WWDC 2018: What we expect Apple to announce on June 4

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off in the Bay Area this Monday. As always, the company will start the event with a keynote from Apple executives to lay out the company's software priorities for the coming year—and possibly some hardware priorities, too.

The primary focus will be on iOS 12 and macOS 10.14—software for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Apple will describe many of the new features coming to those platforms. This year, we're not expecting a radical overhaul for any of them. Apple plans to hold major features and redesigns until 2019 so it can focus on stability and performance this year.

Apple is usually secretive about what's coming until the event, but we can fill in some of the blanks with past comments from executives about the company's strategy and direction, leaks from reliable sources, and more. The following is what we might learn at the keynote that starts on Monday, June 4 at 10am PDT (1pm ET).

iOS 12

This will likely be the star of Apple's keynote. The company has already signaled that major UI overhauls and new features are not the focus this year. Instead, it's stability and performance. iOS 11 wasn't the smoothest release Apple has pushed. There were several serious bugs, and some features were delayed for months as Apple grappled with them. The company had reportedly planned to introduce a home screen overhaul among other things in iOS 12, but that has probably been pushed back to next year's release.

Expect Apple to talk up the stability, performance, and security of iOS 12. But that doesn't mean the company won't introduce some new features.

Here's what we might see.

Digital Health

In recent months, we've been hearing a lot of voices in the press and elsewhere raise concerns about smartphone addiction. From Facebook to Tinder to Clash of Clans, many mobile apps are designed around psychological principles of addiction to drive up engagement. Apple has already publicly stated that it will make counteracting this a priority in the future.

Bloomberg reports that Apple engineers are ready to unveil a new feature in iOS dubbed Digital Health. It would add a new section to the Settings app that will allow users to track their smartphone usage both generally and in individual apps. It's one of the features we most expect to see at WWDC this year.

Likelihood: Very high.

ARKit

We already know Apple plans to include a new version of ARKit, the software-development framework for making AR applications on iOS devices, in iOS 12. It will probably be called ARKit 2. Rumored features include support for multiplayer shared AR experiences across multiple devices in the same physical space.

Apple's Tim Cook has said that he sees augmented reality as extremely significant and important—on par with smartphones and the original App Store. While consumers haven't been fully convinced yet, the technology is only getting started. The iPhone 8 and iPhone X were designed with AR specifically in mind, and Apple will use this conference to try to convince developers to dream up AR killer apps that justify the investment.

Likelihood: Very high.

NFC

The Information reported a few days ago that Apple plans to open up the iPhone's NFC capabilities to new use cases and applications. Currently, NFC is used for Apple Pay. We don't expect Apple to totally open it up to everything, like third-party payment systems, but there are numerous other possible applications of the technology that some Android users have enjoyed, but iOS users haven't. For example, NFC could be used at public transit turnstiles. We don't know for sure that this is happening at WWDC, but it appears likely.

Likelihood: Medium.

Other features

iOS users have long asked for better parental controls in iPhones and iPads, so we could see something new in iOS 12 on that front. A February report claimed that Apple will introduce a new Animoji feature that would let users wear animated faces in FaceTime calls, that there will be small improvements to the Do Not Disturb feature, and that deeper Siri integration is coming. In any case, Apple is expected to roll out updates piecemeal over iOS 12's lifetime rather than front loading them in one big update.

macOS 10.14

Not much is known about new macOS features, and we don't expect there to be major ones. We do expect one that's of interest to some Ars readers though: APFS support for Fusion Drives. We wouldn't be surprised to see an iOS 11-like redesign of the Mac App Store and deeper Siri integration, too.

Apart from that, sources told Bloomberg that Apple is working on some development framework for creating apps that are iOS/macOS interoperable—that would be welcome for the struggling Mac App Store and the Mac software ecosystem in general. Whether this will happen in 2018 or 2019 is unclear. If it's this year, it will be a huge focus. If not, macOS will likely not see major updates beyond quality-of-life tweaks and performance, stability, or security improvements.

The only other thing we know for sure about the new version of macOS is that Apple is in the process of ending 32-bit support, and we'll learn a lot more about how and when this is going to happen at WWDC—though maybe not at the keynote.

