WWDC 2024 What Do I (Still….) Want To See?

A couple years ago I posted what I wanted for WWDC 2022. I figured that I’d go through the past list and cross off the items that have arrived over the past two major updates to iOS.

And then I’m going to sketch out how I’d like to see Apple actually adopt more AI/ML into their operating systems.

Photos

This was a low point in iOS and remains so. I really want Apple to improve the Photos application given how regularly I use it.

• The ability to search photos by different cameras and/or focal lengths
• The ability to select a point on a photo to set the white point for exposure balancing when editing photos
• Better/faster sync across devices
• Enable ability to edit geolocation
• Enable tags in photos

All of these are basically just aiming to have the iOS Photos app getting brought up to the same standards as Photos on MacOS.

Camera

There is so much potential that’s in the Camera application. I look at this from the perspective of a photographer, while recognizing that Apple has done a lot to really improve the state of things for videographers.

• Set burst mode to activate by holding the shutter button; this was how things used to be and I want the option to go back to the way things were!
• Advanced metering modes, such as the ability to set center, multi-zone, spot, and expose for highlights!
• Set and forget auto-focus points in the frame; not focus lock, but focus zones
• Zone focusing
• Working (virtual) spirit level!

Maps

I actually like Maps. I use it a lot. But I definitely want things to be much more collaborative and less focused on Yelp data. I really do like the privacy aspects associated with Maps over some competing applications.¹

• Ability to collaborate on a guide
• Option to select who’s restaurant data is running underneath the app (I never will install Yelp which is the current app linked in Maps)

Music

Music is fine on the whole. Still want to have something like multiple libraries, though.

• Ability to collaborate on a playlist
• Have multiple libraries: I want one ‘primary’ or ‘all albums’ and others with selected albums. I do not want to just make playlists

Reminders

While it’s getting better there’s still some things to do, though apparently the second item may be coming this WWDC which would be pretty great.

• Speed up sync across shared reminders; this matters for things like shared grocery shopping!
• Integrate reminders’ date/time in calendar, as well as with whom reminders are shared

Messages

These are both covered off!

• Emoji reactions
• Integration with Giphy!

News

I’ll be honest: I’ve given up on the RSS feed idea and just rely on Reeder. But I use News a lot and so it’d be nice to more fully block publications from coming up.

• When I block a publication actually block it instead of giving me the option to see stories from publications I’ve blocked
• It’d be great to see News updated so I can add my own RSS feeds

Fitness

The number one issue with Fitness is that I can’t log rest days. I’ve actually started to use Streaks to be more forgiving and stopped worrying so much about maintaining my streaks in Fitness. But it’s absurd that Apple hasn’t integrated this feature that’s widely requested by its user base.

• Need ability to have off days; when sick or travelling or something it can be impossible to maintain streaks which is incredibly frustrating if you regularly live a semi-active life

Health

This still isn’t great. There is no good year over year data that you can compare against. I don’t understand why the UI isn’t better and I hope that it gets better soon.

• Show long-term data (e.g. year vs year vs year) in a user friendly way; currently this requires third-party apps and should be default and native

And one more thing…

There is a lot of time and attention being paid to how Apple will show off artificial intelligence functionality in forthcoming operating systems. I tend to agree with Joe Rosensteel about what Apple shouldn’t do: no spying AI systems and instead a focus on useful AI-enabled functionalities.

For Photos I want to propose a pretty useful option for people that would leverage some existing iPhone capabilities. Imagine if you could take a photo (or use the measurement application built into Apple’s mobile OSes) to determine how large a photo would fit in a frame along with the aspect ratio and, then, prompted you to select photos for the frame. That selection could either automatically select just photos of the right aspect range or could show what an AI-determined best aspect ratio crop would look like.

If something like this were bundled up in a kickass UI I can see this being phenomenally helpful and solving a real world annoyance for anyone who wants to print photos.

We create far too many digital photos and print far too few. Physical photos are part of building longterm and vibrant memories: Apple should lean into enabling its customers to make these kinds of mementos.