No new devices at WWDC, Apple looks to the future

WWDC 2025 will be held at Apple Park — images credit: Apple

Claims that WWDC will crash and burn because it won’t launch a device like Apple Vision Pro annually, or refresh all the hardware Apple has are evergreen — but that is entirely missing the point of the conference.

Along with its iPhone launches, WWDC is one of the two times every year when the spotlight is on Apple. The company knows this full well and is very good at exploiting that attention by including what message, what service or what device it wants to push out.

Business Insider thinks no one will care about Apple’s announcements, since it won’t include a new device or anything as radically new as Apple Intelligence. Specifically, it says that the event is already a dud because it won’t feature “a shiny new thing.”

That shows a stunning lack of awareness as to what Apple generally does at WWDC. They don’t say the same thing about Google I/O or Facebook F8.

Bloomberg also expects there to be nothing dramatically new, but it says Apple’s focus will be on combating the perception that it is behind with AI. Then it argues that Apple will need to use WWDC to push back against regulatory problems as well as technological ones.

There are times when Apple makes announcements today that are clearly lining up its defense for litigation tomorrow. But it will not even even whisper about regulatory issues at WWDC, any more than it will say it has technical problems.

Reuters notes that Apple isn’t going to use WWDC to make its Apple Vision Pro more of a challenge to Google and Meta’s smart glasses. But it does note that most people will not care about Apple not being on the bleeding edge.

Yet Apple can’t relaunch Apple Vision Pro any more than it can Apple Intelligence. A second version is coming, but it’s not this year.

So this year, it can do is present more compelling features and use cases, both for users and for developers, for extant hardware.

That is actually what WWDC is for. That’s what always been its main purpose, that’s what its always been for.

To be fair, none of these criticisms are directly saying that Apple is doomed, but that’s the theme here. If there’s no new device at WWDC, if there’s no new AI, then Apple is doomed.

The company nearly was once, back in the 1990s. But this kind of “Apple is doomed” headline has proliferated from back then right up to today.

Apple plays the long game

The thing with Apple is that it might actually be on the bleeding edge of technology, and won’t tell us if it is. Apple always plays the long game and doesn’t tend to announce anything until it is ready.

There’s an argument that this policy faltered in 2024 when it perhaps launched Apple Intelligence before it was ready, or at least ready enough. But usually, Apple pushes on in its own way, and its own way never includes being the first to do anything.

Maybe Apple still feels under whatever pressure drove it to break that general habit and discuss Apple Intelligence. But it can’t launch Apple Intelligence again, it can only do what it always does and iterate on it.

Apple can and does do this business of long-term planning and — usually — dismissing short term criticism of its efforts, because it can. Apple has literally billions of users invested in its devices, users who will need a lot more to drive them away than AI not being ready yet.

Then Apple has more money than just about any other company, it can afford to wait until it gets things right. And part of getting it right, for Apple, is making something that works with its entire interwoven ecosystem of devices.

When Apple comes out with something, it tends to win. Think of AirPods, of the Apple Watch, of the iPad — or just think of the iPhone.

Each of these launched late, compared to the rest of the market, and each of them immediately dominated their category. They did that because they weren’t rushed, they did it because Apple thinks through how devices can be used and how they can be useful.

It does not bring out technology to compete with rivals just because those rivals have started the ball rolling.

It takes very little effort to get a ball rolling downhill. Apple isn’t a ball, it’s a boulder.

When that ball hits the bottom of the hill, it bounces around, and might be interesting to watch. What it doesn’t do, is change where it’s rolling towards.

You can’t say that about the boulder.

And part of the long game, part of thinking of the whole ecosystem involves WWDC. This is where Apple will show off what shiny things it can, but this is where Apple will continue laying the groundwork for what its devices will come to rely on in the future.

Sometimes that future is a very long way away, too. Think of how the iPhone 12 introduced a LiDAR scanner — it’s had very many uses since, but maybe it’s only coming into its own now Apple has the Apple Vision Pro that could exploit it more.

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