Apple Music

What I'd Love to See at WWDC or Later.

This is definitely more of a wish list than a prediction. As much as I love discussing rumors like the next person, I can honestly just wait until the Keynote to find out the deets. And honestly, none of us know the demands of getting things through Apple's pipeline, whether it be supply chain issues, demand (even if we think since we want it everyone really wants it), or strategic positioning for the future. So without further adieu, here's my list of what I'd love to see at WWDC 2016 or even later, let's say a year into the future.

  • 4k or 5k external display with similar technology that the iPad Pro display has.
  • An upgrade to the rMBP with a much more powerful GPU card and the option of the same keyboard that the MacBook has now.
  • A new iPhone even if it just has a better camera on it. I think I use my iPhone the most out of any Apple product and even when I was in the middle of nowhere Canada without cell reception, I still used it as my goto camera for quick snaps.
  • An Apple Watch with better battery life and much more extensive healthcare features such as sleep tracking, blood pressure monitoring, improving the health monitoring for catestrophic events such as a heart attack or stroke, etc.
  • A new interface to Apple Music, specifically making finding & sharing playlists easier (it's currently like a 3 or 4 step process to get to a playlist and more times then not the playlist is not there when I come back to the app the next day). Would also love to see the predictive suggestions of music algorithm improve.
  • Redesign of the Activity App with extended features and similar social aspects as other fitness tracking apps.
  • More ResearchKit and CareKit. I really think even if I don't utilize these as much as others that health and education will greatly benefit from such kits and thus society in general will benefit.
  • A TV service similar to Netflix with English Premier League & Champions League coverage so that I can cut the cord finally :-).
  • A revolutionary product announcement such as Apple working on an electric car. I know this is most likely folly since they typically do not announce products, they present them but still. I'm not even sure it is considered a rumor or secret with Elon Musk stating they are working on it in his 2016 Code Conference interview.

Apple Music 2.0

John Gruber on Apple Music and Coherent Product Design and Marketing

 Coherence in product design leads to coherence in product marketing. And vice versa: incoherence in product design leads to incoherence in product marketing.

John's pretty spot on here. I switched to Apple Music from Spotify because of the size of the library selection and ease of setting it up for my wife and father in law with family sharing. I was hopeful that the algorithm of suggesting music through me loving songs would be on par with most Apple products. But instead have the feeling like Apple Music has been all a bit like throwing paint on the wall and calling it art. Apple Music has been trying to do and be everything all at once with suggested music, connect/follow artists, radio, editor playlists, curator playlists, and on and on. In theory, it's like the best of Pandora and a Spotify on steroids, if only it was delivered in Apple's trademark simple intuitive way. Similar to my feelings on the upcoming rumored Apple Watch 2, I'm super hopeful to see what Apple does with their latest iteration on Apple Music. It seems like all the content is there, it's just not accessible enough yet.