WWDC 2024: When is it, how to watch, and what to expect ahead of Apple's Developers Conference

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 kicks off in just a few days. From June 10 to June 14, the Cupertino firm will make developer-centric announcements and reveal its upcoming operating system versions, like iOS 18 and macOS 15. If you’re wondering what exactly Apple will announce during WWDC 2024 and how to watch the main keynote live, you’ve come to the right place.

How to watch WWDC 2024

The main WWDC24 keynote will start on Monday, June 10, at 10:00 AM Cupertino time. To convert that to your local timezone, use the link.

Once the livestream begins, you can watch it using the player above. You can also watch it on one of the following platforms instead:

• YouTube: YouTube is arguably the best and most versatile video streaming platform for watching WWDC 2024, and Apple will broadcast the main keynote on its official channel.
• Apple.com: The livestream on Apple’s Events website tends to be a few seconds ahead of YouTube’s and works on all relevant web browsers. However, it’s more prone to lagging when connected to a slow network.
• Apple TV and Apple Developer apps: Apple’s TV and Developer offer the same livestream as Apple.com through first-party apps. Those using Apple hardware and connected to a fast network may prefer either over YouTube or Apple.com.

Shortly after the main WWDC24 keynote concludes, it will be available for on-demand streaming via the same platforms listed above.

What to expect (and not expect) from WWDC 2024

Given the name “Worldwide Developers Conference,” it should be no surprise that Apple’s target demographic for this event is developers. As such, we’ll see many announcements related to software, namely iOS (which powers iPhones), iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and more. We break down what to expect from each of these products in the sections below.

The overall theme of WWDC 2024, though, will undoubtedly be artificial intelligence, or AI. So far, most of the major tech brands have gone all-in on AI features, including Google with its Gemini platforms, Microsoft with its Copilot platforms, and, of course, OpenAI with its massively popular ChatGPT platforms. Missing from the conversation, though, has been Apple. At WWDC this year, the company will finally reveal how it’s going to work AI into most — if not all — of its products.

While Apple has confirmed that new artificial intelligence features will soon be available on its platforms, that’s about all we know. Serial Apple leaker Mark Gurman posits that these features will come under a branded umbrella known as “Apple Intelligence,” similar to how Google is putting all its features under Gemini and Samsung is using the Galaxy AI moniker.

A significant part of what makes up the AI features, though, will be through partnerships. We are already relatively assured that Apple has partnered with OpenAI for some of its AI features. There have also been rumors that Apple and Google are discussing a partnership. On top of these partnerships, Apple also almost certainly has its own first-party AI features.

In other words, while we expect a litany of new features for all its major software products, a significant portion of them will be powered by AI. This is going to be Apple’s opportunity to officially enter the AI revolution.

Because we expect so much of the event to focus on AI, we don’t think there will be any room for hardware. Last year’s WWDC saw the launch of the Vision Pro, but we don’t expect a Vision Pro 2 this year. We don’t expect new iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, or anything else, either. Like Google I/O 2024 — Google’s similar software-focused event — this should be a hardware-free launch.

iOS 18

Perhaps the most exciting WWDC24 announcement will be that of iOS 18. This upcoming OS update is expected to be one of the most significant in the iPhone’s history. While Apple software rumors and leaks are generally scarce compared to hardware ones, some reports have given us a quick look at some of iOS 18’s potential additions.

As mentioned earlier, per Bloomberg, Apple has reportedly signed a deal with OpenAI. This deal could result in a ChatGPT-powered chatbot coming to iOS, eliminating the need for iPhone users to download a third-party app. It could also result in multiple other features coming to apps and services on the iPhone, which might include:

• Summarizations of web pages, notes, text messages, emails, and more
• Summarizations of notifications
• Automatically generated replies to emails and text messages
• Instant categorization of email messages in the Mail app
• Custom Emoji generation
• Transcriptions of Voice Memos
• Editing features within the Photos app

Outside of AI-powered features, iOS 18 could also get one of the biggest visual overhauls it has received since launching 17 years ago. Most notably, the iOS home screen might be much more customizable, with users being able to place icons in any format they want, not just a standard grid. There might also be the ability to customize icon colors, allowing you to make all social media apps blue and all productivity apps green, for example. We also expect new widgets, wallpapers, and more customizations, bringing iOS a lot closer to Android when it comes to making it your own.

