It’s just about time to start thinking about what we might see at Apple’s developer conference next week! We asked our team to share their biggest wishes and predictions for the event, from SwiftUI APIs to interactive widgets on iOS. Here are our picks — what are yours?
Michael Liberatore
From a development perspective, the things that I hope for the most this year are a holistic revamp of navigation APIs in SwiftUI, overhauled error reporting in Xcode to mitigate false errors sticking around, and flooding Xcode Cloud with features to make it as compelling as Buddybuild was. I would also love to see Apple’s answer to the rise in large language models, and whether Siri will become super powered.
For keynote goodies, I’d love to see an iPhone SE in the 13 mini form factor, and compelling reasons to be excited about the much rumored headset. I also want to BELIEVE that the Mac Pro is still coming!
Matthew Bischoff
I’m hoping that in addition to new Mac hardware and the rumored headset, Apple spends this year at WWDC working on adding quality-of-life features across their platforms.
On iOS, my wishlist includes interactive widgets, a real Passwords app, snoozing and scheduling in mail, and redesigns of the Home Screen and Calendar app. I’m also hoping this is the year for custom watch faces on watchOS.
For developers, it’d be great to see a GitHub Copilot-like feature integrated into Xcode that preserves developer privacy, a version of Xcode for iPad, and more effort to make SwiftUI reach API parity with UIKit.
Sam Gold
I’ve got four weird feature requests for things that have been bugging me for a while.
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On iOS, I’ve had this feedback (Radar 49404087, FB7830265) open for years: use a multiply blend mode for the highlighter annotation tool. Right now, it just overlays highlighter ink with a dropped opacity, which makes text look all muddy:
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A great addition to the system-wide share sheet would be a way to strip out tracking parameters and boiler-plate text when sharing links and text from apps (FB9845096). Given Apple’s focus on privacy over the last few years, this feels like a no-brainer. Here’s what TikTok gives me to share around — it’s absurd:
https://www.tiktok.com/@mikamiimikami/video/7219999987374050578?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8%2B4UBNu%2BZmcBPs6NZpllrXaL%2BO1ZytNPhh%2BSBuqzpffScI1lcQjLhyKP6qWhAdHZwqap2UJ9w%2B7WKKSoxGgA%3D&checksum=4da43b2f9f8612645d55ae113592bda6de04ef37d8088458aae658d80a4a7559&clips_cover_ab=v5&enable_clips=1&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAK17I5nRRoFT31woBuynPTaO1MtNm5slVrr6aKM_4565HQNS2Ct8y8L5OHkMuihfn&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7051798997119421701&share_link_id=42E13D80-8D3C-46E0-AAAD-6345BA631C19&source=h5_m×tamp=1641959109&tt_from=sms&u_code=cmh5mm2eklek62&user_id=6547004336399826949&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=sms&_r=1 -
On the Mac, I’d love a way to screen record at lower quality (FB12070699). I often want to do a quick screen recording to text to someone or send in Slack, but it defaults to a super high quality, and I have to either wait for a 60MB video to upload to Slack or open the terminal to run it through ffmpeg. Just gimme a Low/Medium/High quality picker in the Command+Shift+5 floating bar!
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Finally, in the watchOS Control Center, just show me the battery percent of my phone (FB12069584). If I’m on the couch and my phone is charging across the room, I want to see when I can unplug my phone.
That’s it. I’d put up a PR of these myself but Apple told me I’m not allowed to look at the source code for their operating systems. Whatever.
Jillian Meehan
Since I’m not a developer, I mostly look forward to the exciting iOS updates every WWDC — I like the fun, flashy stuff. I don’t have many specific wishes (although I’m seconding all of Matt’s QOL requests) but I’m very interested in seeing what kind of enhancements widgets get across the board.
As a recent Reminders convert, a true dream come true for me would be for scheduled reminders to show up in Calendar. (Yes, I know Fantastical has this feature. I love it. I want more of it.) And why stop there? I want to be able to easily attach things from Mail and Notes and Files to my reminders. Apple has some pretty great apps, but I think it’s a shame that they don’t play as well together as they could.
One more thing: I’ve heard the rumors about a new journaling app, and I’m all for it. I’ve never really clicked with any other journaling app, so I’m curious to see what they’ll do.
What are you hoping to see at WWDC next week? Let’s talk about it!
