These are some unedited notes I have written during WWDC 2014 keynote. The sheer amount of announcements today is stunning. Software took center stage – as it should be in a developers conference – in such a way that Apple didn't need hardware announcement to awe us. These are my takeaway points for an extraordinary event.
The central theme has been harmony. Harmony between platform, services and devices. If anyone had any doubts that vertical integration had reached maturity, today's announcement raise the bar to what we can call integration.
If the big announcements were about OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, the underlying current speaks one language: iCloud. With the announcement that both OS X and iOS 8 can share the same documents – even from different apps – using iCloud Drive, Apple has de-facto cancelled f
OS X Yosemite
Beside the great name, I like the new streamlined look, the new system wide typeface and Notification Center.
What really excited me was iCloud Drive, that will allow us to have a single bucket where to store all our documents, in the cloud. iCloud Drive will also allow us to seamlessly share documents across devices, even on iOS. The great thing of iCloud Drive is that the same file can be opened (as it should be) by different apps. That means that in iOS, text files will not be restricted to the sandbox of a specific app. In practical terms, you will be able to use the right app for the task you will have to accomplish.
Continuity is an amazing feature too. It'll allow us to pick up a document where we left it. So for example, if we edit a document on the Mac, we will immediately see a notification on our iPad that we started working on a doc on the Mac.
Even more exciting is the fact that we will be able to use our Mac to answer the phone and make a call by automatically linking our personal iPhone. All this happens seamlessly – and I assume it can happen if the two devices are logged in on the same iCloud account.
iOS 8
I love the fact that Apple is progressively opening up iOS. Until today, iOS was secure and Android flexible. Today, iOS is secure and flexible.
iOS 8 sees important improvements in Messages, Safari, and finally we get a file picker. That means apps will be able to pick from iCloud (yes, iCloud Drive) any file stored on the cloud.
The greatest announcement is about Extensibility, which is a way for 3rd party apps to extend as the name implies the operating system functionality. It's also great that we will be able to install 3rd party system keyboards, like Android has had for years.
Something that makes me extremely happy is that we will finally be able to store – in its original format – all our photos and videos in iCloud. That means that photos will be fully stored on the cloud and won't take any space on our devices. This is huge!
Notification Center will be able to use widgets, or small piece of information that come from 3rd party apps. Siri will see improvements and an important integration with Shazam to be able to answer questions like “Hi Siri, what's this song?”.
HealthKit and HomeKit are two platform extension for the health and home automation market. HealthKit is a single repository and communication system for 3rd party health devices such as hear monitors, sugar monitors, weight etc. With the permission of the user, certain vital health parameters will be sent to a participating clinic for early online diagnosis.
HomeKit is Apple's answers to the complex home automation problem. Vendors will be able to tap into Apple's API to be able to integrate their devices such as locks, thermostats, lights etc. into Apple's ecosystem. All this will be integrated and accessible from Siri (e.g. Hi Siri, I'm going to sleep – to turn off all lights in the house).
APIs for Touch ID is a great addition to iOS. Finally we will be able to use our fingerprints to do more than buy apps. If integrated into our favorite app, we will be able to unlock keychains, log into our online banking app, and who knows. Great stuff.
iCloud
The unifying theme is iCloud, that at WWDC 2014 has reached maturity. Not only will the prices be cheaper than now, but developers now have the tools to easily integrate iCloud Drive into their apps for easy open/save functions.
Conclusions
I've jotted these paragraphs down without thinking too much, just trying to put into writing all the excitement coming from the announcements (editing has not been a priority of this post either…).
With today's announcements Apple has raised the bar for anyone, be it vertical integrators and companies that made their money by being horizontal integrators. The increase in productivity that OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 will bring us is extraordinary and I cannot help but use them.