Apple WWDC: What iPhone, Mac and other updates could be announced at major live event

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Apple is gearing up for its Worldwide Developers Conference, one of its biggest events of the year.

The week-long conference usually sees the release of software updates for every big Apple product, as well as sometimes playing host to other surprises.

The event will take place between 6 and 10 June, with the major keynote on the first of those days. As with the previous Apple events since the pandemic began, it will be virtual, though Apple will hold a special event for some people to watch the opening keynote.

The company has said little else about what will be happening. But here’s what it could reveal.

What software will be announced?

WWDC is unusual among Apple events in that we know exactly what the headline event will be since it’s the same every year. New software updates will arrive, to every Apple platform: iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS and macOS.

(The only other event this dependable is the iPhone event, which is usually held in September. In both cases, Apple could not hold the event or release something else entirely, but it would be surprising enough that it could cause big problems for Apple.)

But it remains unclear exactly what updates will be announced to those platforms. In recent years, details have leaked in advance – but the company has seemingly cracked down on rumours about everything it is doing in recent times, and that applies to software as well as hardware products.

Whatever is announced usually comes out in beta immediately after the event, which allows developers to start getting ready for the release. Apple usually opens up its public beta – allowing everyone to get the new update, with the warning that it is not fully ready – a few weeks later.

The full release of iOS and other software tends to come in September, around the same time as the new iPhones. In recent times, the release of macOS has come a little later.

And will there be hardware?

Probably. Apple said at WWDC 2020 that it was intending to bring all of its products onto its own chips within two years – and so that will be the final deadline.

There is only one product left to have that happen: the Mac Pro. And at the recent Apple event that saw the release of products including the Mac Studio, Apple noted that its biggest and most powerful computer hadn’t yet been updated, and was coming.

It could miss the deadline, of course. But the transition to Apple silicon appears to be going well otherwise, and so WWDC would make sense as the place to reveal that final computer.

It could also beat the deadline, and launch the new Mac Pro at another event before then. There is still two months to do so – but there is also no indication that such an event is planned.

Otherwise, Apple could opt to update other products such as the iPad Pro. WWDC has tended to focus on the more powerful, professionally focused products – so a new Apple Watch or iPhone is almost certainly not coming.