Apple WWDC 2024 takes place on Monday and is expected to announce updates for all of the tech giant's major operating systems. Artificial intelligence is expected to be high on the agenda, with iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and MacOS 15 expected to come with AI-driven features.
Last year's event raised the bar, with first glimpses of the Apple Vision Pro, 15-inch MacBook Air, MacStudio M2 Ultra, MacPro M2 Ultra, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, MacOS Sonoma, WatchOS 10, and more. Read our WWDC 2023 report.
Most people don't expect any hardware news this year, as Apple only announced new hardware last month, the M4 iPad Pro and iPad Air M2, but we won't completely rule out the possibility of news about an M4 Mac. That unexpected possibility aside, here are our main predictions:
How to watch the WWDC 2024 keynote
Apple will stream the WWDC 2024 keynote on YouTube, as well as on Apple.com, the TV app on Apple TV and the Apple Developer app. Or, you can watch it using the player above once the presentation goes live on Monday, June 10 at 10 a.m. PST.
Apple AI Update
After a flurry of hardware announcements last year, WWDC has mostly been software-centric: An illustration for this year's event, dubbed “Coming in Swiftly,” features the logo for Apple's programming language, Swift, and a neon-colored bird flying downwards, suggesting that Apple will focus on speed in some way.
One thing is almost certain: there will be a lot of AI talk at WWDC 2024. Every major tech company is working on artificial intelligence, and it's been a major theme at events like Computex 2024 last week, and at new product launches like Microsoft's Copilot+ PC, designed to rival the MacBook.
AI announcements at WWDC are expected to be mostly software-related, and based on Apple's usual annual schedule, we can expect to see news about the next versions of nearly all of its operating systems, with much of it expected to be AI-focused.
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Google will release Generative AI for the Pixel 8 in October 2023, Samsung will add cloud and on-device Galaxy AI capabilities to the S24 in January, and Microsoft is embedding Copilot AI models at the core of its new desktop devices. Apple is a relatively late entrant, which means it has had a chance to observe and perhaps learn from its competitors' mistakes, but we expect many of its systems to come with new AI-driven features at WWDC, when Apple's unique approach will become more apparent.
iOS 18 and iPadOS 18
Source: iOS 18 will let users customize the layout of app icons on their home screen https://t.co/VrIU9gytWz pic.twitter.com/ZupJB1mjBFMarch 24, 2024
Bloomberg's Apple reporter Mark Gurman said that based on rumors he has seen, iOS 18 will be the biggest update to iPhone OS ever. Many of the updates are expected to be AI-related, which could include photo retouching tools, voice memo transcription, suggested replies to Mail and Messages, auto-generated custom emoji, smart summaries of missed notifications, an improved search experience, auto-generated playlists in Apple Music, and more.
It has also been reported that Pages will enable AI-assisted writing, Keynote will enable AI-assisted slide deck creation, and developers will be able to take advantage of AI code writing in Xcode.
As for the UI, we don't expect a complete redesign, but it's reported that iOS 18's home screen will have more customization options, including greater control over icon color and app icon placement. App icons are expected to remain fixed to an invisible grid, but Apple is thought to add the option to create spaces, rows, and columns, bringing iOS closer to Android's approach.
A new settings interface, a new music widget in the Control Center, and possibly ChatGPT integration are also reported.
Other Operating Systems
macOS 15 is likely to receive a similar update to iOS 18, and Apple is expected to stick with its tradition of using California geography in the system's name. Will it be macOS Sequoia? Or Miramar?
Also expected is the visionOS 2.0 update, the first upgrade to Apple's Vision Pro operating system, and watchOS 11 is expected to introduce a new Siri interface and a redesigned Fitness app.
Siri 2.0
Apple's virtual assistant, Siri, will no doubt be getting an AI upgrade using Apple's proprietary Large Language Models (LLMs) to catch up with Google Assistant and Alexa, but it's unclear whether it will be multimodal. Gurman said that an improved AI-driven Siri won't be released until 2025, so it may not be released anytime soon, but we can expect Apple to at least communicate the direction to developers and stakeholders.
Gurman said that while we probably won't see a full-fledged ChatGPT or Copilot competitor from Apple, the LLM training will make Siri more conversational. On iPhone, Siri will reportedly be automatically enabled to offer assistance based on user actions, from editing photos to summarizing notifications to navigating content.
What about the iPhone 16? Apple usually holds a special event in September to unveil new smartphone models, and this year is expected to be no different.