Likelihood: macOS 10.14? 100 percent. Cross-platform apps? Possible.

watchOS 5

Apple will probably save the best for the Watch for a new hardware announcement in September, but nevertheless, watchOS 5 will be revealed to developers at WWDC. Not much is known, but possibilities include third-party watch-face support and new workout types (like expanded strength workouts, which are currently poorly supported). Sleep tracking is also possible, as that's one of the main feature gaps between the Apple Watch and competitors, but that might be saved for the new watch later in the year.

Likelihood: Very high.

Apple TV and tvOS 12

Apple has introduced new versions of tvOS to developers at WWDC for the past few years, and we expect the same to happen again this year. However, we don't anticipate a major overhaul. Expect small user-experience improvements and new TV app network partners. We're hoping for Dolby Atmos support in the Apple TV 4K but haven't heard anything to suggest it's coming.

The company is also working hard on building a lineup of original TV programming to launch an OTT service that would be the video equivalent of Apple Music. Planned programming includes an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, a reboot of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, a new series from Battlestar Galactica and Outlander showrunner Ronald D. Moore, a series based on the life of poet Emily Dickinson, a morning-show drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, an anthology series about the American immigrant experience by The Big Sick writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, and more.

All of that information comes from leaks and reports from reliable sources, not from Apple itself. Apple could use the WWDC 2018 keynote stage to announce this new service just as it did for Apple Music in 2015. However, reports suggest that these TV efforts are still developing, and it is at least as likely that the company will wait until 2019 to make its plans public.

Likelihood: tvOS 12? 100%. New TV service? Just possible.

Siri

Let's be frank: Siri is far behind Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa in almost every way. It's in fewer devices, it does fewer things, it's less accurate, and it's just generally less useful. As Assistant and Alexa appear in more homes, Apple needs to act quickly to be competitive. That means dedicating considerable time in its WWDC 2018 keynote to making a case for Siri and announcing new functionality.

Apple is clearly aware of this gap and is committed to remedying it. The company poached Google's head of search and AI, John Giannandrea, and it had listed more than 160 jobs related to Siri in March. If Apple talks about AI and personal assistants, expect it to focus at least a little bit on differentiating itself from Google and Amazon when it comes to privacy and security features.

iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 might offer deeper and more useful Siri integration, and we wouldn't be surprised to see Siri's role in HomeKit come up. But we don't yet know much in the way of specifics.

Likelihood: Very high.

Mac

Apple's MacBook Pro and iMac lineup are still using previous-generation Intel processors. Apple might choose to use WWDC to announce refreshes of both lineups with eighth-generation Intel chips.

However, a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today cited sources familiar with Apple's plans saying that hardware announcements are not likely at this event because the Mac refreshes and other planned hardware updates are not yet ready, and Apple prefers to announce products when they are nearly ready to ship.

If Apple does announce new MacBook Pros and iMacs at the event, we don't expect much beyond the CPU bump. There have been reliability issues with the butterfly keyboards introduced in the 2016 MacBook Pro models, but the repair record was significantly improved with a slight redesign in 2017, so Apple probably doesn't see a need to make major new changes there just yet. It would make sense for Apple to bring the iPhone X's TrueDepth camera array to Macs, but we haven't heard anything about when or if that's coming yet.

Finally, inclusion of something like the iMac Pro's T2 chip in other pro Mac products is a no-brainer. But again, we're not expecting it right now.

We have seen reports suggesting that Apple is working on a replacement for the MacBook Air, which is very out of date. But the same report that said MacBook Pro and iMac refreshes are not likely yet was also skeptical about this product being ready in time for an announcement next week.

Finally, Apple took an unusual step last year to meet with press to disclose that it was working on a major overhaul of the Mac Pro desktop. At last year's WWDC, the company announced the new iMac Pro, but it has also said the Mac Pro is still coming. We don't expect that product until 2019, but pro Mac users in certain lines of work are pretty cranky about the current state of affairs, so it's possible that Apple will take this event as an opportunity to remind us, once again, that the Mac Pro is still coming even if the full reveal is a ways off.

Likelihood: Somewhat low.