Apple’s 2015 Worldwide Developer Conference comes on the heels of what could arguably be called an enormous year for Apple: Its latest iPhones sold in monstrous numbers, its new MacBook is ushering in a laptop era of solitary ports and gold finishes, and, of course, the company entered a brand new product category with the Apple Watch.
If you want to know what WWDC 2015 is going to be about, you could try, as I did, looking at theWWDC schedule. But my hopes of gleaning any WWDC secrets were dashed as soon as I read some of the session names.
Tucked in among the dev-centric titles like “iOS Accessibility, “Platforms State of the Union,” “PhotoKit Lab” and “Accessibility Lab,” were sessions with temporary titles like “And now for our next trick,” “Keep guessing” and “Shhhhhh!” Under any of those straw dogs was this: “The title and description of this session will be revealed after Keynote on Monday, June 8.”
What we do know, however, is WWDC 2015 will, to a certain extent, be a reflection of the last nine months of Apple development and innovation. There will, for instance, be a new Apple Watch SDK that offers access to native functionality. On the other hand, this is a developer’s conference with a heavy focus on software, platforms, functions and foundation-building. In other words, you’ll get your new mobile and desktop operating systems — iOS and OS X — but it’s unlikely you’ll see much, if any new hardware.
But I didn’t say you won’t see anything that relates to a specific piece of hardware.
The Apple TV you always wanted?
“Apple has been sitting on this serious update to the Apple TV for quite a while,” said Creative Strategies President Tim Bajarin. I’ve known Bajarin, a longtime Apple watcher, for years. He’s smart and usually accurate.
We talked a bit about the late Steve Jobs quote, from Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson, that he had “solved TV.” Bajarin said the statement was likely about how people interact with their TVs and the content that plays on them.
There could be a new Apple TV box — and even a new Apple TV remote that offers voice interactivity (not an earth shattering idea: Amazon’s Fire TV already offers voice search). The reality, though, is Apple doesn’t need new hardware to reinvent Apple TV, which means — as has been reported — we might not get a new box, but instead…
… a new Apple TV interface, whose current UI is long past its sell-by date. The new UI could feature a new Apple-based live-streaming, subscription-based TV service (some say the TV service is not on Monday’s menu). “Content is going to be important,” noted Bajarin and said he hopes the new Apple TV platform includes a live component. Last week at Re/code’s Code Conference, CBS CEO Les Moonves revealed the company was in negotiations with Apple to join this as-of-yet unannounced service.
“If Apple is going to play a significant role in the future [of TV], they need to move quick
If Apple is going to play a significant role in the future [of TV], they need to move quick,” said Bajarin.
The updated platform, however, could play an even larger role in the Apple ecosystem.
“Part of the story of Apple TV will be its function as a smart home hub,” predicted Forrester Research Analyst Frank Gillett. This would make a lot of sense, since Apple’s HomeKit smart home development platform is sort of a stateless system without a central app hub for controlling all the disparate devices that can speak HomeKit’s language. Imagine being able to sit on your couch and control the lights and room temperature through Apple TV. You might also be able to access Apple TV from outside your home to monitor HomeKit-enabled devices.
To a certain extent, this syncs up with what we learned in January: Apple TV acting as a kind of intermediary between Siri on a iPhone or iPad and home-network connected smart devices in the home. Though it does seem likely that Apple TV may end up playing a more active role and let you control connected devices directly.
Speaking of HomeKit, it is altogether possible that Apple might bring some third-party HomeKit hardware to the WWDC stage.
Music
The other big news on Monday will have to be Apple Music or iMusic. Notice I didn’t call it Beats Music.
Yes, Apple bought Beats almost one year ago for $3 billion and, as of now, has nothing to show for it except an embarrassing product recall. That all changes Monday when Apple finally unveils its long-awaited subscription-based music streaming service. Industry insiders told me a few things about the new services.
It will include both a paid and a free option. Most believe the free option will be a rebranded iTunes Radio. It will let you stream genre-based music and probably, as you can now, listen to curated streams from DJs. When Apple launched iTunes Radio, it has people like Katy Perry acting as DJ. The new service might have Drake.
Sources told me that Apple will not call the service Beats Music; there’s simply no value in that name on the streaming side. Beats streaming service was around for a scant four months before Apple bought the business.
The subscription service, which will target Spotify and — to a lesser extent — Pandora’s paid tier, should cost around $10 a month. It will be an on-demand system that will let you stream an unlimited number of songs of your choice. My sources told me Apple wanted to charge less for the service than, say, Google Play Music, which costs $9.99 for all-access to their music library, but the music labels wouldn’t go for it.
As a result, Apple’s music streaming service will have to compete on the size of its song library
Apple’s music streaming service will have to compete on the size of its song library (which is roughly equivalent to Google’s) and access to artists. Can Apple convince Taylor Swift to join iMusic or Apple Music or Apple Play?
Most expect the service to be mobile-only (all iOS devices) at start. It’s also likely that, from the moment this service is announced, Apple will launch an aggressive marketing campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen since the first iPod and iTunes. Industry insiders say this is because consumers still don’t understand subscription music services. Most are happy to use free streaming services where they have little-to-no control over the content.
I also think there’s a tiny chance Apple will introduce a new pair (or two) of Beats-branded ear buds and headphones that you can use to enjoy the new music service. They may also choose to hold these until the next iPhone.
Platforms
Over the last couple of years, Apple has pushed its mobile and desktop platforms – iOS and Mac OS X – closer and closer together. Yosemite was the most iOS OS X of all. Yet, don’t expect Apple to go much further in this direction.
“They won’t converge the two into one,” said Forrester’s Gillett.
People I spoke to see this as a foundation-building year. iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 (with some California location code name) will come, but word is we’ll see more performance enhancements and bug fixes than major new features.
“This [WWDC] has a lot more to do with advancing the foundations of their existing products and giving us a glimpse of the future features and functions we can expect going into the end of the year,” said Bajarin.
Naturally, whatever new features Apple demonstrates on iOS 9 will be read as tea leaves about the next set of iPhone handsets (probably iPhone 6S and 6S Plus).
Apple’s comfort level with testing these platforms out in public has grown in recent years. Which means we could see public betas for iOS 9 and OS X 11 as soon as Monday.
There will be HomeKit, HealthKit and ResearchKit updates, along with the formal introduction of other “Kits” like PhotoKit and StoreKit.
Developments outside of Apple could mean that we get at least one or two minor hardware update announcements. Gillett, for instance, pointed to the recent Intel Thunderbolt 3introduction. The new connector supports USB-C and offers twice the bandwidth of the previous connector technology.
The current 5K iMac Retina (introduced last year) needs two Thunderbolt 2 connectors to work with current systems. Apple could tease a new display that can pump the same number of pixels through one Thunderbolt 3 port.
Bajarin told me it’s also possible that Apple could unveil some minor CPU updates for its systems — those would naturally be driven by Intel CPU updates.
As noted above, Apple will demonstrate all the things developers can do when they gain access to a native Apple Watch SDK, which should include much faster and more versatile third-party apps.
Apple Pay will get a relatively minor update that brings loyalty and gift cards into the fold – likely accomplished through the “ShopKit” platform.
One more thing…
Over the years, WWDC has had its share of surprises (think the Mac Pro), but most don’t expect one this year. “I don’t think there’s anything that would qualify for ‘One more thing,’” said Bajarin.
Don’t look for the long-rumored, 12-inch iPad Pro to make an appearance and certainly do no expect a new category. This is, after all, a conference for developers and really not a consumer showcase.
Whatever happens on Monday, I, along with Christina Warren, will be on the ground giving you the play-by-play. Mark your calendars and don’t miss it.
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Source: Mashable.com