Apple has announced that this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will take place from June 10 through June 14, 2024. As has been the case since 2020, WWDC 2024, too, will be a virtual event though developers and students (and select media) will have the “opportunity to celebrate in person at a special event at Apple Park on opening day.”
WWDC is where Apple is known to announce key updates for its devices from iPhone to Mac and Apple Watch. New to the list this year will be software that powers the Vision Pro headset, aka, visionOS. Hardware announcements are also a possibility and speculation is rife that Apple may launch new AirPods at WWDC 2024, an entry level option and another mid-tier version with active noise cancellation to sit below the AirPods Pro.
Apple took last year’s WWDC to unveil the 15-inch MacBook Air (and a full transition to Apple silicon) but its successor has already been announced so chances of new Mac hardware are slim. New iPads (pro models) are on the horizon but reports indicate, we might not have to wait until June to see them.
Which brings us to what’s undoubtedly the most highly anticipated reveal— Apple’s big plans for AI or more specifically, how it is planning to catch up with Google and Microsoft (and even Samsung). One way could be to partner with Google and source Gemini for cloud-based applications (while on-device tasks could be powered by large language models that it is training internally with investments that apparently amount to upwards of a million per day). The iPhone maker is also reportedly courting publications for data while in China, it’s looking at Baidu as a potential replacement for Google.
CEO Tim Cook recently told investors that the company will share its AI plans with the public later this year. He has been fairly vocal about the potential of AI, especially generative AI, even if Apple on the whole has maintained a staunch silence on it while rivals Google and Microsoft (and now Samsung) move to outpace it with consumer-facing products and use cases.
Cook has emphasised that artificial intelligence is already at work in current Apple devices, like for instance, the newly launched M3-based MacBook Air is being marketed as the “world’s best consumer laptop for AI”, but the company is also working on bringing more explicit features to products like the iPhone and iPad to seemingly realise the full potential of industry’s most viral ongoing trend. Watch this space as we bring you all the updates from WWDC 2024.
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