By Erick Apple’s recent WWDC – its annual developer conference (affectionately called “dub dub” in the industry) went without any major incident two weeks ago. What followed was the usual set of analysis and memes (oh, so many memes) especially on the whole Liquid Glass design theme.
On liquid glass, some love it, many hate it. I think it kinda works?
Microsoft tried to get in on the meme bandwagon – hinting that it introduced liquid glass in Windows Vista. Although they didn’t cal it liquid glass and windows vista was shite compared to Windows XP before it and Windows 7 after it.
My personal take on liquid glass is that Apple is trying to get us used to design which is translucent, which is a screen overlay over reality. A.k.a. augmented reality, leaning towards mixed reality. A.k.a. Vision Pro… or whatever XR device Apple is working on and will bring out.
Anyway, enough about Liquid Glass and this year’s dub dub. Although quick mentions – all OS are now (x)OS26, MacOS 26 is also called Tahoe, they seemed to have ‘fixed further’ the iPad OS and the watch has a new gesture I like to call flicky flick.
We Give Too Much Importance to Events Like Dub Dub
At least that’s what I think. I get that Steve Jobs “revolutionized the industry when he showcased the first iPhone” and all that, but come on. Does every event need to have its own theme, overhyped features presented through unrealistic visuals, overexcited company executives showcasing overdone features that may not even ship?
No. Especially the last part – features that may not even ship. And Apple too has been guilty of this.
So, more on the psychology behind events later, I’m doing a whole bunch of deep research on that and will have a monster blog post (and maybe a video – btw subscribe to me on YouTube) by the end of 2025.
For this post, I thought I’d make a list of past announcements from dub dub(s) that either never shipped, or shipped but flopped. Let me know if you like this post, and if I should make one for every major showcase event series (Galaxy, I/o, Build and so on).
Features & Products Announced at WWDC That Never Shipped:
- 4G LTE on MacBook: Rumored and anticipated at WWDC 2012, but Apple has never released a MacBook with built-in mobile broadband. And Apple still doesn’t have a MacBook with in-built broadband, and probably never will because they want you to buy the iPad with cellular.
- Apple TV SDK/App Store: Frequently rumored, including at WWDC 2012, but Apple did not announce or ship a public Apple TV app store or SDK at that time. Developers don’t seem to mind though – I mean, does anyone make standalone TVOS apps?
- Apple HDTV Hardware: Widely speculated before several WWDCs, but no such product was ever launched. Although, let’s be fair, they do have the Apple TV 4K which is wildly successful.
Features That Shipped But Kinda Flopped… and Later Fixed:
- Apple Maps (2012 and 2014): Launched in 2012 as a major iOS feature but was widely criticized for inaccuracies and poor directions (so much so it has its own memes – back in 2012!), prompting public apologies and years of fixes. Although it’s back now – and after many years, is comparable to Google Maps.
- iOS 11 (2017): Promised big improvements but suffered from sluggish performance, bugs, and battery drain, especially on older devices. Fixed in subsequent iOS of course.
- HealthKit (2014): Announced as a health data hub but initially failed to reliably record data and had poor app integration; improved later but had a rocky start. Apple Health now tracks all available fitness data, especially collected by your Apple Watch (and in the future your AirPods Pro).
- Ping (2010): I hadn’t really heard about this either, until I was researching for this blog post. But in 2010, Apple launched a music based social network, that had 1 million members and then died.
- Siri (since forever): I know I know, Siri was a trailblazer and was wild when it was introduced. But can we admit for a second that it simply is not as useful as Alexa or Ok Google? It has fallen behind in the virtual assistant world, and Apple has some catching up to do especially today with all the AI assistants going around for free. Also Siri was not exactly a dub dub announcement, so it probably doesn’t belong on this list anyway.
- Memoji: chee! That’s all I have to say about this.
Okay this is a pretty short list, but still these examples show that not every WWDC announcement or rumor leads to a successful or even released product. Some features are delayed, quietly dropped, or launch to poor reception before being fixed or forgotten.
And that’s why we don’t have to hang on to every word that’s said in this announcement, or rush to the front of the line to buy the latest product or service that ships – if it ships.
Share this with an Apple fan or an early adopter – and let me know once you do!