Apple's week May 30: Mac to the future

It's been another odd week for Apple news. Tariff uncertainty continues as the courts tried to block them, but an appeals court immediately provided a stay until June 9.

But enough of that. There's some news surrounding WWDC and Apple's plans for its ecosystem of operating systems. It's going to be a busy summer either way.

One tidbit of news I had to laugh at was Meta-related. The company that's moved into military contracts and anti-LGBTQ policies has announced an iPad app for WhatsApp. Cool. Good for those users, I guess. 15 years too late.

Time for a name change

Apple is ready for a significant change across its operating systems, and it's not just in the design. Rumors point to a change to the version naming across the board, naming everything about the fiscal year the OS is running in.

That means we're getting iOS 26, macOS 26, visionOS 26, and the rest. There's been some worry about Apple trapping itself into an odd naming convention that'll inevitably run into trouble around 2100, but let's worry about what's happening in our lifetime.

The name itself is a bit unwieldy, but I expect Apple will use this as an excuse to refer to everything as its base OS name. It'll be "here's what's new in iOS" not "iOS 26." That's a big change considering iOS 18 is one of the major feature mentions on the iPhone 16 page.

That said, most iPhone users barely even realize the operating system is called iOS, let alone what number follows after. I've always been somewhat confused by the marketing behind calling something by its version number.

I'm sure something did it before Windows 95, but that's the first one that comes to mind. People really don't need to be thinking of or worrying about version numbers.

Solarium

The ecosystem-wide redesign is basically certain at this point. Everything is going to look a little more like visionOS, and I'm excited by that.

I hope it's a real commitment to the platform more than an empty gesture. I believe this shift is to affirm that visionOS is the future, more than iPad ever was suggested to be.

The biggest question is whether Apple will have time for everything in the keynote. Somehow it will have to thread the needle between a system redesign, advancing its AI efforts, introducing new features to each platform, and possibly bringing in homeOS.

iOS, macOS, and the rest are overdue for some kind of redesign. I know there have been small changes over the years, but I'm the type that likes rearranging a room every now and then just to see some change. It'll be interesting to see how Apple approaches this new era of design and software.

Apple and gaming

It feels like we've heard some kind of narrative about how Apple is finally serious about gaming since at least the Pippin console. Instead, we've got a company that seems to believe one game demo on stage is enough to cater to the very particular gaming audience.

Rather, in spite of those minimal efforts, gaming blew up on iPhone and iPad. By all measures, Apple is the biggest gaming company on earth, and that hurts when the games we're talking about are Roblox or Angry Birds.

I remember being young and playing the PlayStation 2, then looking at my Game Boy thinking how cool it would be to bring those games with me. Grand Theft Auto 3 as a portable game – it was a dream.

Technology advanced and we saw early efforts in true AAA portable games beyond the simple Brick Breaker or Snake. The Sony PSP seemed to answer the call, but even then, it was very limited to what consoles could do.

Today, we've got smartphones in our pocket that can easily emulate almost any game created before the PlayStation 3 without effort. There are even huge games built for iPhone and iPad that are considered AAA on console.

It feels like we've really crossed that line into the dream we had as young gamers. However, Apple has somehow continually missed the boat.

For example, it took multiple years and strict laws to force emulators onto the platform. If Apple understood gaming, it would know that emulation is the only way to preserve and interact with video game history. You can easily watch a film that released in the 1980s, but playing a game from that era isn't always so simple.

Hints at Apple's push into gaming kept appearing over the years. Apple Silicon is improving rapidly at rendering games, plus there are toolkits that let developers better port their titles to the platform. It has increasingly felt like Apple finally opened the door to true gaming with its devices.

The latest moves include acquiring a two-person game studio that makes Sneaky Sasquatch and a rumor about a new gaming app. The acquisition is likely just to help in the development space and to help lock in one of Apple Arcade's most popular titles.

However, the app I'm referring to as Apple Games sounds like a real step forward. For years, Apple's interaction with gamers was limited to a tab in the App Store where editorial staff seemingly chose games to recommend at random. Now, Apple will offer an entire app dedicated to the medium.

I don't want to get my hopes up. The app itself could be a simple launcher with access to the Apple Arcade and Games tabs from the App Store. It will also mean Game Center having a home again.

These are all nice features, but they have been replicated across third-party gaming apps like Backbone. The key detail in this rumor is likely the social features.

If Apple is smart, the app will go beyond simply enabling SharePlay with iMessage and FaceTime groups. The app needs to be a hub for gaming similar to the Xbox app where users can create gaming lobbies, chat, and launch directly into multiplayer modes of different apps.

This system could be available via an API offered to developers. Let games differentiate themselves based on having access to the feature, which would also help force devs into adopting it.

I'd also like to see this app on Apple TV. Sure, there have been rumors of a mythical piece of Apple TV hardware for years that would be better for gaming. I expect we'll soon get an Apple TV with an A18 or M-series processor, which would enable titles like Assassin's Creed to run.

Perhaps Apple could even convince Microsoft to bring Minecraft back to the Apple TV.

We've reached the future where users can start a game on their TV and continue the same save file on their iPhone or iPad. Portable batteries, attachable controllers, and wireless headphones have made it all into quite the streamlined experience.

It's high time Apple made AAA gamers care about its hardware. Let's hope this Apple Games app gets announced alongside several new partner AAA titles coming to Apple products later in the year.

AI app future

I saw this story float by and I wanted to take a moment to comment on it here. I also discussed it on the AppleInsider Podcast for this week.

The Nothing CEO shared that he believes smartphones will soon be thinking, proactive AI tools that won't need individual apps or an app store. Instead, the phone would generate an app from scratch every time someone needed to do something.

The key being that the AI would be so dialed into the user that it would have apps and services ready before the user even asked for them. This concept isn't unique to the Nothing CEO, but it is an absurd thing to believe or say out loud.

I keep seeing how people claim, usually tech executives and their followers, that AI is going to become this superpower that will take over everything. I've still not seen evidence of this. I assume this no-app future comes from the ultimate result of what "vibe coding" is expected to deliver. You simply say "Make an app that does 'x'" and out pops a fully functioning app.

Forget the logistics of this. It's just insane to believe that it would work this way at all. What if you need an app to place an order at McDonald's? What about an app that lets you stream games from your PlayStation console to your phone?

So, instead of having an app store the user navigates to select which app or function they need, the AI will just pull from a pool of APIs, throw together some code, generate a UI, and show it on screen within an instant? And even if AI could eventually do this (it won't, at least not as it exists today), why would it be better than the system we have?

This is the fundamental problem with AI sycophants as a whole. They detest human choice, curation, and the effort it takes to have something truly unique. What if the app the AI makes sucks? Try again?

No, that's just dumb. Instead, I want to have an App Store and human-created apps to browse. What the Nothing CEO suggests is that we abandon the incredibly successful system that employs millions and move on to a soulless tool that is likely worse in every way, if it ever exists. The only one that benefits is the Nothing CEO, if Nothing is the company selling these AI-first phones (they won't be).

I'm just so tired of all this unnecessary AI hype that makes an otherwise useful technology sound like a joke. Let's hope cooler heads prevail and Apple shows some grounded, useful AI upgrades during WWDC.