 Tim Cook during a spring 2021 Apple event. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg Apple Inc. has chosen June 5, 2023, as one of the most important days in its history. That's the date it's planning to debut its first mixed-reality headset, which it sees as the beginning of a post-iPhone era. The headset will be a risky, but potentially monumental launch for Apple. It will herald mixed reality as its next major product category, offering a glimpse of a future where people are interacting with the world via headsets and not pocketable touch screens. The showcase at WWDC, the Worldwide Developers Conference, will likely include the headset itself, but also its onboard xrOS operating system, accompanying services, and — perhaps most critically — a software development kit and platform that will let developers write new types of apps. As is usual for invitations to WWDC, the artwork alongside the announcement doesn't do much to confirm Apple's plans. But I still see some likely hints. One WWDC 2023 graphic is clearly an outline of the Apple Park spaceship campus, which relates to the first day of the conference being held at the company's headquarters. No surprise there.  Apple WWDC 2023 in-person event promotion. Source: Apple But the second graphic is more interesting. On its surface, it's simply the outline of the rainbow structure on Apple's campus. (You can see that structure behind Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook in the photo at the top.) But it also looks similar to the curved shape of the Apple headset facing upward.  Apple's WWDC 2023 announcement. Source: Apple The format of the event also gives you a sense of how Apple likes to make announcements these days. It plans to hold a keynote presentation from the Apple Park campus that's streamed online, likely followed by hands-on time afterward at the headquarters. This has become Apple's go-to approach in the waning days of the pandemic. Back when Covid was still raging, Apple aired its events exclusively online. Then, with WWDC 2022, it streamed the keynote on a giant display outdoors at its campus and let attendees get a hands-on experience with the M2 MacBook Air. For the iPhone 14 last fall, Apple aired the prerecorded keynote in the Steve Jobs Theater and then let attendees try the new phones indoors. For this year's WWDC, Apple is promising a "special all-day event" at its campus, followed by online sessions for developers during the rest of the week. But it's worth noting that it's keynote addresses are still pretaped videos rather than on-stage presentations. There's a clear reason for that. Far more people watch the presentations now, and having a polished video means that Apple PR and marketing can uphold one of the company's favorite tenets: "Leave nothing to chance." The last thing Apple needs is for a headset demo to fail on stage like the iPhone X Face ID unlock did in 2017. There are also stories from former Apple engineers about the original iPhone demo in 2007 that claim the entire device would have crashed if Steve Jobs didn't follow a particular order of button taps. Apple's press release announcing the latest WWDC also underscored the momentous nature of this year's gathering. Susan Prescott, head of developer relations, called the conference Apple's "biggest and most exciting yet" and said the company "can't wait" to host "this very special event." Now, it's not uncommon for Apple to use that kind of hyperbole. But the company knows that everyone is anticipating this headset — including Wall Street — and it wouldn't want to further stoke expectations if it couldn't meet them. Beyond the headset, I'm told that multiple new Macs are in the works for launch around the middle of the year. The lineup could include fresh MacBook Air models and a Mac Pro with in-house Apple chips. The latest iOS and macOS beta versions will build in support for the new machines. We'll also get a look at iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, tvOS 17 and macOS 14.  Spotify App Store page on an iPhone. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg Spotify's support of the HomePod remains elusive despite its complaints that Apple doesn't work with rival music services. As part of a longstanding feud, Spotify Technology SA has a website with a running tally of Apple's misdeeds over the years. The list of infractions includes Apple rejecting Spotify apps, not supporting the service on the Apple Watch and a double standard with Apple Music (which doesn't have to comply with rules imposed on other developers). But the website also takes Apple to task for not supporting Spotify when the HomePod was launched in early 2018. While that's true, Apple did ultimately add support for the streaming service. And yet, many users still complain that Spotify doesn't work on the HomePod because Spotify — not Apple — hasn't enabled it. Spotify says this isn't a big deal. When I asked the company about the issue, it said there hasn't been a "significant volume" of complaints about the lack of HomePod support. They claim there are only 18 comments on Reddit and 138 tweets about the issue. I think that misses the point, though. (And for what it's worth, there's a complaint on Spotify's forums about HomePod support that has 5,800 likes.) It's hypocritical for Spotify to complain about a lack of HomePod support and then refuse to enable it. Don't get me wrong: I think Apple has made many mistakes and acted anticompetitively against Spotify and other third-party services for years (it also made many changes to address these problems). But this is a case where Spotify bears some responsibility. Spotify users have also been clamoring for AirPlay 2 support. The music service told me: "Spotify remains committed to supporting AirPlay 2 at some point in the future. We're on a path towards making it happen eventually, but we cannot state when that will be at this stage."  Apple Pay Later. Source: Apple, Inc. Apple Pay Later finally launches (sort of) after months of delays. The company's latest financial service has started rolling out to "randomly selected" users. If you're lucky enough to be in the prerelease version of the service, you'll get an email about it. Everyone else will need to wait for a wider launch in the "coming months." The service has been a long time coming, with development beginning nearly three years ago. There was an unveiling last June and a release planned for last September. The company confirmed that loans will range from $50 to $1,000 per user and will be funded by a subsidiary: Apple Financing LLC. Apple is using its own in-house technology to handle credit checks and assess lending eligibility. As I've written before, the company will scrutinize past Apple product purchase history, App Store transactions and other data to make its decisions. The service ups the competition with major fintech players like PayPal, Affirm and Klarna by letting Apple Pay users split up transactions across four payments made over six weeks. Beyond Apple Pay Later, we're still awaiting three other offerings in the works: the Goldman Sachs savings accounts in the Wallet app, Apple Pay Monthly Installments and an iPhone hardware subscription service.  The iOS 16 lock screen. Source: Apple Inc. Apple releases iOS 16.4 with new emojis and Emergency SOS via Satellite support for more countries. After a slew of beta versions, Apple has now released iOS 16.4, watchOS 9.4, macOS 13.3, tvOS 16.4 and a software update for the HomePod. There aren't a ton of new features here, but the releases include your usual fare of fresh emojis and bug fixes. It also sets the stage for an expansion of the Emergency SOS via Satellite feature to Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy and Portugal.  Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Park campus. Photographer: Nic Coury/Bloomberg WWDC 2023: June 5 to June 9. The next Worldwide Developers Conference will take place in-person at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The first day will be the big keynote address, followed by developer sessions online throughout the week. This event is where Apple's planning to debut its new headset, alongside the initial version of xrOS, plus updates to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. Q: What do you think of Apple Musical Classical so far?
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