Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC as it is popularly shrunk to, gets underway on June 5. The conference is generally an occasion for Apple to unveil information about future products and the direction the Cupertino giant wants to head in. As usual, there is immense speculation about what Apple will showcase at the conference. The list of possible and probable unveilings range from AR/VR glasses to MacBooks to iMacs to iPads to just about everything under the sun. But what is not so usual is the slight tension in the air as WWDC draws close.
The past few months have been challenging ones for the company that believes in ‘thinking different’. While the sales of its iPhone have continued to grow, bucking global trends, the Macs and iPads have taken a bit of a hammering.
In its Q123 earnings call, Apple's Chief financial officer Luca Maestri said that Mac revenues were down 31 per cent as compared to last year. The iPads also witnessed a 13 per cent decline in revenues, and according to a Counterpoint report, the Apple Watch's sales per quarter fell below 10 million for the first time in three years, with a 20 per cent decline in sales.
Even the iPhone's revenue growth in this period was relatively modest (by its standards) 2 per cent, and there has been widespread speculation that the iPhone 14 Plus has received a poor response. Given all this, it was hardly surprising that overall revenues also dipped 3 per cent to $94.8 billion.
Of course, there are many factors for this, ranging from supply issues to component shortages. It also needs to be kept in mind that in spite of this, Apple's services business posted what CEO Tim Cook called an “all-time record” revenue of $20.9 billion.
Still, all of these have resulted in an almost siege-like atmosphere around WWDC 2023.
For the first time in many years, Apple will be going into the conference looking to win back lost ground rather than build on massive growth.
The big question is: will it be able to do so?
Some experts feel that WWDC will see Apple change the VR space with its much-leaked-and- rumoured AR/VR Headset. And if it is able to do so, it would not only mark a new zone of expansion for the company but would also be perhaps the first radically new product from it since the AirPods way back in 2016.
If that sounds like a long time, it is because it has been long. Recent times have seen the brand which made graphic UI, touchscreen phones, tablets, smartwatches and TWS part of our daily routine, seemingly following a path of conservative consolidation rather than radical revolution.
It is a path that has yielded rich revenue dividends and made Apple the most valuable company in the world at the time of writing. But the brand has been making more dings in cash counters than in the universe.
Incremental improvements have been the order of the day at Cupertino in recent times, as witnessed in the case of the iPhone 14 series and the new iPads, which many felt did not go far enough on Apple's revolutionary scale.
There have also been products that have surfaced but then gone missing, like the HomePod and AirPods Max.
The result? Many see Apple now as a brand that is focusing on making its box bigger rather than thinking outside of it. Even the rumours about Apple are getting predictable — more notebooks, more phones, more tablets… just like any other brand.
Its entry into VR — if it happens — could see Apple get back into the insanely innovative game, an arena it seems to have abandoned in favour of staying sensibly smart in recent times.
In many ways, VR seems tailor-made for an Apple impact. Just like computers, touchscreen phones and even tablets, VR has been receiving a fair deal of attention and hype but is yet to get that 'killer product' that will make it a more mainstream or even a comfortable, more familiar usable proposition — most people who have used Meta's headsets will tell you that they deliver real headaches as much as virtual reality.
The VR story is full of promise. All it needs is a hero. And if Apple delivers one next week, it would be a big moment for the brand.
While VR would be the perfect 'rad' new product for Apple, WWDC 2023 also represents a chance for Apple to show that innovation of a revolutionary sort still flows in its veins. It could do so by really reworking its software, be it for the Mac, the iPhone, watches or tablets. We would even say it needs to do so, in order to step away from the spec-driven species of which it seems in danger of becoming a part of.
We do not exactly know what it needs to do, but what we do know is that if one company can do it, it is Apple. The brand had made being Insanely Great a thing with its amazing products for so many years. It is a great brand today but perhaps needs some insanity back.
More than forty years ago, Apple made a tryst with destiny when it promised us that 1984 would not be like ‘1984’. At WWDC 2023, it has a chance to make a tryst with a new future and show that 2024 will not be like 2023, or 2022, and so on.