Where was the iPhone SE2? Where were the new MacBooks? The new Apple Watch? A new anything? For Apple, this year's WWDC was all about software. But a complete lack of new hardware to show off leaves a hole that urgently needs filling.
Sure, it makes sense for a developer conference to focus on software. But Apple has consistently used WWDC to flex its hardware muscles. Last year Apple showed off the HomePod, iMac Pro and new desktops. If you listened to rumours, you might have expected a new iPhone SE, MacBook models, even an iPad Pro X and Mac Pro at WWDC 2018.
Back in 2010, Apple did reveal an iPhone at WWDC. The iPhone 4 - thinner than the previous 3GS, it was the first with a retina display had the first of Apple's own A processors - was shown-off for the first time. There's also been Mac Pros, MacBooks and more at various other WWDC events across the years.
So what happened this time around?
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A hardware company banking on software
Apple intends to make iOS 12 work better with older iPhones. No old iPhone will be discontinued when iOS 12 arrives later this year, instead the company is claiming performance increases of up to 70 per cent. A boon for iPhone owners who don’t get an upgrade on their contract every 18-24 months.
Now, on the surface, this doesn’t make a great deal of fiscal sense. Unlike Google, Apple does not make the largest share of its profits from advertising, services or software. In the second quarter of 2018, iTunes and Apple Music accounted for $9.8 billion of its $61.1bn total revenue.
Apple is a hardware company above all else. New SKUs sell hardware, iPhone 5Ss do not. Some of the most exciting iOS 12 developments, like next-generation augmented reality, won’t work well (or at all) on old iPhones either. AR in particular is extremely demanding. You’ll know this if you’ve used an intense AR app and felt how hot it makes a phone within minutes.
There are several reasons behind this move, though.
First, it may be a reaction to the battery throttling issue that caused Apple to write a rare response on its website in December 2017. For years iPhone owners claimed Apple slowed down their iPhones to nudge them to upgrade. To frequent upgraders this sounded like a tin-foil hat conspiracy, but it turned out to be true, to an ex-tent.
Apple downgrades the performance of iPhones as the battery degrades, a feature that can be disabled in iOS 11.3 and 11.4. This, to an extent, maintains battery life as the phone ages. The CPU throttling is somewhat legitimate, but the story put a dent in consumer confidence. And Apple is a company that cares a lot about customer satisfaction and any threats to brand loyalty.
Making old iPhones run better is a restorative act, telling customers: “upgrade when you want to, will an Android let you do that?”
Also, almost all new Android phones have screens that fill their front more than any iPhone bar the iPhone X. When 2018 iPhones are announced in, most likely, September, it seems unlikely any will have 16:9 screens. The benefits are real for everything from gaming to reading a webpage, and by that point virtually no high-profile Android phones will have 16:9 screens.
This could mean a truly huge iPhone series update this year, one that refreshes more of the range rather than letting older models become lower cost options. A WWDC iPhone SE2 with a more dynamic display would have undermined every current model up to the iPhone 8 Plus.
Where are the new MacBooks?
It’s easy to spin the lack of new iPhone and Watch hardware as a positive for consumers. But the continued failure to keep the MacBook lines up-to-date is starting to look like neglect.
You can currently spend up to £2,799 on a MacBook Pro 13, or up to £3,969 on a MacBook Pro 15, and it will have a dated processor. They all use 7th generation Intel chipsets. 8th generation models have been around since late 2017.
The difference in processor power is huge. A 7th Generation low-voltage Core i5 has two cores, an 8th Generation model has four. Raw performance almost doubles as a result. It’s a much more dramatic performance increase than we’ve seen in several cycles.
To offer an idea of how late MacBooks are here, Dell released an 8th Generation version of the XPS 13 in October 2017. And then another iteration with a tweaked design in January 2018. Dell reacted almost immediately.
Asus announced its first 8th Generation laptops in November 2017, Acer did so in August 2017. If you see a Windows laptop with a 7th gen CPU sold today, it’s a discontinued model.
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But really, where the new MacBooks?
The obvious conclusion is Apple considers its own upgrade timeline to sit above that of the wider industry. Its own design efforts, the trackpad and keyboard technologies and its work on the contentious Touch Bar are more important than those of internal components made by other companies.
This approach may sit fine with the many who buy a laptop to browse the internet and stream video. But it shows a disregard for the video editing, design and music production professionals (and hobbyists) who would benefit from the dramatically increased power of Intel’s current chipsets. Many are long-term MacBook devotees.
MacBook Pros were once called “Pro” for a reason. At the Apple Store you have to dig deep to even discover they use out-of-date CPUs.
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We update when we update
One reason behind the update lag doesn’t wipe away this bitter aftertaste, but does help explain Apple’s strategy. Intel’s 8th generation chipsets were not released en masse. In 2017 it unveiled low-voltage Core i5 and i7 chipsets. These would be a perfect fit for the MacBook 13, but the chipsets suitable for the MacBook 15 are much more recent.
Intel’s top-end 8th i7-8750H and Core i9-8950HK were only announced in April 2018.
Even Dell and Asus are yet to release a laptop with these processors. Only PCSpecialist has, because it’s the “Build-A-Bear” laptop retailer, creating custom machines out of largely OEM parts.
Apple has not upgraded any of its MacBooks yet because it can’t upgrade all of them. A new MacBook Pro 13 would only highlight quite how out of date current MacBook Pro 15s are. Apple’s approach to line refreshes has clashed with Intel’s “bittier” approach in a most unfortunate way.
The good news is that now all the Intel components Apple needs are here, we shouldn’t have too long to wait until cheaper Windows ultraportables stop dramatically outperforming pricier MacBooks. Then it’s easy to imagine Tim Cook proclaiming the new MacBooks as the “most powerful ever”, with stats that make 2017 models sound like relics. Of course, these new machines will come at a premium, but what else did you expect from Apple?
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
