Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to read it during lunch or dinner hours as well.
A week to go
There are just seven days left until Apple’s keynote presentation at WWDC 2023, the second-biggest event on the company’s calendar and the first of any kind since last fall. By this time next week, the lucky few will be attending watch party at Apple Park (and looking forward to their special tour; no, of course, I’m not envious), while the rest of us will be huddled around our monitors listening to the latest announcements. It’s fair to say that both groups will have high expectations.
From the sounds of things – and despite Apple’s ruthless efforts to keep things a secret, a lot has leaked – there will be big news to justify the hype. The problem is that news, no matter how important, will only be relevant to a small audience.
When you work in the media, you quickly learn to identify the things that interest the greatest number. At igamesnews, we are well aware that an article about the iPhone will be relevant to many more people than one about the HomePod, and is therefore likely, all things being equal, to get more page views; the former is simply more popular than the latter. It is more to integrate
Now, I’m not saying that Apple is going to completely ignore the iPhone at WWDC 2023. iOS 17 is expected to include a slew of new features, including a smart Smart Display feature and, most likely, the all-important ability to install apps from third party stores without jailbreak. But most experts agree that it will be a low-key update with no “tent improvement”. This will be bug fixes and reliability improvements, with some new “nice to have” features added as a bonus.
Meanwhile, macOS seems to be heading for a lackluster June, so much so that my colleague wondered if Apple still cares about macOS. “Our macOS 14 news hub is nothing,” he laments. “The chirping crickets just gave way to the sad trombone.” On the bright side, there’s the possibility of new Macs, like a 15-inch MacBook Air and a Mac Pro (finally).
And these, remember, are the flagships. iPhone and Mac, side by side, pulling Cupertino out of its 90s slump and becoming the envy of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Surely Apple has something to say about these titanic product lines that is worth hearing? Maybe not.
Instead, the highlights of WWDC 2023 are likely to fall into two categories: the mixed reality headset and watchOS 10. Reality Pro is certainly an interesting prospect for me, given that it is a whole new line of products that could possibly be bigger for Apple. fortunes than the iPhone. It’s real futuristic, risk-taking stuff. The problem is that, for now, it’s a niche. A TrendForce report last week predicted that Apple’s headphones would initially be aimed at developers, not consumers, and that shipments this year should be less than 100,000 units. By Apple standards, that’s peanuts, and the product is largely irrelevant to the vast majority of people watching the keynote.
The Apple Watch isn’t as niche as it sounds, but it’s nowhere near as mainstream as the iPhone or even the iPad. Depending on which research company you ask, there are probably between 1 and 1.5 billion iPhone users in the world right now. Apple Watch’s user base, on the other hand, ranges between 100 million (which the line officially crossed in 2021) and 200 million, the approximate total number ever sold. And so it’s debatable how much the WWDC audience will even care about a fundamental overhaul of the way we control our Apple Watches.
I’ve argued in the past that a boring Apple event is better than no event, and I think it’s important for Apple to give proper attention to fringe products. Apple can’t do every event on the iPhone, nor can we do every article about it. Apart from anything else, he needs to find the product that will take the place of the iPhone once the tills stop ringing.
But make no mistake: this will be the riskiest series of announcements Apple has made in years. A colossal global audience has been waiting for this event for a long time. It would be daring to say the least to spend most of the event talking about a product whose sales materialize with products and accessories for the home, and another whose clientele for this year would fit in a big sports stadium.
Foundry
The opinion corner
Trending: Top Stories
Apple is finally ready to admit the Apple Watch has it all wrong.
The future of Apple’s AI could be a lot brighter than it looks, says Jason Snell.
Bungie’s Marathon revival is a missed opportunity for Apple and the Mac.
Jason Cross argues that Warner Bros. Discovery everything exploded with the new Max application for AppleTV.
ChatGPT can give you advice on buying a new Mac. It just happens to be bad advice.
Samsung’s new Smart Monitor M8 is the next best thing to a 32 inch iMac.
The rumor mill
A leaked list of key players in Apple’s Headset Team reveals the wrong priorities of the project.
Apple gave us a huge WWDC index by inviting the VR press to the keynote.
The iPhone 15 may not need a MagSafe-certified charger to 15 watt fast charge.
And the following year, Apple reportedly plans to return to a vertical camera layout on the iPhone 16.
Patent activity suggests a future Apple Pencil may have Find my support.
Podcast of the week
In this episode of the igamesnews podcast, it’s about your hot plugs! You have ideas about the latest happenings in the world of Apple! Let’s hear what you have to say!
You can watch every igamesnews podcast episode on Spotify, Soundcloud, Podcasts app or our own site.
Software updates, bugs and issues
No, iOS 16.5 didn’t kill your iPhone battery.
New iOS and macOS updates fixed serious faults in iPhones and Macs for the last 10 years.
Caution: The watchOS 9.5 update may cause your Apple Watch screen to turn green.
iOS 16.5 Fixes a security flaw that would have been fixed last year. Please note that this also prevents an Apple adapter from working with some iPhones and iPads.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you want to receive regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook to discuss the latest news from Apple. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.
Table of Contents
