{"id":86,"date":"2014-06-10T23:35:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=86"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:20:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:20:01","slug":"wwdc2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2014\/06\/10\/wwdc2014\/","title":{"rendered":"WWDC 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tim Cook began the\u00a0WWDC 2014 keynote<\/a>\u00a0promising \u201cthe mother of all releases for developers\u201d and \u201cthe biggest release since the launch of the App Store.\u201d He was not exaggerating. In a 30 minute span, Apple\u00a0knocked<\/a>\u00a0nearly<\/a>\u00a0every<\/a>\u00a0item<\/a>\u00a0off the community\u2019s list of wishes and complaints. As I said on the\u00a0Debug podcast\u00a0last week, it\u2019s as big a Monday as I can remember for developers. And I can remember quite a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Releases like this don\u2019t come often, because the decisions and effort behind them aren\u2019t applied lightly. The massive technical and political change required and subsequently generated by things like extensibility, third-party keyboards, and a new programming language, bears massive risk both inside and outside of Apple. That risk \u2014 to security, to battery life, to a consistent experience that customers know and trust \u2014 was constantly evaluated when I fought for SDK enhancements as a Technology Evangelist inside Apple. And more often than not, it was decided either that the risks were too high, or that there wasn\u2019t enough time to solve the problem while sufficiently containing those risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple caught up with itself this year. As with the first iPhone OS and SDK, the consumer experience (iOS 7) took priority, and developers had their day a year later. Apple has decided that moving iOS forward is as much in developers\u2019 hands as it is in Apple\u2019s. Consider that all this is happening at a time when Apple has more money and is hiring more engineers than ever. If anything, Apple is more<\/em> suited to shut the doors and go it alone. But that\u2019s not what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it seems to be coming from a place of confidence rather than concession. It wasn\u2019t just the announcements themselves, or the energy behind them. It was the energy from first-time attendees who made up 70% of the crowd. It was the energy from employees when I spoke to them in the conference halls and after hours. It was Craig Federighi sitting on the floor during sessions and\u00a0taking pictures with everybody<\/a>\u00a0who lined up. It was the\u00a0easing of the conference and pre-release NDA<\/a>. Apple seems just as excited as developers about this new era.\u00a0And yet despite this shift, true to old form,\u00a0nearly everything\u00a0remained secret<\/a>\u00a0until showtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was my first WWDC since 2011. That keynote was Steve Jobs\u2019 last, and it lacked the excitement needed to counter his visible lack of energy. Responses to the events since (and perhaps even a few prior events) paled in comparison to the response we saw last week from press and developers alike. Apple has needed time to cope not just with losing Steve, but with the idea that Apple wouldn\u2019t be his company anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That process began some time before October 5, 2011. It ended on June 2, 2014.\u00a0Josh Topolsky<\/a>\u00a0kind of said it,\u00a0Ben Thompson<\/a>\u00a0kind of said it, so let\u2019s just say it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wouldn\u2019t have happened under Steve Jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cContinuity\u201d suite of features says more to me than anything else announced last week, naturally blurring the line between Mac and iPhone and iPad while still accepting each product for what it is. Recent\u00a0updates to OS X seemed intent on forcing iOS down the Mac\u2019s throat. Last week, for what felt like the first time ever, the two were on equal footing: an Apple device is an Apple device is an Apple device.\u00a0This shot of creativity, connectivity, integration, and inclusion points to drastic change from within. When I wrote \u201cRegime Change<\/a>\u201d in 2012, nearly everyone assumed the title referred to the fall of Scott Forstall. It in fact referred to the rise of Tim Cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we saw at WWDC 2014 was built by thousands of people. The leadership at the top empowered those people to not only proceed, but to succeed. The attitude behind WWDC 2014 was one of increased openness and<\/em> increased confidence \u2014 an attitude that managed to depart from the worst of the past while staying true to the best. Apple is undeniably the new company it deserves to be, and Tim Cook\u2019s stewardship is on full display. I\u2019m as excited for the future we haven\u2019t yet seen as I am for the one we were just shown in San Francisco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Cook began the\u00a0WWDC 2014 keynote\u00a0promising \u201cthe mother of all releases for developers\u201d and \u201cthe biggest release since the launch of the App Store.\u201d He was not exaggerating. In a 30 minute span, Apple\u00a0knocked\u00a0nearly\u00a0every\u00a0item\u00a0off the community\u2019s list of wishes and complaints. As I said on the\u00a0Debug podcast\u00a0last week, it\u2019s as big a Monday as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}