Don't Expect New MacBooks at WWDC -- or Any Other New Devices

Apple fans shouldn’t expect new MacBooks at WWDC this year

This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage

A new report suggests that Apple won’t be announcing any new hardware this coming Monday, June 4 at WWDC.

Apple’s WWDC is a developers conference, but it’s often used as a platform to launch new hardware. Sometimes it’s new iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, iMacs, or even a new Apple Watch or HomePod. But according to this new report from Bloomberg, that won’t be the case this year.

Rather than being product-focused, the emphasis of the event will be on software updates to iOS and MacOS, as well as an overhaul to ARKit. The report details that we’ll get a new mode in ARKit 2.0 that allows two people to play AR games against each other in the same environment on their iPhones. Sounds cool, but again, just don’t expect an announcement about that rumored AR headset we’ve been hearing about for years now.

Bloomberg’s piece doesn’t claim any specific sources, but it’s in line with other recent reporting on the matter, suggesting that the update to the entire MacBook lineup will happen in late 2018 — rather than at WWDC. On the other hand, Apple could give us the CPU bump we’ve been waiting for in MacBook Pros, without needing much of an announcement.

On the laptop side of things in particular, we’ve been waiting for news on refreshed MacBook Pros, as well a redesigned entry-level MacBook Air. The current MacBook Air has been ignored for years, while continuing to sell well for Apple as a budget-friendly entry-point into the Apple ecosystem. In the meantime, looks like we’ll have to keep waiting.

One interesting tidbit from the report is a mention of more interplay between iOS and MacOS. Bloomberg claims that the “focus this year will be on integrating more deeply with iOS.” We doubt that Apple will be ready to introduce iOS apps to the Mac or anything like that, we’d be delighted to hear about some more meaningful integration between the two platforms. With even Twitter pulling its official Mac out of the App Store, it’s really time for Apple to re-convince developers that it’s worth putting resources into.

The keynote to the event starts on Monday, June 4 at 10 a.m. PT, and we’ll be watching it live on our Twitch channel starting Monday morning.

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