Apple briefly mentioned the MacBook Air was updated yesterday. Turns out, that update isn’t much to write home about, as Ryan Smith reports:

The updated laptop retains the use of Intel’s Broadwell processor, but the base configurations now uses a faster chip, Intel’s Core i5-5350U, instead of the slower i5-5250U. As hinted at by the minor model number change, this is not a massive difference – both the base and the boost clock are 200MHz faster, for 1.8GHz base and 2.9GHz boost – but it is none the less a tangible performance improvement for Apple’s entry-level laptop.

Jake Underwood at MacStories:

As its name may suggest, Apple’s latest Mac operating system, macOS High Sierra, was billed today as a performance update for macOS. Packed deep with improvements to macOS apps and system-level functionality, High Sierra brings welcome changes to the Mac.

Additionally, Apple introduced important new technologies in macOS, including support for virtual reality, its new file system APFS, and Metal 2.

Not the most exciting macOS update, even in the era of smaller macOS updates, but I’m fine with it.

Just yesterday, I shared some thoughts on the timing of what has been announced as HomePod:

Apple could pre-announce it at WWDC, and ship it in the coming weeks or months. If it comes with SiriKit support, and if Apple expands that in iOS 11, does it make sense to launch it now with SiriKit being limited to such a small handful of app categories in iOS 10?

Apple did pre-announce the device. It will go on sale — for $349 — in December.

Apple put a Sonos speaker and an Echo on a slide in the keynote, building the case that a product in this category should sound great and be smart.

I have no doubt Apple’s product will sound good. A good section of its time on stage was about the various components in its audio system. Most of the product’s webpage is dedicated to the tech within the small cylinder.

When it comes to smarts, I’m not convinced Apple has done enough to take on the Echo.

Siri is onboard, ready to do almost anything you ask when it comes to Apple Music. Past that, the HomePod can be used with HomeKit devices. Apple’s has limited Siri on the device to domains Apple knows well: News, Messages, Podcasts, Stocks, Weather, Reminders, alarms, timers, sports and traffic.

There is no third-party app support for HomePod at this time. The Echo and Google Home both have a growing library of third-party apps that can provide content and skills to the user.

I assume that third-party support will come in the future. Apple’s playing it slow with SiriKit, but I’d like to see things move forward more aggressively.

This WWDC has two big winners: iPad software and Mac hardware.

Yes, there’s that new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, and yes, we’ll be running macOS High Sierra come this fall, but I think these two categories are the biggest stories to come out of the keynote.

iOS 11 is finally giving iPad users the tools they need to get work done more efficiently and with more power. It all looks amazing, and I cannot wait to try it out.

But I really want to talk about Mac hardware.

Right off the bat, the entire notebook line got a bump. The MacBooks and MacBook Pros are now shipping with Kaby Lake Intel processors, but the latter is still capped at 16 GB of RAM. Everything got updated GPUs, and the entry-model MacBook Pro without Touch Bar now runs $1299.

These moves signal that Apple is committed to the pro notebook, as the updates come just months after releasing these computers. I hope Apple keeps its foot on the gas here, and works to keep things updated more aggressively from here on out.

The MacBook Air also got an update to the “newer processors,” but Apple didn’t even give the dead-man-walking notebook a “New” badge on its website. That’s just cold.

Even colder? The Mac mini was not mentioned or upgraded. It is, however, still for sale.

The iMac line got refreshed as well. Fusion Drives are now standard on all 27-inch configurations and the top-end 21.5-inch iMac. The updated, brighter displays are powered by new GPUs. All the systems — thanks with Kaby Lake processors — are noticeably faster than the ones they replace.

Around back, the four USB A ports remain. The full IO list is now:

• Headphone
• SDXC card slot
• Four USB 3 (Type A)
• Two Thunderbolt 3
• Gigabit Ethernet

Then there’s the big story. The iMac Pro. Apple mentioned it was working on “pro configs” of the iMac, and when this think ships at the end of the year, I’d say they would have delivered.

Donned in Space Gray, this iMac is just as thin as its Retina 5K sibling, but is all-new inside:

• 8, 10, or 18-Core
• Up to 128 GB EEC RAM
• Up to 4 TB SSD
• Radeon Pro Vega 56 GPU
• Four USB 3 (Type A) ports
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• 10Gb Ethernet

Even its periphals are in Space Gray. It looks dope:

A post shared by Ren Caldwell (@settern) on Jun 5, 2017 at 1:20pm PDT

All of this is made possible by an all-new cooling system that has added those intake slots along the bottom part of the back case. I hope Apple’s learned their Mac Pro-shaped lesson about that sort of thing and that this thermal arrangement will allow for component updates down the road.

(I did notice the lack of a RAM door in Serenity’s photo. I’m hoping that it is there on the finished product, but I think I’m going to be sad.)

Update: Apple says the RAM is not user-replaceable.

Starting at $4,999 when it goes on sale later this year, the iMac Pro is pushing the sometime-after-2017 Mac Pro to the fringe. We don’t know anything about that machine yet, but assuming it has expansion slots, that, multiple processor support and a freedom of display choice may be its biggest selling points.¹

WWDC has been, for most of its run, a software show. Numerous new versions of macOS have first appeared there over the years, and summer iOS announcements settled into place once the iPhone 4S introduced the era of fall iPhone hardware releases.

That’s not to say Apple has not done hardware at WWDC since. However, hardware releases at the conference need to either serve the software story, or fit with the developer-heavy audience.

Examples of the former are hard to come by in the modern age. My favorite example from before the iPhone 4S-inspired calendar shift may be the Intel Developer Transition Kit, which prepared developers for the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors. It was introduced as part of the Intel announcement at WWDC 2005, and Intel Macs started rolling out just a handful of months later.

The biggest hardware announcement at WWDC in the recent era has to be the original MacBook Pro with Retina display. It checked both boxes; software developers had to prepare their Mac apps, and the hardware was well-suited to power users.

That brings us to tomorrow’s keynote. There are rumors of refreshed MacBook Pros, which would please power users who have felt neglected in recent years. That always-rumored-but-never-released 10.5″ iPad Pro would be a great way to showcase new iOS 11 iPad goodies, and appeal to the pro iPad users in the crowd.

Then there’s the Siri Speaker. The timing of this is very interesting to me.

Apple could pre-announce it at WWDC, and ship it in the coming weeks or months. If it comes with SiriKit support, and if Apple expands that in iOS 11, does it make sense to launch it now with SiriKit being limited to such a small handful of app categories in iOS 10?¹

Rumors say that the thing may already be in production. If that’s true, I expect the initial emphasis won’t be on apps as much as it is on things like Apple Music and overall sound quality. That may help keep the Siri Speaker out of the same “what is this supposed to do for me” rut that the Apple Watch fell into after launch.

If Apple announces the Siri Speaker, regardless of a ship date, it would mark the return of meaningful hardware announcements to the WWDC stage. That is always fun.