For me personally, it's probably a good thing that the most recent WWDC was sort of...mid, as the kids say. Last year, I declared WWDC the best day of my life on the heels of the Vision Pro announcement, and then had to do a mini-apology tour with my loved ones. So this year's spate of useful and interesting but not earth-shattering VisionOS developments was good for both my professional and personal relationships.
The ability to go back and spatialize photos is fantastic, and I'm excited to have a play with that. I still think Apple is underselling the potential killer app of hands free spatial video and photos; that's what I probably do most with my headset outside of Zoom calls and watching movies. I'm a little bummed that my prediction about a new entertainment partner didn't come to pass, although they did announce some cool new content.
But we can skip over almost everything else, except the ability to pause and resume Apple watch fitness streaks -- as someone with 2,071 day streak, not having to do jumping jacks in an airport lounge to close my rings is pretty great. But that's just me, and I'm just crazy.
OK, so now it's AI time, or as Apple referred to it, "Apple Intelligence." And unfortunately, it was more of the same -- solutions without real problems. AI cartoons are charming and fun, but does anyone really need them? Cutting a few steps out of searching in emails or photos is nice, but not a game-changer. ChatGPT integrations are great, but the ChatGPT app also exists.
I read somewhere that Apple is being more cautious in general on the back of the failure of the Apple Car, and I get it. The continual emphasis on privacy was a way to set them apart, but it also limits the utility of what they're building. At the end of the day, it's a lot of flash, just like Sora and Midjourney and many of the others. Creating weird images to fool boomers on Facebook is all well and good, but I think most people an AI that calls customer service for them and solves a problem without wasting their time.
There are good AI products out there right now for training and education and conversation, and those are exciting. Meeting transcripts and summaries are sometimes imperfect but generally fantastic. Even the image generation platforms are fun and useful for creating clever decks. But in general, we're not nearly as advanced as we think we are, and Apple didn't really move the needle in that regard.