DerekMartin.ca

In late 2016 Apple stated that they’d be getting more into Podcasting. They have pre-announced that for the first time there will be podcast booths available for use at WWDC. I think it’s not just a nice gesture, but a place to try out a new piece of software designed for facilitating podcasts. My guess is that it’d be called Podcast Studio, and would free podcasters from having to use Skype for all of their remote guests. Apple loves to contribute where they can make a real impact, and podcasting definitely needs a good alternative to Skype.

I think we’ll finally see Family Photo Libraries. If you have Family Sharing, you can simply go in and say who has access to which Photo Libraries. In the Camera App, there’ll be a Library Selector/Picker. Whichever one you have selected is where the photos you take will be uploaded. You can move them from library to library in the Photos app on iOS or macOS. Users will be able to list photos in a single library, or see all libraries at once in a single timeline. This will require having a Family iCloud Storage Pool (e.g. 1TB shared across 5 iCloud accounts/Apple IDs).

I expect to see the debut of Vocal ID / Voice ID. This will be crucial for any Alexa competitor, and it will simple account switching on Apple TV, iPad, and even macOS.

Lastly, I think Apple may reverse course on its statement that touchscreen macs are a bad idea due to ergonomics. When using an iPad Pro with a keyboard, it basically is a Mac with touch screen. It is a primarily-touch device, with some clicking. I believe there’s room for a primarily-click device, with some touching. It wouldn’t be for fine-grained control, but broader motions like swipes/gestures & certain actions like pinch, pan, scroll, highlight/select.

Along the same lines of thinking, they already brought a TouchBar to the Mac. I think they might take Rene Ritchie & John Gruber’s advice and bring a ClickBar to the iPad.