As the tech world prepares for one of the most highly anticipated events of the year, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), developers from all corners of the globe are eagerly anticipating what the Cupertino giant has in store. From June 5 to June 9, WWDC promises to reveal groundbreaking updates, innovative technologies, and empowering tools that will shape the future of Apple’s vast ecosystem.
For developers, WWDC serves as a platform to gain insights, expand their knowledge, and connect with fellow professionals, all while keeping a keen eye on the latest technological advancements that will revolutionize their craft. As the countdown begins, MartianCraft’s developers, designers, and managers have shared their expectations, hopes, and desires for this year’s conference.
Foremost among our expectations is the announcement of new platforms, frameworks, and developer tools that will help us create remarkable experiences across Apple’s product lineup. Updates to iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS seem certain, with hopes for enhanced capabilities and refined user interfaces.
We’re also eagerly awaiting advancements in augmented reality (AR) and machine learning (ML) technologies, as these emerging fields continue to reshape the boundaries of possibility. We’re also interested in what’s to come with artificial intelligence (AI) and how Apple might respond to the latest advancements in that space.
Below, we share some of our talented staff’s thoughts about and predictions for WWDC and the transformative impact the forthcoming announcements might have on the industry. Join us as we embark on this journey of anticipation and discovery, eagerly awaiting the unveiling of Apple’s latest innovations.
Brian Buck, Senior iOS Developer Of course all the buzz is centered on new AR/VR hardware, so I’m in the same camp as my colleagues at MartianCraft — excitedly awaiting the announcement of an Apple AR/VR headset. This will be a game changer in the industry, offering new ways to build apps in a way only Apple can pull off. It will most certainly reinvigorate developers from a technology that seems to be slightly fading. We’ve seen a few flops in AR/VR over recent years, so hopefully Apple can hit it out of the park.
Other announcements I hope to see, especially on the heels of Apple releasing Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad, are additional apps coming to the platform. With the unification of the M line of arm64 processors across the Mac and iPad Pro models, we should expect to see other professional-focused apps make it to the iPad — looking at you, Xcode.
I’m also excited to hear about all the latest improvements to SwiftUI and Foundation. New frameworks are always nice to dive into at WWDC, but sometimes the bug fixes, SDK tweaks, and new additions to the core of what we use as developers can be refreshing to hear. I recall being excited about Swift AttributedString handling Markdown. I look for the “What’s New in….” sessions first.
Cory Bohon, iOS Team Lead Developer Apple is on the cusp of something major, and I expect we’ll see some of that come to fruition at this year’s WWDC. I expect we’ll see a lot more AR/VR talk (possibly hardware) and more convincing stories around iPadOS and where the future of that platform is going as Apple pushes for more professional iPad apps.
Meghan Dever, Senior iOS Designer It’s no surprise that this year Apple is expected to release the new AR/VR headset. The concept of an AR headset has been around for a while, but adoption by the average consumer has yet to be achieved with the hardware. If the rumors are true, and Apple nails the adoption, it will be a sight to see as a designer. How consumers will use it, what they will use it for — only time will tell. ARKit will play a huge role in the performance of this new hardware. Currently, the applications that take advantage of ARKit are mostly geared toward gaming and social experiences, but the application of AR/VR could expand more to education, science, health, and more. It will be exciting to watch the design and development community explore these new tools.
Josh Levine, Senior iOS Developer
While I’m always interested in the things that grab headlines, like new hardware or operating system features, it’s the smaller, less heralded changes that I look forward to most. These are the things that will be most impactful to my job as an iOS developer. Sometimes they take the form of major paradigm shifts, like SwiftUI, but other times they are just incremental improvements to existing APIs and features. On the paradigm-shifting front, I’m interested to see if Apple will jump on board the AI bandwagon. Tools like ChatGPT and Copilot have already proven to be very useful to developers, and having them integrated directly with Apple’s toolkit would be very welcome. Some other changes I’d like to see are improvements to SwiftUI components like List, Form, and ScrollView. While extremely powerful now, they are somewhat behind their UIKit counterparts when it comes to the ability to create custom designs and user experiences.
Mike Mahon, Senior iOS Developer The anticipation for WWDC this year revolves around Apple’s impending AR/VR hardware and software. I am particularly excited to see how they will utilize their existing platforms and technologies to bring a new experience to a much larger user base than what has come before in the AR/VR space. Every WWDC also brings incremental improvements to Apple’s existing platforms and frameworks. These improvements to frameworks, new and improved APIs, and enhancements to developer tools are the most impactful to the day-to-day workflow of an iOS developer. I find these announcements exciting and am hoping for new Swift-focused database tools and SwiftUI improvements. For iOS developers, WWDC shapes the upcoming year, and the rumors suggest this year will be a big one. I can’t wait to dig into all the videos, labs, and, of course, the keynote that kicks it all off.
