There are a few things that struck me during the WWDC keynote presentation this morning. The first, and perhaps most important, is how much fun the Apple executives were having on stage. I’m not talking about the normal smiles and jokes, I mean they genuinely looked like they were having a good time.
Let’s face it, most presentations we see are dry, boring affairs that we can’t wait to be over, so we can run out of the room. Apple’s keynotes have never really been like that—although there has been the odd exception—but today’s seemed even more jovial than previous keynotes in recent memory.
When I thought more about what would make them so happy, I came up with one answer: confidence. They knew that what was being delivered to consumers and developers was *so* good, they had every reason to be confident and therefore happy.
I had the opportunity to meet with a number of executives after the keynote and they were still excited about what they had announced. That says a lot to me about the feelings of these new operating systems from inside Apple.
Being a developer conference, we expect to hear about iOS and OS X. In past years, Apple would throw in a hardware announcement as well—a Mac or iPod to round out the announcements. This year was different—it was all about the software, and only about the software.
In fact, there was so much software news that Tim Cook didn’t even have time to give us an update on the company’s retail operations—something the company normally does during the WWDC presentation.
I’m excited about OS X Yosemite—more excited than I’ve been about a Mac operating system in a long time. I’m using it right now and it’s very responsive and gorgeous with its new design.
iOS has taken center stage at most WWDC’s since its introduction, but this is the first time I’ve really felt that both operating systems were on a level footing. It feels to me that OS X and iOS were developed in conjunction with one another, and not independently. This matters, of course, when you consider how people use the operating systems to share information between devices.
That was one of the biggest parts of the WWDC keynote for me this year.
Apple showed that it’s not just the data that is following the user through iCloud to a variety of devices, but it’s bigger than that—it’s a uniform experience that is following the user.
An app experience that allows the user to start a document on a computer, and then instantly pick it up on an iPhone or iPad is a brilliant feat of engineering. The greatest part—and the Apple way of doing things—is they take that complexity and make it seamless for the user.
That’s the magic that we’ve come to expect from Apple in its apps. Take complex tasks and make it simple to use—no configuration, no messing around, it just works.
It’s hard to imagine how much simpler the Safari Web browser could be, but as it turns out, a lot of things could be taken away. I really like what Apple has done with Safari in Yosemite. They took away so much, but yet it’s still as functional—or even more so—as it was before.
There are many other examples of this type of design in Yosemite and iOS 8, which we’ll discover as the weeks and months go on. It seems to me that Apple has put more thought into how these releases need to work together than any other in the past.
For me, WWDC 2014 is clearly about the developers and helping them make the best apps they possibly can. The new developer tools ensure that they will have everything they need to not only build cool apps today, but also push the envelope for years to come.
What Apple did today at WWDC was ensure that, as a consumer, I’ll be a happy iPad, iPhone, and Mac user for years to come.
The level of foresight and planning needed to bring Continuity forward, and all the cross-system capabilies like making a phone call on your mac, is very impressive. I know they’re all working hard on getting this year’s batch of OS upgrades out the door, but it really makes me wonder about what they’ve got up their collective sleeves for WWDC 2015.
I’ve yet to see any comments about the updated Spotlight, but it seems to me that that the changes are a clear shot across the bow of Google. More web searches performed and presented within Spotlight mean fewer eyes that Google can charge for even if the results are from Google. Apple seems to be collecting the results behind the scenes and presenting them without ads. The net result seems to be that Apple gets credit for the eyes that Google bills for but those same eyes are not seeing the plethora of Google ads.
General comments, opinions, guffaws, snickers and derisive comments are all welcomed.
I was in full jaw drop mode like everybody else, but Safari is actually the one thing that has me sort of leery about the changes. I currently use a lot of extensions, and I love the Favorites bar being visible at the top of the browser. I’m on a 27″ iMac. I don’t need the extra real estate. I want convenience.
The other surprise for me, given that they checked off nearly everything on everybody’s wish list (other than hardware): whither Maps? Transit? Improved accuracy? Nothing?
I prefer web browsing on my iPad (where it’s capable, of course) for this streamlined UI. I expect this to bring all of the iPad’s web browsing advantages over to the Mac, so I’m pretty excited.
