’Twas The Night Before WWDC
In 24 hours, the world of passionate and amazing developers will lay their hands on the first Developer Betas of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13, watchOS 9, and tvOS 16.
The Worldwide Developers Conference, shortened to WWDC or by the Apple folk, simply Dub Dub, is my favorite Apple conference of the year. It combines the wonderful Apple workforce full of talented engineers and the developer community in a beautiful event usually held at San Jose Convention Center. This year will only be different in execution, like pretty much every conference during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I remember June 2020 — the pandemic was raw, Donald Trump was president, the US was battling a racist police force with protests across the country, billons of people were locked down, but most importantly, it was home of the first major all-online virtual event — WWDC20. I remember sitting down at my smaller TV for the first time ever. I’d never watched a virtual event. What should I do? Should I take notes? This was a special moment. Going into WWDC20, I imagined Craig Federighi sitting down at his computer with Keynote slides on his left — like a normal, boring conference. I wasn’t expecting it to be live, but I also didn’t expect this perfectly crafted masterpiece that was WWDC20. WWDC20 was the best produced virtual event I have ever watched. The FPV drone shots were so well timed, the scripting was just perfect, and the graphics just fit. I never wanted to go back to an in-person event.
However, as the pandemic progressed, virtual events got boring. Not that I was bored of them, but that Apple started putting less and less effort into them. WWDC21 lacked some of that bling like the last conference gave us. The State of the Union was fun to watch, but it just seemed lackluster. During the recent March 2022 “Peek Performance” event, I realized that Apple gave up. There were no drone shots at the beginning, there were no whooshing animations throughout the presentation, and it just ended with ‘Feels Like I’m Flying’ playing and a sunset drone shot of Apple Park. Apple was lazy. They were tired of not being in-person.
Even though a limited group of 200–500 developers are watching the Keynote and State of the Union in-person, I don’t expect this conference to be live. In fact, I’m confident saying it isn’t based on Apple’s wording. Would I have preferred to not have the watch-party at Apple Campus? Absolutely. But I’m glad that Apple didn’t go full-on in-person conference like years past. They could have done it, but they didn’t. I applaud them for this. With all this being said, most of the people that attend this conference are attending virtually. Thousands of developers, media (including favorites like MKBHD, iJustine, Snazzy Labs, Jon Rettinger, Morrison, Prosser, Federico Viticci, and hundreds more), and employees are all experiencing this event completely online — and the ones that are going to Apple Park are watching the videos. Apple should put more effort into this keynote, with transitions, drone shots, and graphics like years past. It’s their big show. I can’t wait for tomorrow to see what Apple brings to the table.
Like all virtual events, I’m covering the show from home, and I encourage you to do the same. As soon as the keynote wraps up, I’ll be downloading the developer versions of the software announced onto my personal device to do extensive bug testing throughout the summer and provide amazing coverage that can only come when you use the software everyday. I’m also live-covering the event, and State of the Union, and will be in the Accidental Tech Podcast chat after day one to discuss with fellow developers and nerds. See you virtually, and stay safe out there.
