What will Monday bring at WWDC?

WWDC kicks off on Monday with the Keynote speech at 10 A.M. PT, and new information has come through the Apple vine to suggest that not only will the excellent Swift Playgrounds iPad app get some nice upgrades, but also we’ll get a glimpse at the Siri Speaker.

In a slightly surprising non-mysterious move, today Apple actually announced that Swift Playgrounds, (aimed at making learning how to code fun), will soon be able to program and control robots, drones, musical instruments, and other toys when the latest version of the app is released at WWDC.

Swift Playgrounds version 1.5 is set to be released on June 5, and will support several popular Bluetooth-enabled devices, including LEGO’s MINDSTORMS Education EV3 robot, Sphero’s SPRK+ robotic ball and BB-8 droid, UBTECH’s Jimu Robot MeeBot Kit, Dash by Wonder Workshop, Parrot drones, and other toys.

YAY KIDS AND PEOPLE WHO ARE KIND OF JUST LIKE KIDS! From the Sauce, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering:

“More than 1 million kids and adults from around the world are already using Swift Playgrounds to learn the fundamentals of coding with Swift in a fun and interactive way, now they can instantly see the code they create and directly control their favorite robots, drones and instruments through Swift Playgrounds. It’s an incredibly exciting and powerful way to learn.”

Yes sir it is! Swift Playgrounds is a free download on the App Store for all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, and iPad mini 2 or newer.

Now this next WWDC news is a little more run-of-the-mill mysterious. It’s said that Apple’s much talked about Siri Speaker will definitely be unveiled next week during the Keynote, that it’s already in production, and that it will be shipping a little later in the year, perhaps as late as the Fall.

Apple will also be debuting iOS 11, new WatchOX & TVOS, and MacOS 10.13, and well as possibly new 10.5 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models and new Macs.

You should be able to watch WWDC on Apple’s website, or on your Apple TV.*

*Streaming requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Safari on iOS 7.0 or later, a Mac with Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later, or a PC with Microsoft Edge on Windows 10. Streaming via Apple TV requires an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation) with software 6.2 or later or an Apple TV (4th generation).

Apple might be retiring support for some iPads and iPhones sooner rather than later

If you have an iPhone 5, iPhone 5C or an iPad with a 32 bit processor, and you have no thoughts of upgrading any time soon – we’re giving you a bit of a heads up – Apple might have a different thought process…

It’s been predicted for a while now that Apple will likely cease support for these devices in the near future. Some are predicting now that it will come early, while others are still thinking that this will come on June 5th with the release of iOS 11 at WWDC.

Apple just released iOS 10.3 earlier this week, and the above mentioned devices were supported with this upgrade, however there were hints that future software upgrades will not include support for these devices.

What people thought was curious, and which gives credence to the idea that this will happen before iOS 11 is that in the code of the iOS 10.3.2 beta, which was made available to developers shortly after the iOS 10.3 release, users that opened 32-bit software in iOS 10.3 were met with a message saying the app will not work with future versions of iOS.

Devices with 32 bit processors instead of 64 bit processors are the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5C, the standard version of the iPad (so not the Air or the Pro), and the first iPad mini.

So what does it mean if your beloved iPhone or iPad is no longer supported? It’s not the end of the world per se, because these devices would still function, but you wouldn’t be able to install the latest apps and it would be easier for hackers to access your device.

Previously, Apple stopped supporting the iPhone 4S, first iPad mini and the fifth-generation iPod touch when it introduced iOS 10.