Hardik Patel, Senior iOS Developer Can we even talk about this year’s WWDC without mentioning the long-awaited AR/VR headset? Apple, without a doubt, is in the best position to nail this product category. I am excited to see all the use cases they have come up with, stock apps they have built, pricing, their target audience, etc. I am not a regular user of ChatGPT, but from about a dozen interactions I have had with it, I was really impressed by its ability to understand context. I am hoping Siri gets a big upgrade this year. I am already a fan of “type to Siri” over talking to Siri. If Siri were to understand context better, I would be using it a lot more. As a developer, I am also hoping Xcode will get a Github Copilot-like service baked in. I will also be looking forward to improvements to SwiftUI and other frameworks.
AJ Picard, iOS App Designer I keep hearing a ton of rumors about Apple releasing their own AR/VR hardware, which I’m really excited to check out. Apple is due for some type of new innovation, in my opinion. I’m excited to see what iOS 17 has in store and its accessibility improvements. Would love to see some more improvement to iPadOS so that I can decide if I want to invest in an iPad or new Macbook Pro. Would love to see new AirPods, AirPod Pros, and Apple Pencil.
Kyle Richter, Chief Executive Officer Every now and then WWDC has a different feel to it, like something big is coming. It has an eerie, almost too-quiet kind of feel in the developer community. WWDC 2023 has that feel again. I agree with the rumor mills that we will likely see Apple take a serious step into VR/AR this year, which should be exciting. VR has been around for decades, but it’s only been more consumer-driven the last few years. Even with more affordable headsets and some third-party developer support, we still haven’t seen it really take hold of the tech industry yet. Apple may just be the catalyst we need to get widespread adoption. Much like how there were digital music players before the iPod, Apple won’t be first to market — but they may knock it so far out of the park that in a decade people will think they were first. While AR/VR is getting all the attention, I also expect to see major updates to all the platform OSs. Apple has been extending update cycles on all devices further, but especially Macs. They know they need to start going bigger to get users to upgrade more often.
Tyler Sasek, Project Manager Obviously the big rumor is an AR/VR headset, and I am excited to see the hardware piece. But I am equally excited to see the use cases that Apple shows off. Their recent events have leaned heavily into customer stories, so it will be great to see what kinds of solutions their hardware provides both consumers and professionals. I am also hoping to see improvements with Siri, since it has always been a weaker virtual assistant compared to Google and Alexa — and with the recent attention on AI, that weakness will only become more pronounced. There is also rumor of a first-party journaling app with a focus on mental health; I am always excited to see how Apple designs their apps, because it often gives indication of future design standards from them, such as when Reminders was redesigned.
Evan K. Stone, Senior iOS Developer I suspect that WWDC will be big for developers this year. There have been so many rumors surrounding the existence of a new AR/VR hardware device, it’s hard to ignore that signal. If Apple does release such a device, then we will have yet another platform to consider when developing applications. It’s a very exciting opportunity, because it opens up some doors that most of us have not developed software for before, including a completely new user interface paradigm and potentially new components that are specifically designed for an augmented reality environment.
Another thing I would really like to see this year at WWDC is integration in Xcode with AI developer tools like GitHub Copilot. It really feels like the timing is right for integration between the primary tool that we use every day and AI services to enhance developer productivity. Visual Studio Code already has this built in. You can develop in Swift with suggestions from GitHub Copilot automatically today, so it’s not a huge stretch to imagine that that could be integrated into Xcode as well. In fact, there are third-party open source tools that will let you do it in Xcode, but they’re not as nicely presented nor as performant as I would expect a native, first-party integration to be. Built-in support in Xcode for such AI-driven services and tools would be pretty exciting.
I’m also looking forward to seeing the latest improvements in SwiftUI, where, as we have seen in past years, Apple has been expanding the breadth and depth of its influence on the iOS and iPadOS platforms. I really enjoy working with SwiftUI, so its progressive improvement each year is something I highly anticipate. It impacts my work so much on a day-to-day basis.
Joe Vargas, iOS Developer While I am specifically looking forward to what’s new with SwiftUI, I like to soak it all in. I’ve been holding out on purchasing a new MacBook, so I’m curious to see what new Mac hardware they bring to the table, if any. The elephant in the room is their rumored AR/VR headset, so that would be a fun one more thing to witness. The underrated Sidecar feature between Mac and iPad is a favorite of mine, so I’m curious to see any new features or improvements they implement with that. Last but not least, I look forward to the capability of video messaging. I know it’s a stretch, but ever since Apple introduced audio messaging via iMessage, I’ve been hoping it would push the envelope for native video messaging. Regardless, looking forward to the show 🍿
Chris Wagner, iOS Team Lead Developer Based on the rumor mill, it sounds pretty likely that Apple will be unveiling the biggest part of their AR/VR story yet. ARKit was released five years ago, and it’s hard to point at anything that utilizes it that I regularly use. I’m excited to see what they have to show us here from a forward-looking perspective. Additionally, I’d like to see if Apple has any major improvements to Siri using ChatGPT-like LLM solutions. Ultimately, as a day-to-day developer, I am most looking forward to improvements to the tools we use to build great apps: Xcode, new APIs, and the next iteration of SwiftUI. One last thing — please give us multi-user support on iPadOS.
