WWDC is officially on starting June 22.
And this year, it's totally free.
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Apple had already given us a heads up that this year's Developers Conference would be held online only and not in person.
For obvious reasons.
A lot of the tech companies have had to do this with their events because of the Coronavirus.
This is not new.
What's new is some of the details about how this will work.
Now we will have to wait a couple more weeks than we were expecting to get WWDC But it may work towards our advantage because the fact that it's online and the fact that it's completely free, opens it up to a lot more developers.
In the past roughly 6000 developers from around the world gathered in San Jose for a week of activities, but each ticket cost roughly 1600 dollars.
The digital experience will likely prove very different from the real world experience, but Apple will try to mimic it as much as possible.
So we can still expect some of the same things including that livestream keynote to kick things off with Perhaps the usual suspects Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller and the software announcements that we've all been waiting for.
So iOS, watch OS, iPad OS, Mac OS and TV OS, followed by a series of developer sessions throughout the week.
All this content will be accessible to registered developers.
Through the developers app and website.
The company is also continuing its student coding contest this year via swift playground.
This is the iPad and Mac app that helps them learn the coding language.
But this year instead of winning a trip To WWDC, in person, winning students will instead get some swag ahead of the event.
Now there have been a lot of rumors of some of the software announcements.
So I'm gonna run through a few of the highlights starting with iOS 14 which is what we think we know most about.
One of the biggest changes rumored to be coming to iOS Is the homescreen basically, the way that we arrange apps, instead of just seeing a grid view, you will now be able to get a list view of all your apps.
If you have an Apple Watch, you may be familiar with this, except it won't have to be in alphabetical order like on the Apple Watch, you can arrange it as you want.
The other big feature Rumored to be coming to iOS 14 is multitasking kind of like what you can already do on the iPad and with iPhone screens rumored to be getting bigger this would obviously make some sense.
There's also some changes And just coming to iMessages which would make it more like WhatsApp.
So you'd be able to @ people in conversations.
Also, you might get the ability to retract a message that you've already sent.
The one that I still don't believe, because we've been hearing about it for a while is the ability to set third party apps as the default.
So instead of Apple Maps, you'll be able to set Google Maps or Spotify instead of Apple Music and maybe some third party wallpapers as well.
There's also a rumor that we may see a designated fitness app.
This is different from the activities app because it would have guided workouts that it would lead you through and it would also be available via the iPad, via your Apple Watch and Apple TV.
As well as maybe a new AR app or at the very least some updates to AR kit.
For iPad OS aside from the apps that I already mentioned, there is also a rumor that it will be getting advanced cursor support to make it more like a Mac Book.
And also the Apple pencil could break apart and have its own platform for developers to make anything they want with this little stylus.
There are also a lot of rumors about what To watch list seven, one of the big ones is the ability to set up a Apple Watch using the same account in the same iPhone.
So this would be especially helpful for parents looking to set up an Apple Watch for their children.
There's also some parental controls coming to the Apple Watch, including a school time mode which would restrict certain apps during school time for obvious reasons.
And the other updates are coming to the watch face, still no watch faces store but you can expect a lot more options.
So the ability to share a configuration via airdrop also a new infographic pro With an analog style to committer on it, and some different country flags to put as your wallpaper And lastly, the ability to set a shared album as your wallpaper so that it can be updating as people update that shared album.
The other potential for the Apple Watch is the ability to get more health features.
There's rumors about SPO two tracking so that's blood oxygen levels and also the sleep tracking which will finally arrive this year on the Apple Watch.
The question is whether or not it could come with IOS 7 or it would require new hardware That would mean that we'll have to wait for a series six Apple Watch.
And of course, we'd have to see what kind of updates come to TV OS and mac os 10.16 or maybe it would be mac os 11 at this point, and maybe some Siri updates as well in terms of Hardware.
Probably not likely but you never know last year we saw the Mac Pro and the display so this year some of the contenders are those over the ear air pods.
Also that cheaper home pod and maybe those tile like Trackers.
Apple also announced it will be donating $1 million to local San Jose organizations to try to offset the cost of not having that event in person.
And, of course, we will still be covering It as per usual, so please check back on cnet.com and on YouTube for all the updates on WWDC and obviously the keynote on June 22.
Till then stay safe and stay healthy guys.
