In a press conference that somehow managed to feel both momentous and entirely inevitable, Apple has officially unveiled the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, more fondly known as WWDC, which like many yearly traditions including tax season and your aunt’s Facebook messages, will once again take place in June. Specifically, the Cupertino-based tech behemoth announced that WWDC 2024 will run from Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14, offering five days packed with sessions, keynotes, and the carefully choreographed unveiling of features the company insists you will wonder how you ever lived without.
As is tradition since 2020, Apple’s keynote will be streamed live from Apple Park, the shimmering corporate spaceship in Cupertino that has become the iChurch for developers and journalists alike. Though the event will mostly unfold in a digital landscape populated by developers diligently tuning in from their ergonomic desk chairs, Apple will again be inviting a select group of developers and students to the holy land itself on opening day for what it calls a “special in-person experience.” Sources suggest this may include breakfast items shaped like the Apple logo and Craig Federighi’s hair defying gravity in person.
WWDC 2024 is expected to drag back into the spotlight Apple’s much-debated foray into spatial computing, the Vision Pro. This headset, launched earlier this year with the kind of optimism typically reserved for rocket launches and Oscar campaigns, is anticipated to get a slew of developer tools and updates in hopes that someone, somewhere, will build the app that finally justifies its existence beyond impressing your cat and occasionally watching Ted Lasso in 3D.
Meanwhile, Apple’s usual suspects will also make their annual runway walk. iOS, iPadOS, macOS and all the other variations of OS you didn’t know you needed are due for updates, most likely including subtle redesigns, security enhancements and one or two new features that will be described as revolutionary until you realize your Android friends had them three years ago.
Developers can already register via Apple’s site or simply wait until June and hope the tech giant, as always, lets them in on the secrets of its silicon kingdom. Students can also compete in Apple’s Swift Student Challenge, a contest designed to reward the next generation of coders and perhaps indoctrinate them early into the Apple ecosystem, ideally while they still find plush toys comforting.
WWDC 2024 is free to attend online, which, in classic Apple form, might be the only part of the experience that doesn’t require an expensive dongle.
Just remember to update your calendar, your expectations and probably your software too. WWDC waits for no one.