As for the wish list, remember that this was already an two hour keynote for software roughly six months away. You can’t do everything. 🙂
What struck me as a non-developer average user is that this is a strategic move where the future for hardware at least in Apples vision is activating and driving developers to take apps to an entirely new level and that level is best seen and experienced on an Apple product. Apps drive conversion (which no mistake Cook presented that slide on conversion) and market expansion. The hardware is best experienced in the app and the OS and across devices. Owning that position is where the future is.
Steven, I’m genuinely curious as to what you see as the iPad’s web browsing advantages. Even in Mavericks and iOS7, the experiences seem pretty similar to me, except that I can use extensions and organize my bookmarks more easily in the desktop version.
I agree that the sense of confidence and delight in presenting the new features to the audience was palpable. What a nice shift in mood.
The advantage is in the iPad itself, not the software. I do all my browsing on my iPad because I personally feel it’s much more enjoyable to do on an iPad while leaning back on the couch.
As for your first complaint, I guess you must have missed in the keynote where Craig said the favorites bar is still there if you want it to be. Exactly how it is today in Mavericks, you can disable the favorites bar in Mavericks.
As for Maps, like Steven said, they had for too much new features/technologies etc in an already 2 hour keynote, talking about Maps improvements isn’t really as important, not to mention it just brings up an old topic that Apple put behind them
Thanks Herding_sheep — I did in fact miss that about the favorites bar. Whew. Now I love everything.
Two things:
1 In the Yosemite demos full screen modus was not used at all. A quite subtle deemphasis. On the other hand all apps shown were single windowed and no two were seen running at the same time.
Let’s not forget the experience of all our beloved laptop owners, who don’t have the luxury of having two lofty windows running side by side. I think it was more about focus [on showcasing each individual app] that anything.
Apple did play catch up in a big way and checked a ton of big boxes. This is way more than former years, maybe 3-4 presentations back. They stepped forward with seriously great integration between Mac and iPhone.
Nothing was new or revolutionary but the execution and cohesiveness are too notch, in typical Apple fashion.
“Nothing was new…”
Yosemite and iOS 8 are new. Did you miss HomeKit and HealthKit? Swift or Metal ring any bells for you? All pretty “new”.
Sorry, didn’t mean it like that. Obviously things were new. I meant nothing was new as in “not done before” vs “didn’t exist yesterday in their ecosystem”.
I’ll stand corrected with Swift. Metal is an iteration. I missed the details on HealthKit so can’t speak to that. HomeKit is just new to Apple.
I’m not sure if the reason for missing out the retail update was that they didn’t have time, or that they realised how old and repetitive it’s getting. Developers are not that interested in the details of how awesomely amazing the retail strategy is. It’s nice to see an inspiring video of Apple Store staff welcoming customers and iPhones flying off the shelves etc, but we don’t need to see a new one of these videos every year.
I thought it was good that they managed to lighten the mood a little and bring some genuine human feeling to the proceedings.
I got the same idea as you did with Spotlight. Good for Apple.
And right on cue, Wall St is wondering where are the new products.
And the stock is down.
As predictable as ever.
I’ve been an aspiring Mac and iOS developer for too many years, diving into Objective-C, learning a few things, and then hitting a wall of lack of apparently inadequate documentation so that I couldn’t go on. Then after a period (sometimes years long), I’d take another stab at it.
XCode has been refined nicely by consolidating various functions, and numerous new tutorials and even Stanford courses have become available, all to encourage me to “give it another try.” Every time I’ve tried again I’ve learned that much more. But I still keep bumping up against the wall of inadequate presentations of the material.
So again this year, after seeing the presentation about Swift, I’m encouraged again to give it yet another try. I downloaded “The Swift Programming Language” which embeds lots of application examples and invites experimentation along the way.
I downloaded the XCode 6 Beta, and it’s truly exciting to type code in a “playground” file and see the results immediately on the right. The feel is so much more like a scripting language like Applescript or Javascript.
The book is nice and thick, and I’m resolved more than ever before to stick with this sucker this time and maybe this time I’ll come out the other end with at least some rudimentary apps!
It’s up from yesterday though. Am I missing something?
For the streamlined UI. It’s just easier to deal with. I can open bookmarks quicker and with better previews, there’s fewer things I don’t use. The one thing I’d love on it is a tab view like the iPhone has… which I think was in the keynote, though I’d have to check again to be sure.
Safari Yosemite looks like what I want.