Thoughts Heading Into WWDC 2024
Hello everyone.
Apple’s WWDC keynote will be shown on Monday (1 pm ET) at Apple Park (and online). Today’s update will go over my thoughts ahead of next week.
Virtual Member Meetup on Monday. Following the WWDC keynote, there will be a virtual member meetup in the Above Avalon member forum in Slack (available here) on Monday at 6:00 pm ET / 3:00 pm PT. The meet-up will provide an opportunity for members to have conversations in real-time about everything that Apple announced. In addition to participating in the meetup myself, I moderate the discussion topics etc. The discussions are then made available afterwards for other members to read through in Slack. If you have never joined the Above Avalon team in Slack, you can request an invite here. If you have previously been in the Slack team, your email has already been registered and you can just log in. Any updates/changes related to the virtual meet-up will be shared in Slack, so keep an eye there on Monday.
Thoughts Heading Into WWDC 2024
The setup heading into this year’s WWDC can be described as strange. There is an odd situation unfolding on social media and online that boils down to tech and finance circles talking up anything and everything related to generative AI, to the point of sheer pandemonium, while the masses have a more lukewarm approach to everything that has been proposed so far by big Tech.
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Apple's WWDC 2023 Keynote (Granular Observations)
Happy Tuesday.
We will wrap up our analysis and discussion of the WWDC keynote. Yesterday, we went over the larger takeaways from the keynote. In today's update, we will focus on granular items that jumped out at Neil attending and watching the keynote.
Let's jump right in.
Keynote Structure
Layout. This year’s WWDC keynote structure was close to my expectations. Apple had a jam-packed presentation containing software updates across its ecosystem, new Mac hardware, and a “One more thing” for Apple Vision Pro.
Having a digital presentation helped Apple tremendously as the company was able to fit in a lot of information in its preferred two-hour time slot. A live presentation takes up time when considering speakers walking on and off stage, audience applause, and the overall time drain known as onstage demos. (It is interesting how companies like Google have gone back to live presentations for keynotes. That ship has sailed for Apple.)
Target Audience. The WWDC keynote is aimed at developers since it kicks off Apple’s multi-day developers conference. The opening video and Cook’s monologue in the beginning set the stage. This doesn’t mean that the keynote is structured just for developers' interest - that's what the Platforms State of the Union presentation is for. Instead, the WWDC keynote is aimed at informing those in the Apple ecosystem of what to expect in the next year (from a software development perspective).
Priorities. This year’s WWDC keynote was 126 minutes long, roughly 20 minutes longer than prior virtual WWDC keynotes.
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Apple Announces WWDC 2023, WWDC 2023 Artwork Clues, Early Expectations for WWDC 2023 (Daily Update)
Today’'s update (March 30th) is dedicated to discussing Apple’s WWDC 2023. After going over the WWDC 2023 format, we look at this year’s WWDC artwork for some clues as to what may be discussed during the keynote. This brings us to a broader discussion involving Neil’s expectations for WWDC 2023 regarding a mixed reality headset.
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Apple's WWDC 2022 (Daily Updates Recap)
Earlier this month, I flew out to Cupertino to attend Apple’s in-person WWDC event.
The best way of describing the event at Apple Park was Apple getting back into the swing of hosting in-person events. Excluding the masks and hand sanitizer stations, it felt like a usual in-person Apple event. There was a waiting area for press, hundreds of Apple Retail greeters with an infectiously-positive mood, and a product demo area for the media following the keynote.
My estimate is there were 200 to 250 members of the press and media in attendance, including some international press. That’s a smaller crowd that usual. As for developers, there were approximately 1,000. In terms of Apple employees, my best count was that 2,000, possibly even as many as 2,500, watched the keynote.
The event also served as Apple’s first “open house” for its massive circular ring building at Apple Park. All prior Apple Park events for the press took place at Steve Jobs Theater which is located on the other side of Apple Park. For those events, Apple was careful not to have any visitors stray to other parts of the campus.
The Ring at Apple Park (Above Avalon)
The keynote viewing area, as shown below, was intelligently thought out. Apple opened the giant glass walls found in the employee cafeteria to create an indoor / outdoor venue. This served as an adequate solution for getting a lot of people out of the sun. As for those who were baking in the sun, they were given more comfortable, beach-style chairs in return. For the first time, the best seats in the house at an Apple keynote were in the middle of the audience, seated in the shade.
Inside The Ring at Apple Park (Above Avalon)
Interestingly, Apple began airing the taped keynote three minutes earlier than the public streaming. The delay seemed intentional, possibly as a way to encourage live blogging / tweeting since there didn’t seem to be any other reason for starting it early. The largest screen that Apple relied on to show the presentation was shockingly good – the clearest big screen I have ever come across, while the sound system made it seem like I was in an indoor event.
As for why Apple went through the trouble of having ~1,000 developers come on campus despite having an all-virtual WWDC with labs and sessions occurring online, the company missed the community aspect that had become a WWDC tradition. There are clear benefits found with having a virtual WWDC, such as a significant increase in accessibility. However, the face-to-face interactions and social elements that developers experience have been sorely missed the past two years.
My suspicion is that Apple will rely on the event structure again, including in September with the upcoming product event. Apple likely hopes it will be able to host the event inside Steve Jobs Theater. All-in-all, the format worked well, with meticulous planning and preparation throughout. Apple has gotten really good at putting on these massive events. More importantly, an event structure reminiscent of a movie premiere offers a good combination of virtual benefits such as the well-polished taped presentation with animated transitions that can never be replicated in real time and in-person perks like a product demo area.
An Ecosystem Event
WWDC is all about software updates with new hardware sprinkled in from time to time. As Tim Cook put it when concluding the keynote: “[W]e pushed our software platforms forward in some incredible new ways. Introducing features and capabilities that will enable our developers to do amazing work and provide our users with exciting new experiences."
A different way of thinking about WWDC is that it’s Apple’s annual ecosystem event – the one time each year when Apple shows how it is pushing its entire ecosystem forward.
An Above Avalon membership is required to continue reading this article. Members can read the full article here.
The full article includes the following sections:
Attending the Event
An Ecosystem Event
iOS 16 Takeaways
The New MacBook Air
The iPadOS vs. macOS Debate
The Big Surprise Found With Apple Pay Later
Revisiting Apple’s Credit Kudos Acquisition
CarPlay Mistruths
My Full Notes from the Keynote
Winners and Losers From WWDC 2022
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