is purely coincidental because trademarks have to be filed six months in advance of a product in certain markets etc etc nevertheless there is smoke here but that fire is far away. That fire is down the road. We're going to get to it later on. There's enough stuff at WWDC.

I don't see AR VR hardware being announced here. Honestly, the only way I see that is if they have very little for their other platforms, and that doesn't seem likely to me. I think when they want to show this, I think they're going to spend a lot of time on it and I don't think that's time they're going to give in full next Monday.

It's a tough one because this has been, you know, the reports are that they were originally planning on announcing it at WWDC. There's a lot of reasons why you would because it's a developer message.

You want to get the developers hyped about it. And they have people there, right? Like this is one of the things I was saying, oh oh it's definitely not going to happen if they don't have people well it turns out not they have media going that was what i said was needed but i still don't think it's happening yeah it's uh this is so tough because i i honestly don't know i think there are lots of scenarios where they would announce it but there are also a lot of reports that it's just not far enough along for them to announce it. So yeah. Yeah. We'll see. It's a tough one because it's the, look, you get all those developers together. It's the elephant in the room, right? Like everybody knows, everybody who's an Apple platform developer is like,

there's going to be a headset. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm doing with that. But are they going to do that at this event on top of everything else? All right. I guess it's my pick. I guess I can't avoid it anymore. Service is one that I like, but I don't think I want to go with it because they announced service changes at weird times. And this doesn't seem like the right time to do that. announce service changes at weird times and this doesn't seem like the right time to do that okay i'm gonna i'm gonna wimp out and rather than making the bold pick of which i kind of want to make which is uh apple acknowledges the headset exists but doesn't announce it which would be such a such a power move yeah i'm gonna go with rules for the tv app changed to accommodate

more services i would would love this. This is one that you, I think put in there, but it's the, the idea here is, um, Apple has had some challenges, especially with Netflix in terms of how the TV app works and they want it to

be a central thing. So maybe if there's a TVO and S announcement, which is, there's gotta be that they will, they will, they will change the TV app, uh, with the goal of accommodating more services. I don't know what form this takes, but, announcement which is there's got to be that they will they will they will change the tv app uh with the goal of accommodating more services i don't know what form this takes but actually you know

what i'm gonna i'm gonna back off of it because i'm not sure i want to be that specific there is another item on our list here that's even um even vaguer than that which is just the tvo app is redesigned let's go with that oh this is this, Jason has worked on the unthinkable and has set a pick and rejected that pick. And I'm going to just go with the broader TV app pick. It changes to the TV app. TV app redesigned on TVOS. I hope it includes rule changes that enable... We had one item in our little list that is like they make a deal with netflix

to put to put netflix in the tv app i'm not picking that because i don't really want to believe it but i mean i want it to happen but i don't think it's going to happen anyway tv app redesigned on tvos we'll just go with that i'd love that because i like tv app i don't want tv app to get better uh my final pick i'm not going to do what you did i'm not going to say something change on my last minute i'm just going to dive in you did. I'm not going to say something, change my mind last minute. I'm just going to dive in and go for it. Well, you don't know until you've read it halfway through, and then we'll see.

Now you... Oh, I don't like that you said that. All right, now I'm just going to go for it. A new way to access favorite apps in watchOS. I had this on my list. I think it's a pretty good idea. I don't know where it came from but it's a good idea it came from me pressing that side button and always being unhappy about the things that are in there because it's never it's you know it's not in any set order i

used to like it more when it was a set order of applications you just put your favorites in there and now i don't know if it's just a set and you can change maybe you should check that but now i have have apps most recently used as a multitasking view. And I kind of don't need that on my Apple Watch. I also could imagine that they just redo... This kind of fits in a couple of places for me.

They could redo the way you actually select applications or all on the Apple Watch. They have either that list or the honeycomb right now. There's definitely better ways to do that. Thank you, Jason in the discord for confirming it is a setting for the watch i can still do favorites i'm going to change that i hadn't thought of that nevertheless um selecting apps on the apple watch not a great experience and i would like to see that changed it's a it's a mess it's a mess so. So let's do it. Great.

Love it. So that is the end of the everything else round. Right. We have a bonus round. Yes. This is like a little draft within a draft. Each of us is going to pick potential names for macOS. We're going to pick two names for mac os we're going to pick two each okay and um there's a point on offer for the person who gets one point if somebody gets it right obviously only one thing

can be correct um so with my first pick i just i just want state this again. We pre-chose this because we had originally some options in the macOS round, and Jason wanted to do this as a bonus round. And I said, I want you to write all the names you might think it could possibly be because you're Californian and I'm not Californian. There are places in this list I've literally never heard of them. So that's how we're working this out. This is, I guess, somewhat similar to the draft that the

colors are. We're both picking some stuff to each and if one of us gets it right they get a point. Yeah, it's a bonus point if you correctly predict the name of macOS. I am going to start by going completely outside of California

and picking, they name it Mac OS 16 and it has no other name. They sync it up. Really? You think they could do that? I think they could do it. That's jumping three versions, right? It is. It's jumping three versions.

