WWDC wish list
I don’t have any well formed ideas about what I want from WWDC. I just know that there is something missing from the iPad. The device has a software shaped hole right where its soul should be. The thing that is missing is fundamental to the experience. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is, or even what I want it to be.
macOS for iPad Pro
The first thing I need to do is address this issue about macOS on iPad Pro. I have listened to all the arguments on both sides and have come to the conclusion that this is a religious war. As such, I have no interest in maintaining the status quo or defending some backward notion of maintaining iPad and Mac purity. To me, there is no such thing as platform purity. I don’t believe the iPad holds any sacred space as a pure vision of what computing should be. It is just another product that has evolved with the times for the purpose of selling as many as possible.
The question of whether or not to put macOS on the iPad comes down to whether or not it would be good for the people who buy and use the iPad Pro. No other consideration matters to me. If the iPad Pro can benefit, let’s do what it takes to give it the benefit. Some are convince that iPadOS is perfect as it is. That seems to be the minority view among iPad Pro owners. The consensus among the people who actually own one is that the hardware severely embarrasses the software. I agree with that assessment. That being the case, Apple has some serious work to do with regard to the software. It is just a matter of what work is actually needed.
The uncomfortable fact is all of the issues people have with iPadOS are already solved problems. It simply has been solved on the Mac. The hardware of an M1 Mac and an M1 iPad Pro are practically indistinguishable when it comes to the parts that make it go. So we really are comparing Apples with Apples. A solved problem for the Mac is a solved problem for the iPad Pro. An example of this would be memory allocation. The Mac manages to have apps that can do amazing things on 8 GB of memory. It also knows how to use the hard drive as memory. The iPad Pro comes with the same amount of memory and hard drive space as a MacBook Air. If the MacBook Air can do it, the iPad can do it. This is just a matter of Apple deciding to free the iPad to do it.
Personally, I would like to see iPad apps that are as feature-rich as the Mac. I would also be fine with the M1 iPad Pro being the only device that had that capability. Why does mail have a different feature set on the iPad? It is because the iPad started out as a larger iPhone. It is essentially a smartphone OS that has been retrofitted to work on a larger and more capable device. At the core of the OS, Apple still treats the iPad as a fancy, more feature-rich iPhone. It would be a vast improvement if they thought of it as a low-end full-fledged computing device.
I get the argument that macOS would have to be altered to run on a touch device. But again, that is just a software development choice. They could have been working on that for years behind the scenes. The fact that a modified macOS doesn’t exist in the real world yet is nothing more than a choice, not a hard computer science problem. It is simply a matter of business model. Apple could even call it something besides macOS. That is just a marketing issue, not a computer science issue. Even if they gave it a completely different interface, the desire is not that the iPad run macOS, but that it can do everything macOS is capable of doing. We don’t really care how it does it under the hood.
This would be my main request for WWDC. I want Apple to bring the iPad Pro to software feature parity with the Mac. Apple doesn’t need to turn the iPad into a Mac. It just has to respect the fact that the iPad Pro is a real computer on the same level as the Mac. As of this moment, the iPad Pro software utterly disrespects the hardware, and the people who use it. Apple needs to do an apology tour for the iPad Pro software. And it needs to start at this year’s WWDC.
iPhone
My wish list is dead simple and will never happen. What I want for the iPhone is advanced mode. This would be a mode that voids the warranty and allows users to treat the iPhone as a general computing device. No changes to the App Store would need to be made. These users can download apps directly from the internet and deal with developers directly if that is what they want to do. The only way back from advanced mode would be a phone call to Apple. Perhaps Apple could charge an additional amount of money for AppleCare for those who foolishly venture into that territory. It might prove to be a great revenue stream. They could call it AppleCare for idiots.
Apple Watch
My wish list for the Apple Watch is even more basic: I want an advance watch face configurator. I want to be able to configure every element of the watch face including the size and placement of every element. Again, this can be an advanced mode, except one that would not void the warranty. I suspect the watch is powerful enough. Apple just has to free it from its constraints.
Headphones
Apple has a variety of headphones with different features and price points. I would like to see something that made a stab at unifying the experience. Perhaps it could be something like soundOS. Developers could target Apple headphones with special features such as EQ profiles and special separation. There is a lot that could be done in software. And Apple would not have to built all these features into the headphones, themselves.
TV
I have no hopes or desires for the Apple TV. It is a product that remains in the Apple lineup. Don’t get me wrong: I use the Apple TV exclusively as my TV. I just can’t imagine anything I want that Apple would or could actually do. Perhaps they can do some more third-party content bundles. Perhaps they can find a way to make their headphones do spacial audio with the Apple TV. Beyond that, I’ve got nothing.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the thing Apple needs to focus on is the iPad, in particularly, the iPad Pro. If they don’t address it in a big way, I really don’t care what they announce. I would be massively disappointed. And I am gearing up to be just that. Apple could always announce some interesting hardware. Unfortunately, I’m broke thanks to two iMacs and an iPad Pro. Sure, I have a little more room on my Apple Card. But I have no idea how I would pay off anything else. For me, it is all about iPadOS 15. Fingers crossed…
David Johnson