The State of Apple

WWDC 2021: Apple is Officially Out of Ideas

Copying things and fixing things is all the software progress we can now expect, apparently

A flashy two-hour presentation did not succeed in hiding the fact that, on the software front, Apple seems to have hit a wall it’s not interested in breaking through. Which is a shame. (Image: Apple)

Apple’s keynote for its software-focused annual event, WWDC, wrapped up a few hours ago and — for many journalists — there’s this traditional comparison to be made. It’s not the “what we expected” versus “what we got” comparison (reporters stopped thinking that way about Apple events long ago). It’s the “what was my impression about all this while watching it” versus the “what’s my impression now that I’ve gone through all the actual press material” comparison and, in the case of WWDC 2021, there is no “versus”. It was underwhelming while watching it and underwhelming while collecting all the information necessary to report on it.

What has, furthermore, become painfully obvious is that Apple cannot “innovate” on the software front anymore.

During the WWDC keynote — which lasted almost two hours that seemed more like four — Apple executives went through all the additions and changes of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, watchOS 8 and macOS Monterey. All of these changes are things that Apple should have fixed a long time ago and every single one of these additions is something that others have already done in the past…