There’s been a lot of talk here at WWDC about Apple’s confidence out of the gate on Monday.
Craig Hockenberry says it well:
Apple has a newfound confidence in itself. It’s at the top of its game, and it knows it.
This confidence was felt last week when Eddie Cue shared that Apple had the best pipeline he’s seen in 25 years. It was felt when Tim Cook called Android a toxic hellstew.
And then there’s Craig Federighi, who has gone from a hand-shaking mess of a presenter to a true superstar. He’s Apple’s new pitchman, and while his approach is far different than Steve Jobs’ was, I think it’s excellent.
Jonathan Mann even dubbed WWDC “The Craig Federighi Show.”
While it is a lot of fun to laugh along with the rest of the Apple community at Federighi’s amazing performance on Monday, I think Apple’s confidence is more than skin deep.
It’s not a smirk; it’s a swagger.
With OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, Apple’s pushing their world-class operating systems further than ever before, all while building a stronger bridge between them. Apple’s always touted itself as a platform and experience company, and it’s more true than ever before.
With Swift, Apple’s taken its programming language and replaced it with something far more powerful, built with future in mind. If Swift had been the only news Monday, it would have blown developers’ hair back, but announced alongside a pile of new APIs, iOS extensions, a revamped iCloud, and new Photos platform and a redesigned OS X, it’s surprising to me the keynote only took two hours.
This is having great effect on the developer community, many of whom have felt discouraged over the last year. Here’s Jim Dalrymple:
I’ve spent the last couple of days walking the halls of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, talking to developers about the announcements yesterday. One common theme emerged from those discussions: Possibilities.
I haven’t seen developers this excited about a WWDC in many years—probably since Apple first allowed native apps on iOS. There is a real sense of Apple turning a corner with all of the new tools they gave developers during the conference.
I couldn’t agree more. Apple feels good about itself, and that trickles down to the community. You can feel it in the air.