Okay. I don't think they're going to this oh well i'm glad i have another pick then i just wanted to cover that one why do you think they would do this i think well this is this is part of my ongoing frustration with apple's naming because they also have all those numbered iphones and the iphone numbers are different than the ios numbers which is also bad and then you've got macOS, which has a different number, but also a name. So I think that I'm envisioning a scenario where they decide to move macOS in lockstep with iOS and iPadOS. And why does macOS have a cute name when the other ones don't? And they just say, nope, we're going to be boring from now on. Every year we'll increment by one, starting with 16 all around. That that's it why is mac os different it's the idea that like oh we we allow mac os to be fun and quirky and have a nickname and uh maybe they stop i mean i

wouldn't mind it personally because i can never remember the names of the mac os versions right i mean i could have just picked a spinal tap appearance again but i didn't i am going with a name though uh and i'm going with a name, though. And I'm going with a name that I think would be kind of nice. And I'd like it. Mac OS Tahoe. Tahoe. I did put that in there.

So, California geography topic. Apple recently has been sticking to the coast. So, we got Catalina, which is an island in Southern California. We got Big Sur, which is on the coast. and then just up from Big Sur to Monterey so coastal names are interesting however Lake Tahoe is a classic it's it's a a great location it's a beautiful natural place name it's a single word that I think is fairly clear about how to pronounce it and say it. But what I've learned about all these California names is that I assume everybody knows how to pronounce them and I'm wrong. So we'll see. I think Tahoe is a great choice

because it would make for some beautiful wallpapers, you know, great pictures of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding kind of the mountains and the trees and everything. And they haven't used it yet. So I like it. Lake Tahoe is beautiful. What's your next pick? I'm going to go with Sequoia, which is the name of a tall tree

and also a national park. The reason this film makes me laugh is there is also spelling issues with some of these names they come up with. Sequoia is one of them because it's like, what is going on back there? S-E-Q-U-O-I-A. What is happening at the end of that word? Sounds great. Love the sound of it. Sequoia. Beautiful. Sounds wonderful. It sounds great love the sound of it sequoia

beautiful wonderful it's got all the vowels in it it's got all it's basically all of them right it is all of them it has all the vowels in it sometimes why you know what i mean well yeah but it's well maybe sometimes wise in sequoia but it's not right now well why is in sequoia i don't know why is you in sequoia you know all right my one I'm going to pick here. I'm going with a different approach because I think it would be kind of cool and would allow them to

bridge into something else. Mac OS Golden Gate. Ah, yes. I just put that in there this morning and you went with it. I like it a lot. You took the bait. I like that as a name a lot. I took the gate bait. You know, I think it's fun. I love that as a name. It is the name of a park, You know, I think it's fun. I love that as a name. It is the name of a park, right?

But it's also the name of the bridge. And similarly, beautiful desktop wallpapers. And I think it would be fun if they're going to keep to the California trend, which I do actually encourage. They don't just do like just places, you know, like the idea of Golden Gate, right? It's got a little bit more to it.

And I think that would be kind of fun if they went in that direction because they could do other fun stuff as well in the future yeah it says california it does reference the bridge but also the geographic feature of the golden gate that is the way into to san francisco bay it would be them going up the coast as they've been doing for the last couple of releases so i think that that's interesting we have a bunch more but um, but we're just going to pick those. So we'll see if we hit the lottery with any of those or if it's something completely different, which it usually is. I don't think we've ever successfully predicted

what macOS is going to be called. It's one of the true mysteries of the WWDC keynote. And they play it as one, right? They've done that joke a bunch in the past. Yep, ever since the Mac OS Weed joke. It's been since then. That is the draft. If you want to score along

with us, you've got to upgrade dot cards. I think it will be unprecedented as me and Jason will be able to look at each other next week if all goes well and look into each other's eyes and see the moment when somebody could win or lose and that could be fun that could be fun as we mentioned we will be recording and streaming as soon as we can after the keynote next week so keep it locked

to twitter and you will get uh information from us you can follow the show's account here at underscore upgrade fm but we'll also be retweeting that too, so you'll be able to find it from our own Twitter accounts. I'm iMike, Jason is jsnell. Thank you so much for checking out this episode, and I'm really excited for next episode for so many reasons, but

I'm always looking forward to WWDC, and I'm expecting and hoping for great things. And we'll be back in person for the first time in years. It's going to be so much fun. I cannot wait for it. It's going to be a real interesting vibe next week that I'm really looking forward to.

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