WWDC will show once and for all if Apple still cares about the Mac

Say, have you heard the iOS 17 rumor since, oh, maybe five minutes ago? Your News Feed probably has a recent report about what’s coming soon for the iPhone – if not five minutes ago, then maybe the last few hours, or at most a day or two.

Reading about iOS 17 is nice and all, but as a Mac publisher, what I’m looking for in my newsfeed are juicy macOS rumors, something that tells us what we might see in the next release, macOS 14. And if my News Feed could produce special effects based on its content, it would play chirping crickets. Our macOS 14 news hub has nothing. Ok, no Exactly nothing, but as close to nothing as it gets – the most substantial rumor is a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claiming that macOS 14 won’t be anything “revolutionary or significant” and will instead bring more iOS features.

The chirping of crickets just gave way to the sad trombone.

It seems to be settling in for macOS to have such a small presence at WWDC that it’s starting to look like an afterthought. This isn’t a new phenomenon – the latest WWDC keynotes have been a veritable wasteland for Mac-only features. We understand that the iPhone, iPad, and even the Apple Watch are more important products than the Mac, but it doesn’t cost much to throw Mac users a bone once in a while. Sure, Apple brings out new Macs on a fairly regular basis, but look no further than the last few years of updates to see how utterly indifferent Apple is to macOS:.

macOS 13 Ventura: stage manager, continuity camera

At last year’s WWDC, macOS 13 Ventura had some major new features, but the two flagship features are tied to iPhone and iPad. Stage Manager is truly designed for the iPad and seems to have been added to Ventura to create unity between Mac and iPad. Meanwhile, Continuity Camera is a neat feature that fixes terrible MacBook webcams, but is actually more of an iPhone feature than a Mac feature. Ventura also provides new support for iCloud Shared Photo Libraries and Safari Security Keys, but these were new to the Apple platform. Even the new Clock and Home apps are essentially iPad imports. Oh, and we also got System Settings, which made System Preferences worse.

Apple

macOS 12 Monterey: universal control

The macOS 12 Monterey section of the WWDC 2021 keynote showcased Universal Control, a magical feature that allows the user to use one Mac to control other Macs and iPads. It’s a feature I use all the time to this day, and every time I use it, I quickly marvel at how cool this feature is, because it’s so easy to implement and it just works merely. But it’s really an iPad feature.

But aside from Universal Control, Monterey’s updates were good, but not great: SharePlay, Quick Note, AirPlay on Mac, Live Text and others. The Universal Control presentation during the keynote actually provided a cover-up for the rest of the macOS demo, which didn’t have much of it.

macOS 11 Big Sur: iOS on Mac

With macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple has focused its efforts on improving the user interface. Big Sur introduced Control Center, which hailed from iOS. Apple used its Catalyst technology to bring iOS and iPadOS apps like Maps and Messages, which unifies the look of those apps across Apple’s platforms, which is nice. But again, nothing major was Mac-specific, and if anything, it diluted the UI elements that make the Mac different and great.

Apple

macOS 10.15 Catalina: farewell iTunes

The biggest news in macOS Catalina was the splitting of iTunes into three new apps: Music, Podcasts, and TV, which will soon become the core apps for Apple’s services. It also introduced Sidecar, which lets you use your iPad as a second screen. And Catalyst gave developers the ability to quickly transfer iPhone and iPad apps to Mac.

macOS 14: Does the Mac really matter?

Perhaps Apple’s apparent indifference to macOS is simply because it’s Apple’s oldest operating system running on devices that don’t change much, if at all. PCs (including Macs) do what they do, while mobile devices like an iPhone have varied and evolving uses depending on model and user. So naturally, iOS requires more attention and effort.

But there’s still a lot to do on the Mac, more than just making features and tweaks that unify Apple’s platforms. I made a wish list of macOS features, but that only scratches the surface. How about finding ways to implement AI in macOS beyond Siri in a real way that helps us get the job done? Or optimizations with the inner workings of macOS to improve battery life? Or how about an app that can act as a central point to manage all of our Apple devices? With state-of-the-art hardware and chips, the possibilities for the Mac are plentiful, and there are plenty of ways for Apple to make the Mac a priority again – and that would give us something to look forward to other than a new name and funding. ‘screen.