In 2019, it reached my first WWDC face-off like someone exploring a new planet. It was an opportunity to bring you firsthand all the sensations, curiosities, places and information that, like each of you, we have experienced on the other side of the screen. I came ready to write a story about itand my personal experience at WWDC19 was even better than I imagined all those years ago – long before I launched Applesphere almost 16 years ago.
In many ways, being there makes you feel like a protagonist. He is the epicenter of the Apple world as we know it and I almost knew by heart this McEnery Center that we had seen so many times in photos. However, the protagonist of it all became abundantly clear once the conference officially began: we weren’t the press, or Apple staff, or the keynote itself. On the contrary, all that was assembled by and for developers: From areas accessible exclusively for them, to workshops, private events and “one-on-one” with Apple engineers – all reserved for those who make the App Store bigger and better every year. They even have access to a private “souvenir” shop that no other profile has access to – not even the press.
Experiencing the moment when Apple presents the new operating systems, and – at that time – the highly anticipated redesign of the Mac Pro and the new Pro Display XDR is part of the company mythology and in many ways points that connect new products such as the Mac Studio (2022) or that new character with which we have known the last generation of iPad Air (2022).
A path to explore since 2017
In this last WWDC in person that – for the time being – the company celebrated, told you from the inside how Apple wanted to transform itself and began to correct the things that users were asking for at the time with good rudder moves. It is possible that even the end of this “curse” will end at WWDC22 with the presentation of a new Mac Pro (2022) with the engine of the latest M1 Ultra connected to each other.
In many ways, being at a WWDC is like having Willy Wonka’s Famous Golden Ticket to access the chocolate factory, in the Apple version: from the very city of San José, a real Apple city at the time, to each of the essential appointments to know the news and directions of everything that we will see in the new devices over the next few months.
To talk about all this, in this new episode of Las Charlas de Applesfera, Julio César and I review the the highlights of Apple’s history from each WWDC for five years – and how they relate to the significance of the event today. We also anticipate the possible surprises that we can expect in an event that could mark a before and after in the history of the company: the end of the great transition from Intel processors to Apple Silicon.
