My Hopes and Dreams for WWDC 2021

It’s WWDC week – in fact today at 1pm ET is the Keynote, which is generally a popular event. It’s one of the few tech company. keynotes I know people organize watch parties for! As we go into WWDC I thought I’d talk about a few of my hopes and dreams for what we’ll see, starting with the iPad Pro. 

The iPad Pro 11″ (2021)

See I picked up the new one as soon as it came out – the 11” model because I think the 12.9” is too big and not suitable for my purposes. While I did see a bit of an upgrade from the 2018 model, there aren’t a lot of noteable differences…yet.

I really like the size, the wide angle camera, and Center Stage (great review on MacStories) is pretty great. But if you read the rest of that MacStories review, I feel a lot of what Federico (and others) feel: this is great hardware without the software to take advantage of it. 

Big Change to iPadOS

I’m hoping WWDC will change that. The last major update to the new iPadOS (in fact, the creation of iPadOS itself) was 2 years ago. It’s time for some new features. On top of widgets everywhere (and not just in the left sidebar), I’d love to see:

• Widgets I can interact with. Right now they’re just kind of giant app launchers. 
• Different (maybe even customizable?) widget size. 
• More powerful work-related features. I would absolutly love a local development environment on my iPad. It would very nearly eliminate the need for me to have a laptop
• Final Cut Pro – I’m starting to use this to edit videos more. And the new iPad have an M1 chip.  
• Stronger multi-window support. Right now we can have 2 in split screen with another one in slide over. I’d love to see one window at half screen and then the 2 on the other half at 25% each (one on top, one on bottom). 

I don’t think we’ll see it all. But like 60% would be swell.

Changes to the Rest of the Apple Ecosystem

On top of my iPadOS wishlist, there are 3 main announcements I’d love to see.

Improvements to the Apple Watch.

I wear my Series 5 Apple Watch every day. I try to close the rings, I use it to get into and record ideas, and I have lots of watch bands for different occasions. It’s my favorite accessory.

And I’m probably getting the Series 7 when it comes out. I want the Blood Oxygen monitor, and I’m actively watching my blood sugar now…something that has been a long-rumored feature. I know it’s a pipe dream because no one’s buzzing about it this year, but new hardware on top of new health features would be great.

And maybe customizable watch faces; that would be fantastic. 

My Predictions for the iMac Pro

Similarly, I have an Intel iMac Pro. I love it, but I’m ready for something new, especially because my MacBook Air has an M1 chip and is so fast. I want the new Apple Silicon iMac Pro. My prediction, since the iMac were launched at 24” inches, is the new iMac Pro will be the 27” model (sadly not in colors, just space grey). Maybe sporting the next gen Apple Sillicon chip. 

Trying Apple Mail

WWDC week always makes me want to try using the stock Apple apps as my main apps (well everything except Calendar, which pales in comparison to Fantastical). I’m already using Safari as my main browser – in-fact I recently tried switching back to Chrome but nowpreferSafari for everything except YouTube and Development.

Mail was one app I never gave a fair shake too. Scheduling emails and smarter sorting were always must-have features for me. But every email app I’ve ever tried has been just “tolerable.” And Spark has been slow to update lately, especially on iPad. Plus, with SaneBox, most of the features I was using Spark for have been abstracted away from a specific email client. Between that and TextExpander snippets for email templates, Spark doesn’t have much value proposition for me anymore.

So I’m trying Mail. There are a few things I’ll need to get used to, like the lack of GMail-style keyboard shortcuts. Plus the interface is uglier than Spark and others I’ve tried. But it’s fast and I’m excited to see what I can do with Apple Scripts. Both David Sparks and Stephen Hackett from Mac Power Users use it, so I’m sure they have an episode that includes a wealth of tips.

Going into WWDC, I’m hoping we’ll see some big improvements to the Mail app too. With the improvements in recent years to Messages, Notes, and Reminders, Mail is well overdue for some development TLC.

I’ll be watching the keynote (and probably live tweeting it). I’m also going to start a discussion thread in the Build Something Community. I’d love to see you there to get your thoughts!