This is Apple. This is what attracts me to the products they create. Those products aren’t always what I want and often are missing features I find so desirable, but it is hard not to feel affection for a company and product that thinks of itself so clearly and presents itself so starkly, that just fundamentally expects more from each of us.

if everyone
is busy making everything
how can anyone perfect anything?

we start to confuse convenience
with joy
abundance with choice
designing something requires
focus

the first we ask is
what do we want people to feel?
delight
surprise
love
connection

then we begin to craft around intention
it takes time
there are a thousand no’s
for every yes.

we simplify
we perfect
we start over
until every thing we touch
enhances each life it touches.

Ben Thompson wrote another very astute article, this time on Tim Cook and Apple:

While Jobs’ mission in life was personal computing, and Apple the by-product, Cook’s mission in life is Apple, and iOS 7 was the by-product of his commitment to ensuring that Apple endured.

The job of Apple’s CEO is, first and foremost, to understand what makes Apple, Apple. That is far more important than product sense, or operations excellence, or taste, or a million other attributes thrown around by pundits and analysts. On this criteria, it’s clear that Cook is the right man for the job. I would contend that anyone that says otherwise doesn’t understand revolutions, doesn’t understand culture, and doesn’t understand Apple.

I saw what Ben saw in this video: Tim Cook seemed happier and more lively than I’d ever seen him before. This is the first time I can remember an Apple presentation where I didn’t feel like there was something missing. It’s the first time that Steve Jobs’ ghost wasn’t standing next to Tim Cook passing judgement.

This is Tim Cook’s Apple now. And this is the first time he has let us see it.

One of the things that Apple posted on Monday was that 93% of all iOS customers are now on iOS 6. That is an amazing feat, to get almost all devices to update especially when some of Apple’s devices can’t run iOS 6. As Tim Cook said on stage, this is a huge help to developers. The ability to write for one OS release makes it much easier for us to write and test our apps.

David Smith, an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Herndon, Virginia [1], has consistently posted on his customer data as well. He has noticed that about 50% of customers update their OS version within the first week of it being launched. As he correctly wonders, it will be interesting to see how a major interface overhaul like iOS 7 impacts these numbers. As he said about developers:

Most previous major OS updates contained changes that were largely additive and served to expand what an application could do. However, iOS 7 may change the user experience so dramatically that having the same code work usefully in both contexts could become a daunting challenge.

iOS 7, which David was only speculating about at the time he wrote the article, is indeed a major departure. People in general do not like change and prefer what they have become familiar with. I wonder how many customers, who are familiar and comfortable with iOS 5 and 6, will upgrade to iOS 7? Will they just opt out of upgrading all together? Or will they grumble and upgrade anyway?

—

[1] David starts every podcast with this line. It’s like a theme song after listening to him for so long.

What jumped out at me in yesterday’s keynote was not the new features or the capabilities per say, it was the world in which Apple wants us to live and work. I knew before what I am about to say but I’m not certain I internalized it like I did today.

Apple cares about one thing and one thing only: getting you to buy more Apple products. The best way to do this is to make it brain-dead simple to move data between and use each of their products. The lens that I will see every feature and every request through now is this lens, and I believe that will help me understand the company that much better. Let me outline a few things for you:

• The same apps run on iPhone and iPad and much of the framework is the same for Mac as well. This ability to have the same apps everywhere is a key component of what makes iOS and OS X so simple for users.
• These apps can all be connected via the cloud. And now apps can even be created for the cloud that are comparable to their desktop and mobile peers. Apple introduces some of the most complicated mobile apps to re-create — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — all on the web. Anything created on the desktop syncs and can be viewed and edited in the cloud which can be viewed and edited on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
• Gaming data is connected across all of your devices and connecting to other gamers is through the same, simple process.
• Notifications on one iOS or Mac device, when removed, are also removed on all the other devices.
• iTunes music can be synced to the cloud, synced to their devices, and now integrated with iTunes Radio, a free web radio service that offers integrated music purchasing.
• Sharing photos and now video across Apple devices is as simple as adding it to a stream of photos and videos. Anyone can be invited to see that stream and even contribute their own photos to it.
• Moving photos or other documents from one user to another is as simple as selecting their name in a popup. Apple figures out which Apple devices are near you automatically.
• Soon music, maps and communications will automatically connect to a special in-dash car system. There will no longer be a need to look down at your device while driving.
• Apps that used to only be available for iOS, like maps and iBooks, are now on OS X as well.

It is really easy to see what features are logically coming and which aren’t once we see everything through the “buy more devices” lens. Apps for Apple TV? No brainer. It will come eventually as without it Apple can’t move you seamlessly from individual devices to family entertainment. How about app trials? Probably never, as trials don’t help Apple sell more devices.

If you buy into Apple’s approach, if you adopt yourself to work within Apple’s preferred mode of operation, it will get easier and easier to buy the next generation of Apple gear. And that, my friends, is what makes Apple’s bottom line look so darned good.

WWDC is like Christmas for Apple developers. We give Apple our list throughout the year via reports and blog posts and the like, and on one special morning Apple gives us a bunch of presents in a new version of the OS.

Apple’s developer conference starts on Monday. Every year I write an article on things I’d like to see Apple do (here, here, here and here for example) and every year none of them show up under my tree. My list this year includes making UIWebKit, Apple’s browser technology that we can use within our apps, into a first-class citizens. I want better control over the UI (menus and keyboards), simpler sharing between Objective-C and Javascript, and advanced access to device features. There are other things I’d like to see, too, like everything I’ve requested in the past, but this one sits at the top of my list this year.

From a user of Apple products perspective, the one I really want is apps for Apple TV. I want to get rid of more components under my television and hopefully opening the device to apps would let me do that.

Justin Williams over at carpeaqua created a post with everything expected of Apple this year for the Internet to be happy. It is an amazing list. Take a minute to read it. (My UIWebKit one, by the way, is not on it so, Justin? Please add #51.)