Apple WWDC 2017 To See iOS 11, New iPads, Siri Speaker, And More; What To Expect?

Apple will kick off this year's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday with a keynote presentation where the company's top executives will take the stage to talk about their next big releases. WWDC is a software show, with a heavy focus on iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. 

This year's WWDC will take place between June 5 and June 9 in the McEbert Convention Center in San Jose, CA. The event will start with the official opening keynote scheduled for 10 AM PT.

Bloomberg has reported last month that iOS 11 would have "an updated user interface," although it didn't offer any details more than that. One possibility is there that Apple to be working on a "dark mode" for the entire operating system, which changes most backgrounds from white to black.

However, WWDC is mostly a software-centric event; but this year new hardware makes the cut from time to time. Rumor has it Apple is preparing four new iPads for WWDC 2017. One of the new iPads is expected to an all-new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, while the other one could be a refresh of the huge 12.9-inch iPad Pro 2. 

The star of the show will be iOS 11 that is powering the breath and butter of Apple's portfolio - the iPhone. A recent Recode report says Apple has been weighing a peer-to-peer payments service, which would compete with the likes of Venmo and Square Cash, but it's unclear on whether that would be a feature of Apple Pay or whether it would exist as a cash-exchange feature in iMessage (or both).

Apple is expected to launch watchOS 4, but sadly, nothing has been heard as far as features are concerned. Regardless, it is expected that the Apple Watch experience to be vastly improved with a trove of new features and functionalities.

Finally, rumors have it that Apple is going to unveil its own hardware alternative to the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart home hubs, which will be called Siri-speakers. Supposedly powered by Siri and a forked difference of iOS, this one will let user surf the web and control the smart home appliances.