It's been almost two weeks since the WWDC 2014 keynote and a week exactly since the event itself wrapped up and not only is the feeling of excitement still very much alive, but smart analysis of what happened and why is still being shared. Not surprisingly, some of the best is focusing on and around Apple's CEO, Tim Cook. Also not surprisingly, John Gruber sums it up perfectly for Daring Fireball:
Apple has never been more successful, powerful, and influential than it is today. They've thus never been in a better position to succumb to their worst instincts and act imperiously and capriciously.
Instead, they've begun to act more magnanimously. They've given third-party developers more of what we have been asking for than ever before, including things we never thought they'd do. [...]
It's downright thrilling that this is coming from Apple in a position of strength, not weakness. I'm impressed not just by what Apple can do, but by what it wants to do.
Gruber also addresses Tim Cook's role in shaping the Apple of today. The loss of Steve Jobs as CEO has gotten incredible attention and prompted commentary both profound and pathetic, but the gain of Tim Cook as CEO hasn't received nearly as much consideration. Cook reshaped Apple's organization the way Jobs did it's product line.
As Matt Drance puts it so well on Apple Outsider:
The "Continuity" suite of features says more to me than anything else announced last week, naturally blurring the line between Mac and iPhone and iPad while still accepting each product for what it is. Recent updates to OS X seemed intent on forcing iOS down the Mac's throat. Last week, for what felt like the first time ever, the two were on equal footing: an Apple device is an Apple device is an Apple device. This shot of creativity, connectivity, integration, and inclusion points to drastic change from within. When I wrote "Regime Change" in 2012, nearly everyone assumed the title referred to the fall of Scott Forstall. It in fact referred to the rise of Tim Cook.
How successful Apple will be over the course of the next few years remains to be seen, but there's every indication Cook has given them the structural opportunity to be wildly so, and not just in terms of money but in terms of technology and humanity.
Almost three years in, what do you think about what Tim Cook's Apple is doing?
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