6/9
I don't want to say I was disappointed with this year's WWDC keynote and software announcements; it dismisses the amount of work that went into numerous real improvements and features across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. For Apple's most important users, there's plenty to look forward to. I think these updates will be well received when they release, with just a vocal minority complaining about Apple's slow pace. C'est la vie.
Personal feelings aside, this WWDC stood out to me as an aggressive move to strengthen Apple's garden. The most compelling keynote moments leveraged Apple's device ecosystem—peer-to-peer and personal—in a way competitors don't yet or may struggle to challenge. I have trouble imagining Samsung, Google, or Microsoft delivering experiences as seamless as SharePlay or Universal Control appear to be.
While these heavily ecosystem-reliant features may look less sexy if you've only got a toe in the Apple ecosystem and use a variety of devices in your personal life, they are an objectively frictionless benefit to those who are, and primarily interact with, Apple People. For example, Apple's updates to FaceTime look to make screensharing easier than I've seen it anywhere else. That users will be able to share their screen quickly and easily with an app they're likely already familiar with will open up new interactions for many. It'll make helping friends and family with their iOS issues a whole lot easier for me, too. That's just a small example, but that kind of convenience was repeated throughout this year's WWDC.
Convenience may actually be the right theme to describe the overall feature collection. Other incremental updates like Live Text, Maps enhancements, new keys and IDs for Wallet, better Spotlight results, Focus modes, etc. are obvious contributions to that theme. They're not groundbreaking on their own, but together they will make the in-Apple experience friendlier and more productive, especially if you ignore the "who did it first?" arguments. Furthermore, the quality of these new and enhanced experiences within Apple's ecosystem will make it all the more difficult to walk away from.
Even better for Apple users is that the bulk of these features are not platform exclusive. Much of what Apple unveiled will roll out across their not-so-small collection of operating systems. For a company that has been so deliberate about keeping their software platforms distinct, they sure are delivering plenty of homogenous experiences across them.
Would I have liked to see some more innovative features? You bet. Am I convinced by iPadOS's multitasking tweaks? Nope, but I'll reserve final judgement until I put it through its paces. Is Apple aggressively making it harder to look elsewhere for those already bought in? 1,000%. WWDC '21 isn't going to convince outsiders that they ought to switch to an Apple-powered device but it sure does make staying the course more compelling to those two or three devices in or with Apple hardware aligned friends and family groups.