Never have Apple’s software direction choices been more important

New Delhi: The annual developer conference for this year, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2022 (this starts later today and runs through to June 11), perhaps has more at stake than any of the years gone by. Developer conferences have evolved and aren’t strictly restricted to just software anymore – Google showed off the Pixel phones, smartwatch and tablet a few weeks ago, and Apple has given us glimpses of Mac computing devices and iPads over time too at the WWDC stage. Yet, the direction of the software remains at the very core, which in turn defines the hardware and the products down the line.

For Apple, hardware and software are more aligned than they have ever been, across product lines. Custom designed silicon sits as the beating heart for the Mac, iPhone, iPad and Watch lines. The chips are designed exactly for the products they’ll be used in, and the software is written to extract the maximum performance. There is very little chance of a slip between the cup and the lip (and if at all, can be fixed by a corrective software update).

If you look closely, the last couple of years have been about consolidation for Apple’s software lines – iOS, iPadOS and macOS in particular. It is the hardware that has jumped forward, in leaps – Apple A15 Bionic, Apple M1 and subsequently the M1 Pro and M1 Max as well as S7 chip. There is the risk of the software platforms getting left behind if the incremental improvements continue, which will inevitably hurt Apple’s important services business too (that’s the App Store, iCloud, Music, Apple TV+ and more).

This year, it perhaps becomes important for a closer look at the iPhone, iPad, and Macs in particular. Not just because of how the likes of Windows 11 and Android for tablets have walked closer in the last 12 months, but because of the improvements they’ll inevitably bring over the next 12 months too. For Apple to match (and in some cases definitively stay ahead of the curve), operating systems will need to pack in more.

The Apple iPad, for instance, has been promising to be a full-fledged computing experience for a few years now (particularly since the evolution of iPadOS into its own thing). But there are still limitations from the software side which hold back the otherwise mighty powerful M1 chips (imagine, these are the same chips on the iPads that are found on the MacBook Pros).

A file explorer that’s similar to Finder on Mac and Explorer on Windows 11, ability to resize app windows (currently its Split View on the menu), multitasking that’s complex (and poses a learning curve) and (if we aren’t demanding too much) the ability to switch to a desktop mode when a keyboard is attached or connected while reverting to the tablet mode the rest of the time. It may have to, because Samsung has done this quite well with the Galaxy Tab series, the convenience allows users to switch between work and tablets modes without having to toggle any settings.

Apple’s big privacy move which started early last year with the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) implementation in iOS, has rocked more than a few boats (online advertising is hit, because the rampant collection of user data without consent, has been curtailed). There is the likelihood that users may get granular controls too with regards to any specific data that apps can track and collect – right now it is a blanket yes or no. It has set the cat amongst the pigeons, with Google also having to inevitably (yet extremely slowly) respond too with something similar for Android in the works. Apple wouldn’t want to lose the chance to reset the goalposts again.

There is the sense that this evolution, iOS 16 for the iPhone, will have to go beyond the regular stream of upticks, including new functionality for iMessages, Mail, Safari, Health, and Home, with a more visible visual overhaul. The Apple iPhone still does not have an always-on display mode (the support will be dependent on display type too, and that’s a hardware checklist), something that’s quite common in Android phones beyond a certain price point. Widgets was something Apple got done much after Android, AOD might be following the same trend.

macOS will need a similar aggressive step-forward approach. While we have spoken about the need for iPadOS to implement some macOS familiarity, there is also the need for macOS to walk a few steps the other way. We still don’t know what part of the California life the next operating system will be inspired by and therefore named after, but it’ll surely have more in store for the Macs running the M-series chips than the older Intel processors.

There is always an element of suspense ahead of any Apple keynote. Amidst the persistent murmurs referencing what is called as the “realityOS”, could we get a first glimpse at Apple’s metaverse efforts? A virtual reality headset will not be a new category (Google’s Project Iris, Meta’s Oculus line and Microsoft’s HoloLens series are examples), but could Apple do it better than any of these product lines which have been around for a while? Secondly, there is the question of whether Apple’s own services (before developers pitch in) will be able to back up the push to sell you a new virtual reality headset with enough content?