Inspired by Ultranurd’s WWDC 2025 Wishlist, here’s mine. This is not a list focused on the Apple Developer community– it’s a list focused on what I, a user, wants out of macOS (mostly) software 1.

  1. Like the aforementioned wishlist, my number one ask is for macOS to get a strong, first party package manager, with none of the bullshit of the Mac App Store. Even Windows has one now, Homebrew is acceptable, but kind of a mess and a bit nuts to rely on for key platform level tools. If you care about developers as users of your platform, this is a key element. Swift has a package manager– it’s an obviously important feature of a healthy programming language. But package management is also a critical component of healthy systems.

  2. Apple should bite the bullet and enter the search space. Their deal with Google is on life support, and AI-based search is an opportunity to reset the board. Apple has gone from a leader in some types of search (remember when Spotlight and Apple Mail search were huge advantages that Apple held versus hopeless horrible messes that seem worse than even naive Sqlite full text search?) to a laggard. They are seeking services revenue wherever it can be found. Search is an area to stretch their AI capabilities, their web services capabilities, their privacy focus, and their advertising revenue. Just do it– it’s time to play.

  3. Fix Notifications– they’re a mess, but especially Notification Center on macOS. Notification state (read/presence whatever) needs to sync across devices. Notification state should be clearable by an app (for example, how often do I have a notification from Messages for a message I’ve already read in Messages? Always). Notifications should be easier to directly take action on.

  4. Shared Albums in Apple Photos should be full quality photos. This is why I never use this feature. And speaking of Shared Albums…

  5. Instagram the Shared Albums feed. How many people know about liking and commenting on Photos in Shared Albums? And that there’s an Activity Feed? It feels like Apple is so close to a strong, private, photo sharing network that’s just a little short, yet could be incredible for those of us who have lost what Meta’s products used to be– a decent place to share things with friends. Or buy Retro.app, which continues to be a favorite of mine but no one uses it.

  6. Make ambitious updates of side project apps. Let’s see things like Clips, Invites, and the return (I’m dreaming here, right?!) of Music Memos. All of these apps should have 2-3 great application developers inside of Apple supporting them year round. They should be the first to be involved in any framework changes for iOS or new UI paradigms. They should release with best in case support for Apple Intents and Shortcuts and all of that. They should be giving feedback on things like how to migrate to Swift 6 with strict concurrency. They should be howling the documentation teams and helping to improve it. Keeping a slate of 5-10 great, purpose built apps on each platform that are not apart of the platform teams and can’t use private APIs is a huge opportunity to dog food. And these applications, even when they don’t set the world on fire, are often genuinely great. Even better, open source these applications. No more demo code– show us how things work for real, in context. Ok, this item maybe is for Apple developers.

  7. Increase iCloud storage, and push iCloud features to the next stage. Will iCloud ever be as feature packed as other cloud storage providers? Probably not. But it should keep working its way closer and closer. This will also improve the APIs that Dropbox and others are being pushed to use.

  8. Invest more in Focus Modes– how? I’m not sure. Why? Because this feature has been the greatest improvement in iOS since copy and paste.

  9. Provide some hint toward a redesigned Apple Watch. I’m so happy with the data, which nothing else seems to offer. But I’m so tired of the design. I find myself resenting wearing the Watch while being unwilling to give it up. Just give us something fresh this year.

  10. Add weightlifting / more specific exercise tracking to Apple Fitness. I want to write what I did at the gym, what weights I used, reps, sets, etc. I want Apple to try and do things like tell me “If you’re trying to build muscle, it looks like you need more reset between sets,” based on analyzing my heart rate or wrist temperature changes, or something with the Watch sensors.

  11. Redesign the Home app again. What a shit show.

  1. Ok, I admit, the very first item is super developer-y. But it’s also what inspired the post. Bear with me. ↩︎