Apple's first mixed reality headset may appear
Apple just announced that this year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held June 6-10 Beijing time, and the only company in Silicon Valley that recently successfully resisted the excessive use of the term "AI" or "cloud" has everyone excited about what it has in store for us this time. In addition to waiting for the visual spectacle that VR/AR will bring, Apple also hopes to lay a solid foundation with WWDC's release in terms of product lines, applications, and software support.
Of course, Apple is also a company that secretly lays out in AI, and every year WWDC is the cornerstone product moment when Apple launches to drive the future, so we have reason to focus on the company's movements. Whether it is the layout on hardware or the application in software, it is worth our analysis. Let's take a look at what we can see from this five-day virtual event:
Advances in operating systems will continue to solidify Apple's foundations
Apple may release the latest iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS features. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, iOS 17 will have an updated health and messaging app, as well as significant user experience improvements, though details are scarce. Gurman also revealed that Apple plans to improve the notification feature in iOS and iPadOS. In addition, a recent Apple blog post revealed upcoming iOS accessibility features, including innovative machine learning-driven features such as door detection for visually impaired users and live captioning for FaceTime calls. Apple is expected to show more accessibility features and plugins for all operating systems. In addition, we can expect that the new iOS will include compatibility with AR/VR headsets, and rumors have it that the company will finally release them this June.
In terms of watchOS, it is believed that the new upgrade will be quite extensive, and the new interface will have significant changes. Gurman noted that watchOS will have quite a big year this year, with updates to Apple Watch hardware. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Apple is overhauling multitasking on iPads, bringing them closer to the laptop experience with resizable windows.
Augmented reality/virtual reality and rOS are opening up new categories
The AR/VR headset is considered Apple's most confidential project to date. Starting around 2015, the product went through several iterations and finally came to an end. While the release of reality headsets is expected to take another two months, we're likely to see Apple reveal some details about its new operating system, rOS, which supports these headsets.
Object Capture and RealityKit bring real-world objects into augmented reality. An example of it was also seen at WWDC 2022. With ARkit 6, Apple has opened up multiple possibilities such as 4K video, 3D object capture, face tracking, motion capture, scene geometry, and much more. Naturally, it's almost certain we'll see more ARkit additions in WWDC 2023.
Hardware updates will enrich Apple's existing product line
Apple is reportedly preparing to launch an improved version of the Mac Pro with Apple's silicon chips. While the redesign isn't expected to have much impact, the update will mostly revolve around the transition to Apple chips. In a recent blog post, Apple highlighted that on Mac computers with Intel processors, the "About This Mac" section displays information about the processor, including the name of the Intel chip. The Apple Watch hardware update is expected to be huge, with rumors that the changes will include a tiny LED display and a larger 2.1-inch Apple Watch Ultra screen.
Siri will be able to handle multimodal input thanks to AI technology
Apple recently released the Transformers architecture, which is optimized for Apple Silicon – the technology behind current LLM and GPT technologies. The rise of generative AI has left everyone wondering what will happen to Siri. Now that Apple has been moving in this direction by launching its own secure and private LLM that runs at the edge of devices, the company will certainly seek to power Siri by generating AI capabilities. In addition, it is expected that the latest version of Siri will be able to handle multimodal input. This means that virtual assistants are not only able to receive text-based input, but also process image, video, and audio inputs.
Maps and Safari updates will bring you closer to competing products
If we ask you where Apple is seriously behind Google, you'll probably say Maps and Browser. Given how big Google's market share is here, Apple will seek to gain some advantage in both areas. Along these lines, Apple recently released new updates that include HD and the latest images. The new Look Around perspective changes as the map moves, giving it a more realistic feel and covering more detail. We can expect Apple to reveal more details about these new features. Meanwhile, Safari is another pain point for Apple. It will be interesting to see if Apple has anything to offer a better experience for Safari.
The new stage brought to developers continues to maintain the ecosystem
Apple will do this by providing developers with unique access to Apple engineers while introducing new technologies and tools. The company will also open up areas for developers to participate in the Swift Student Challenge by creating an app playground on a topic of their choice.
In short, Apple's products and hardware will once again lay the cornerstone for its business. The AR/VR bring will be the most noteworthy, which is also the most anticipated part of the market, we will wait and see.
Author|icebin typesetting|Li Ruizi