All eyes in the technology world will be on San Jose as the WWDC 2017 kicks off on Monday, June 5. Apple holds such events more than three to four times a year. However, the June event is being considered important since a lot of announcements could be made with the possible release of the next flagship smartphones in the offing in September. So, what all can one expect out of this 5-day event?
The New OS
iOS 11 is naturally the most expected and being discussed in tech circles. There is a widespread feeling that the OS, which has been around for 10 years now, should see a much wider and deeper update than the routine ones dished out year after year. There is, definitely, some expectations and there are rumours to this effect that Apple might use the 10th anniversary to announce some big bang changes in the OS, particularly keeping in mind that the upcoming hardware, the iPhone 8, might itself wring in some dramatic technology improvements. One particular aspect being hotly debated is the introduction of the “dark mode” feature which will convert the display to black thereby obscuring the pixels in the display and help in prolonging battery life.
Along with the iOS, the mac OS, the watch OS and also the TV OS may all get refreshed and one can expect that the company will share with the developers, the new ideas it has developed for these operating systems.
The Siri Speaker
Here’s where the excitement is building up the most. Part of the reason could be that there have been many leaks and speculative writings on this subject in recent days. Again, the dyed-in-wool Apple fan is eager to see the company take some giant steps in this direction. One logic put forth is that Apple was first off-the-blocks with its voice assistant six years back. But today, companies like Amazon (Echo) and Google (Home) have moved far ahead in entering people’s homes, while Apple is still working on its Siri Smart Speaker. There is definitely an air of expectation that the new hardware will be unveiled at the WWDC this week and released to the market commercially in the fall, along with the iPhone 8 and other devices. The developers may be informed of the full features that the speaker will be capable of and the design and other aspects could also be revealed.
Changes to the iPads
It has already been speculated that Apple may launch a 10.5inch iPad Pro. This is based on the reports that the smartphones with larger displays almost touching 6inches have rendered the market for the smaller sized tablets or phablets and it is showing in the sales figures as well. This could be confirmed during the WWDC.
Apart from this, the new range of the MacBook Pro laptops may also figure in the announcements to be made during the 5-day conference. Watch this space for updates as the events unfold at the WWDC in San Jose, California.