Control Center and the Settings app might also get fresh visual overhauls. iMessage will probably get some love too, including a long-awaited scheduling feature so you can compose a message and send it at a specific time. Tapback — the iMessage feature that allows you to react to messages — might get expanded to allow you to use any emoji.

We also expect Apple to give more information about the rollout of rich communication services (RCS) support for iMessage. Announced last year, this will finally allow iPhone users and Android users to communicate securely and effectively through the default messaging apps. RCS will allow end-to-end encryption (E2EE), read receipts, typing indicators, and high-quality media transfers from iPhone to Android (and vice versa), slightly diminishing the “green bubble” wall betwen the two ecosystems. However, the green bubbles will almost certainly still be there and not all iMessage features will work for Android. Still, it will be a lot better than it has been.

We don’t know if Apple is going to fully roll out RCS support at WWDC or simply give a more concrete idea of when it will happen. We know it’s coming this year, but that’s about all we know so far, so we’re hoping to learn a lot more at WWDC.

Finally, Siri could be getting a much-needed AI overhaul. Allegedly, you’ll be able to use voice commands with Siri to finely control your iPhone. As an example, you could ask Siri to open the Mail app, compose a message to a specific contact, attach an image, and then send that email, all with one voice command. While this sounds exciting, it is unlikely this will actually be demoed at WWDC 2024. Instead, we expect Apple to tease it and then launch it for the iPhone 16 series through an update in early 2025.

iPadOS 18

iPadOS 18 will also be revealed during WWDC 2024’s opening keynote. Since iOS and iPadOS share the same foundation, most iOS 18 features will likely be bundled with iPadOS 18. While the rumors don’t share much beyond that, Apple may announce some new iPad Pro M4 exclusive features. After all, iPadOS 17 doesn’t leverage the M4 chip’s full power, so it would be realistic for the company to address that with the upcoming software update.

watchOS 11

The software powering Apple’s line of smartwatches will get plenty of updates, too. One major thing we’re expecting is an updated Siri interface. Notably, Siri could uniquely format responses based on the type of query. This would be a lot better than the current one-size-fits-all system Siri uses.

Please note that this would not involve the AI-powered Siri features discussed in the iOS section. As mentioned, those won’t likely land in 2024.

We also expect changes to the Fitness app and new wallpapers, among other minor updates to the system.

Other expected WWDC24 announcements

Outside of the big updates already discussed, here are a few smaller items rumored to land:

• macOS 15: There could be some Safari updates and some new wallpapers, but we’re not expecting a dramatic overhaul of macOS at this event.
• visionOS 2: While it’s expected that Apple will update the Vision Pro’s operating system with new features, you shouldn’t expect anything huge. Instead, we expect subtle improvements and fixes that address failings of visionOS as it stands today. This could include new environments and Vision Pro-centric versions of iPad software.
• Apple TV and tvOS 18: We have heard a sketchy rumor that the Apple TV app could finally come to Android soon. This is all we’ve heard about Apple TV so far though, so we don’t expect any big tvOS 18 updates.
• Passwords: Apple could launch a new standalone app called Passwords. This would, theoretically, pull the existing iCloud Keychain feature out of the Settings app on iPhones and make it a standalone service. This would also come to iPadOS and macOS. It could potentially compete with the litany of password management apps out there, such as LastPass and 1Password.
• Calculator: After a ridiculously long period of time, the official iOS Calculator app might finally come to iPadOS and macOS.
• Calendar and Reminders: The Calendar app might be able to better incorporate Reminders data. However, the apps will not become one.
• Health: The Health app could get new blood pressure data management features along with a hearing test using AirPods. There could also be better cycle tracking for pregnancy planning.