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WWDC on 22 June has got everybody excited about new Apple releases
As the rumour mill goes into overdrive ahead of WWDC20, we explore the credible whispers
APPLE HAS ANNOUNCED IT
WILL HOLD ITS ANNUAL WORLD WIDE DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE (WWDC) VIRTUALLY THIS YEAR ON 22 JUNE AND THE RUMOUR MILL HAS GONE INTO OVERDRIVE IN RESPONSE. This will be the first time a WWDC event has been done in a virtual way, and this approach is clearly a reaction to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“WWDC20 will be our biggest yet, bringing together our global developer community of more than 23 million in an unprecedented way for a week in June to learn about the future of Apple platforms,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
While Apple never comments on future releases, that hasn’t stopped a lot of speculation about what will be announced at the event. The safest bet, since this event is aimed squarely at developers, is a new version of IOS 14, but there is a lot of speculation that we will also see a 6.7-inch iphone 12 Pro announced at the show and released later in the year.
The ever-engaging website Digitimes is reporting that up to four new models of iphone could be released with Apple going into production on the new devices in July, with a potential September or October release date.
The devices could be called iphone 12 and iphone 12 Pro, if Apple sticks to the same naming conventions it has used in its 2019 line-up. The new phones may feature a new Truedepth camera system that cuts down the size of the notch, which is visible at the top of the iphone 11. Of course, this will also be the year that Apple adopts 5G support for its new iphones, so we can expect to see that included in this year’s models. In terms of power, we’d expect to see a new A14 chip that will bring improvements in efficiency that we would hope will carry over into better battery life.
Interestingly, the rumours about the size of the iphone 12 suggest there could be a small 5.4-inch model, which is smaller than the current iphone 11 Pro, while there could also be a 6.7-inch phone, which is bigger than the current iphone 11 Pro Max. We remain sceptical of reports that the smaller iphone would be a budget model though, as Apple has just released the iphone SE, which we’d expect to remain its budget model.
If IOS 14 follows a similar pattern to previous releases, then we can expect its announcement in June and a September release date. Rumours about IOS 14 predict a new Fitness app, new Messages features, a new augmented reality app, Pencilkit updates and more.
The rumoured Fitness app would work together with similar apps on Apple Watch
and Apple TV, and would be used to track your progress through various workout routines. The app is expected to feature a variety of workouts ranging from yoga and rowing, to strength and core training.
The Messages app has seen plenty of innovation from Apple so far, most notably with the introduction of Memojis in IOS 13. IOS 14 is expected to take this even further with improvements to group messages like a new tagging system called @Mentions, as well as a way to retract messages after they have been sent or mark them as unread after reading.
The codename for Apple’s new augmented reality app is Gobi and it will allow you to get more information on the world around you. While details are sketchy at the moment, it could enable you to hold your iphone up to products while in certain shops to get more information on the items you’re looking at.
Finally, the rumoured Pencilkit updates could enable anybody to use the existing Apple Pencil to handwrite information into forms and other websites.
Apple also announced the Swift Student Challenge, an opportunity for student devs to showcase their love of coding by creating their own Swift playground.
“We can’t wait to meet online in June with the global developer community and share with them all of the new tools we’ve been working on to help them create even more incredible apps and services,” added Schiller. We have only a few days to wait.