Today is the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, known as WWDC. Due to COVID-19, developers will not come to California for the conference this year, and instead Apple is hosting a virtual conference. WWDC always starts up with a keynote address today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, and Apple always uses the occasion to announce new products. Sometimes there is new hardware, but Apple typically uses WWDC to show off the next major version of the operating system for iPhone and iPad. Major announcements from past WWDC keynotes have included iPadOS (2019), improved notifications, group FaceTime, and Shortcuts (2018), drag-and-drop and the Files app (2017), split screen in Safari on the iPad and Memories in the Photos app (2016), and slide-over view and side-by-side apps (2015).
What will Apple announce today? Nobody knows for sure, but lots of people are guessing. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg predicts the ability to use your iPhone to unlock a car, a new feature similar to Google Translate, and the ability to change the default mail app and default browser from Mail and Safari to a third-party app. He also predicts that the Apple will shift Macs from using Intel processors to using the same Apple-made processors that Apple uses on the iPhone and iPad, new faces for the Apple Watch, minor upgrades to Apple TV, and updates to the HomePod speaker. I’ve also seen predictions that Apple will unveil a long-rumored product called AirTags that will let you attach a small object to things like keys so that you can use your iPhone to find them.
You can watch the WWDC keynote today on the Apple website. And if you are looking for something to read or watch before the Keynote, yesterday John Dickerson of CBS had an interesting interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook.