As if we needed confirmation, a new report from Bloomberg has basically thrown a bucket of cold water on our hopes for an exciting, hardware-packed WWDC. Mark Gurman is rarely wrong, and he says the new MacBooks and iPads aren’t ready yet. And while his preview doesn’t specifically discount the possibility of AirPods 2, HomePod mini, or an iPhone SE 2, it doesn’t lend any credence to those rumors either.

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With Apple's Family Sharing program, you can share iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases, an Apple Music family plan, and an iCloud storage plan with up to five people. I am not a fan of Apple’s Family Sharing option, and I’m not alone among technology writers. Family Sharing remains poorly implemented for most users years after its introduction, seemingly because Apple’s back-end systems that manage iTunes, the App Store, and other purchases and ownership is so woefully out of date. (For instance, you can’t migrate purchases among accounts you control or merge multiple accounts.)

This bites users on a regular basis, because seemingly intuitive and obvious behavior isn’t supported with Family Sharing. The most galling one is that if one person purchases an app that supports Family Sharing—not all apps do—then you’d think anyone else in the Family Sharing group would simply go to the App Store page for that app and click to download it? Incorrect, sorry. If you try to use the app’s page, you see the retail price, and if you click the price, you’ll be charged.

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Here we go: WWDC is imminent. The premiere event on Apple’s summer—if not yearly—calendar is a time for us to learn what’s in store for Apple’s software platforms over the next 12 months. Last week, I ran down some features I’ve been hoping to see in a macOS update. This time around, I thought I’d collect some thoughts on what I hope for in the rest of Apple’s platforms, from the big to the small.

iOS 12

Even with all the attention I gave to macOS last week, it’s clear that iOS is the star of the show; after all, Apple sells tens of millions of iOS devices every quarter.

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Updated 05/31/18: Incorporated information from a new Bloomberg report that purports to have inside details on a few of Apple's plans for WWDC.

Apple holds multiple events throughout the year, but two stand out above all others: the unveiling of new iPhones (typically in September), and the Worldwide Developers Conference in the summer. Known simply as WWDC, the week-long event focuses on the people who make all the apps and services we enjoy on our iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches.

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Updated 05/31/18: Bloomberg says Apple will offer new Digital Health settings, including tools to show how much time is spent in different apps.

It’s rare that Apple fans cheer a lack of new features in an upcoming product, but that may be the case with the next round of iPhone updates. After a flurry of embarrassing bugs in this year’s release of iOS, Apple is reportedly scaling back its plans for iOS 12 as it shifts its focus to quality and performance. And iPhone users should applaud this decision.

What's new in iOS 12?

iOS 12 will certainly add new features, just not as many as originally planned. That is, if this story by Axios is true.

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Unless you’ve got a Pixel 2 or a OnePlus phone, your new iPhone or Android phone has a great feature you might not be taking advantage of: wireless charging. So if you haven’t picked up a wireless charging pad yet, today’s the day to do so: Amazon is selling two of the best charging pads around for some of their lowest prices ever. Samsung’s Fast Charge pad is down to $25 and Anker’s Ultra-Slim Wireless Charging Pad is down to $13.49 using a 10 percent coupon on the purchase page. (To get the lowest price for the Anker pad, make sure you click the coupon box above the price listing.)

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My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, and a recent visit to the optometrist revealed I needed a slightly different prescription for reading on a computer screen. (What a relief!) But like a couple billion people in the world, it’s harder for me to read small text and lightly tinted text. That’s the complaint of Macworld reader Margaret, who asks:

How do I change the blue font found in many emails (especially Macworld articles) to another color? I have difficulty seeing the blue font. I don’t want to switch back to a PC, but I am visually impaired and Windows 10 seems to have more accessibility features.

Messages with rich text, which allows setting text color and other formatting, relies on HTML and can’t be overridden directly in the Mail app. The Mail app uses the same rendering engine as Safari, but it lacks a feature to simplify text for reading—the Reader View.

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If you’ve been around as long as The Macalope has… uh, well, sorry about your chronic aches and pains and the series of trusses and garters you must employ in order to simply wear clothes. Or is that just The Macalope? Anyway, more to the point, you might remember that back in the day when kids were still saying “back in the day,” the conventional wisdom went something like this:

Android is taking the majority of the market share so Apple is doomed because developers will stop developing for iOS and develop for Android instead. It’s the Mac versus Windows all over again.

Actually, it wasn’t something like that, it was exactly like that, as Henry Blodget epitomized back in 2011.

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