In the latest edition of his weekend newsletter, Power On, Bloomberg analyst Mark Gurman outlined his expectations for iOS 16, watchOS 9 and a rumoured mixed reality headset.
According to Gurman, iOS 16 will not receive any major changes to the design. The last sweeping change to the user interface came with 2013’s iOS 7. But we can expect to see some fairly significant changes to core features including a major revamp of notifications. We can also expect to see some pretty major updates to health tracking functionality. Gurman also outlines that the iPad may receive yet another update to its multi-tasking experience.
I’m not expecting an end-to-end redesign of iOS’s interface, even though it hasn’t changed much since iOS 7 nearly a decade ago. But there might be a new iPadOS multitasking interface.
Mark Gurman
Gurman also fleshed out some details for watchOS 9 with Apple expected to provide significant upgrades to health tracking and a revamp of activity tracking. Furthermore, Gurman states that he doesn’t expect Apple’s mixed-reality headset to arrive in June. There is a possibility of an announcement towards the end of the year as iOS 16 is littered with references to a so-called ‘rOS’ or ‘Reality OS’. But don’t expect the hardware to arrive for a while.
In terms of new Mac hardware, we could see Apple unveil various new machines at WWDC or in the early second half of 2022. The fully redesigned MacBook Air could act as the star of the show. And of course, Apple has already hinted that the all-new Mac Pro is on the way.
The AppleTLDR take
Changing the design of iOS for the sake of change, wouldn’t advance the user experience. It would only be useful for Apple to change the design if it helped to enhance core functionality and enabled new features. The design of macOS was updated to align more with iOS just 18 months ago with Big Sur. It would seem odd, therefore, for Apple to suddenly take iOS in a new design direction. That would mean changing the design of macOS yet again. Nobody is really asking for that. Not the average consumer at least.