My WWDC 2013 Bingo
What I expect from WWDC as an iOS Developer
When I attended my first WWDC, at 2009, I found this thing called WWDC Bingo, which apparently was inspired by an old IBM commercial. If you’ve been to/watched some product announcements lately you’ll probably find the joke very up to date.
Since then I’ve been making my own bingo card every year and Apple never failed to surprise me. No “Bingo!” for me.
This is my bingo card for the next WWDC. Let me walk you through it, it isn’t very detailed for space purposes.
The first column is pretty clear, an iOS 7.0 redesign is almost a certainty by now and I’m betting there’s a “magical” from Jonathan Ive while describing something on video.
The Siri API is a popular feature request among iOS developers even before last WWDC, but I fear Apple might release Siri for OSX with an API and let it mature before moving to iOS.
Next, the “iOS remote view controllers” — for those that don’t know what’s that — are single purposed “views” of an app that can be presented in another app, like Mail’s send e-mail view or the sharing views.
Apple already has remote view controllers working on iOS 6 and Ole Begemann has written a great post (thanks!) explaining them and suggesting how the App Store review process might work.
Passbooks via Bluetooth LE are a only a rumor that Apple will come up with a rival to NFC and allow payments on your iPhone. I think that if that’s coming it will be starting with Passbook, like validating or getting your ticket via Bluetooth LE (available since the iPhone 4S).
Probably there won’t be a “One More Thing” but it wouldn’t be a WWDC bingo card without it.
“iCloud done right” and “iCloud sharing” are tough ones. The iCloud API is known to be troublesome and unreliable. Apple needs to fix this or developers will start moving to third party solutions, which will lead to a poorer user experience.
iCloud sharing is self explanatory and I realize it’s a long shot, but a guy can wish.
Finally, at the last column, “Apple TV SDK” is something I’ve been waiting for, but I’m starting to doubt it will ever come true.
“Deliver once notifications” are synchronized push notifications but done right, not like Android.
Let me explain what I mean by that: I’m with my iPhone all day and when I come home my iPad has the same notifications I received earlier. That’s stupid. When I receive a Facetime call my iPhone, my iPad and my Mac start to ring. That’s insane. I really expect Apple to solve this.
The last one, “Interactive Push Notifications” is the cherry on top of my (developer) cake. Imagine if you could answer yes or no to a notification, or confirm that you received it (like snooze), or even reply to it (think Messages).
Custom actions would be awesome for developers but hard on the App Store review team, so Apple could give developers a handful to choose from, like they did for background tasks (audio, voip, location, etc…).
I know there’s one square missing, that’s for Apple to surprise me. I’ve given up on trying to get a bingo. I would be happy with a line or a column.
If you have suggestions please feel free to comment or tweet me.
