Now that WWDC has an official date it's wishlist time. I have no idea what's actually coming for Apple software so this list is purely constructed from hopes and dreams.

General improvements

Siri needs to get better

A slew of useful upgrades to Siri are long overdue; I keep hoping to see them every year and that hasn't changed in 2021. There need to be updates to speech recognition, answers, context-related queries, etc., but what I hope to see most are more proactive features and use cases. I want to feel like my devices are truly smart and can help me do something because they're tuned into my usage patterns and behaviors. We're getting closer to Apple hardware—MR and AR wearables—that will likely want, if not need, better voice UX capabilities.

More ARKit improvements

Apple's doing a great job here and I have nothing specific to suggest. Any time ARKit improves, it gives us a clearer picture of what's to come from their dedicated AR hardware.

A refresh of the Human Interface Guidelines

Screens have gotten bigger on mobile devices and Apple hasn't done much to its core UX principles to account for how possible or practical this kind of reaching is in many situations. I want to see iOS move all of its app controls down to the bottom of the screen where everyone can reach them. This would require a refresh of UX and UI across the entirety of iOS.

iOS

Shortcuts

• All Shortcuts should be allowed to run seamlessly, without a notification or indicator from the app that this is happening.
• More hooks into apps for Shortcuts to be built off of. I don't know whether this is a limitation with how Shortcuts work or if Apple needs to make this easier/more interesting for developers to implement. Either way it needs to happen.

Home Screen

• Free the Home Screen grid! Give users the ability to freely place apps and widgets anywhere without the left to right auto-flowing that happens now.
• Add more widget formats—namely 2x1 and 4x1 varieties.
• Offer developers more functionality for widgets and let them be interactive.
• Either kill or drastically improve the widgets-only page on the leftmost screen. The usefulness of this view diminished greatly when widgets were freed. I'd love a Google Assistant style feed of relevant-to-you content here in place of a scrollable list of widgets.

Lock screen/Notification shade

• A general option for Bed Time-like set of shortcuts that can be run from the Lock Screen.
• watchOS-like complications for to offer more at-a-glance info. This would be useful with or without the rumored always on display coming to iPhone.
• Separate noisy and silent notifications like Android does.
• Ability to mute and snooze notifications for a given amount of time.

Search/Spotlight

• I'd love to be able to access Search globally. I don't know how Apple would do this with the amount of gestures already in use but the value added by figuring it out would be significant. I don't think adding a search bar to the multitasking view would be terrible.

Touch ID/Face ID/Passcode app locks

• Apple's all in on privacy so why can't users lock specific apps behind an extra layer of protection?

Files app

• Make connecting to network drives and storage as reliable as it is on macOS.

Messages app

• Ability to mark conversations as unread.
• Add support for RCS. This would improve texting between iOS and Android devices and feels more like a question of when rather than if.

Control Center

• Just make it better? I don't have any specific suggestions here but the usefulness of Control Center as an isolated view seems dubious. Android cleverly combines its controls with its Notification shade. Could something like that work on iOS, thus freeing up the existing Control Center view for something else?

Safari

• Please sunset the rolodex-style tab view. Give me a grid or something else that's practical.

Minor UX changes that currently bother me

• Users should be able to drag App Icons from Search to their Home Screen app grid.
• There should be an option to deny a phone call and send a canned text message to the caller.

iPadOS-specific

Home Screen

• Why didn't widget improvements and the App Drawer come to iPad when they came to iPhone? Certainly a year is enough to resolve whatever the problem was.

Apps, generally

• There should be full parity between iPhone and iOS apps. Why isn't there an iPad app for Weather or Health or Translate?

Apps, specifically "Pro"

• Where are the professional iPad apps that will truly allow users to choose an iPad instead of a Mac—Xcode, Final Cut, Logic, etc? The iPad hardware is Pro-level, it's time for the software to catch up.

User accounts

• iPads are highly shareable devices. Having no solution for user accounts is an odd misstep. This already exists for iPads in education. It's time to offer it for all.

Extended display for external monitors

• Not being able to extend the iPad's display to an external monitor—rather than simply mirror it—is another unusual omission, especially for the ones that have Pro in their name.

macOS

I just want a Shortcuts app

• I know a lot of people are upset with Big Sur. I think it's fine. What I want more than tweaks are a way to intuitively create shortcuts and automations on my laptop with all the extra functionality macOS offers.

watchOS

Custom Watch Faces

• Of course, right? This has been a day one ask. If Apple doesn't want people to go buck wild with this, I'm okay with them adding a robust wizard to the Watch app so only "good" faces can be created.