Ondrej Holzman It's been a long time since an Apple keynote has been shrouded in so much mystery. Today at 19:XNUMX our time, the Californian company is going to reveal its aces, which CEO Tim Cook is successfully hiding up his sleeve. However, data collected from the latest Apple conferences can at least give us a hint of what the spectacular show at the Flint Center will look like.
Dan Frommer of Quartz he carefully went through the last few keynotes and compiled the collected data into infographics from which we can read who will present the new products and when we can expect them. The presentation of new devices is already crucial for Apple and its overall strategy. Under Steve Jobs, it was often a one-man show, but even under the leadership of Tim Cook, the audience in the theaters is not bored. Data collected by Dan Frommer comes from over a dozen presentations.
Since January 2007, 27, when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, there have been thirty events, 88 of which Apple archives in a special podcast in the iTunes Store. On average, these events are XNUMX minutes long and the basic form is always the same: a minimalistic presentation, the company's key men on stage, the introduction of new products and a video presentation of them or their production.
The busiest one
When Apple was led by Steve Jobs, the course of the keynote was practically clear. The co-founder of the company literally reveled in keynotes, and his ability to sell any product without the slightest hesitation was able to win over even the most hesitant customer more than once.
During his probably most memorable keynote, the already mentioned one from 2007, he spent over an hour and a half on stage. At that time, he did not let practically anyone else in front of the screen. As time progressed, Jobs began to give more time to his colleagues, marketing chief Phil Schiller attracted the attention of eager viewers, and Scott Forstall, a great favorite of Jobs's, who, however, had to resign after the arrival of Tim Cook from Apple, often appeared.
His health also played a big role in Steve Jobs' appearance. It was Phil Schiller who stepped in during the boss's absence, and Jobs' time on stage dwindled, if he was able to appear in front of an audience at all in the last years of his life.
His successor, Tim Cook, chosen by Jobs, is from a different barrel. A quiet introvert who doesn't handle the limelight so well. That's why the current head of Apple chooses a different approach - at keynotes, he transforms into the role of a kind of conference host who accompanies the entire program, but leaves the important announcements to his colleagues. Hardware news is usually presented by Phil Schiller, and recently Craig Federighi has been particularly shining. At this year's WWDC, while demonstrating OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, he boasted confidence and humor.
Although today's keynote should not be primarily about software, we can expect the presence of Craig Federighi this time as well. Apple would be against itself if it let such an excellent presenter sit in the front row.
As for Tim Cook, he usually only spends less than 20 minutes on stage. In the introduction, he always remembers Apple's successes, makes jokes and pokes fun at the competition, then during the keynote he ensures the continuity of the "broadcast" several more times with a short speech, and in the end he states that "what you just saw, only Apple can do."
The funniest
Although it is a serious mostly journalistic or developer event where Apple presents its news, it would be a boring hour or two without the occasional joke. The already mentioned Craig Federighi has profiled himself not only as an excellent and charismatic speaker, but at the same time as a great joker.
During the last presentation, which took place at the developer's conference in June and lasted 117 long minutes, over 5000 attendees burst out laughing more than fifty times, and Apple earned applause for its tricks almost a hundred times. Importantly, the laughs aren't always just from taking a dig at the competition, but Apple executives know how to make fun of themselves and their colleagues.
This was demonstrated several times during WWDC 2014 by Craig Federighi, during whose 75 minutes on stage Tim Cook later called him Superman. At the same time, the software boss earned twice as many laughs (in this case positive) than Tim Cook and Phil Schiller over the last six events.
Time of revelation
Of course, Apple doesn't always get straight to the point, let's understand the most fundamental news. As already mentioned, Tim Cook traditionally starts the keynote with the usual recapitulation and reminder of the company's latest achievements, and the wait for the new iPhone or iPad is tens of minutes. The audience waited the longest for the iPhone 3GS, which Phil Schiller presented only after a long 102 minutes. On the contrary, Apple very quickly moved on to the matter of two years ago, when Schiller got on stage in less than a quarter of an hour.
Of course, from this data we can't say when we will see the iPhone 6 tonight or when Apple should introduce the much-anticipated wearable device, but we can at least trace the trend that Apple has been getting to the most anticipated news more and more often. On average, he introduced a new iPhone 45 minutes after the start of the keynote, but in the last three years it has always been earlier.
In addition, the new iPhone is not the only thing waiting for now. It is very likely that Apple will launch two new phones, and even more attention should probably be paid to a wearable product such as the iWatch. And if the speculation about the mobile payment system is also fulfilled, Apple will certainly devote considerable time to it in order to familiarize customers with its new service in detail. So we can safely expect another long two-hour keynote, but this time with minimal "filler part of Tim Cook" and maximum focus on new products presented by Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi.
But again, we have to remind you that if anyone knows how to completely surprise and step out of the box, it's Apple. Therefore, the collected data from recent years may not mean anything. Some even talk that Bob Mansfield, the one-time head of Apple hardware who moved directly under Tim Cook's directive two years ago to work on future projects, could appear on stage at the iWatch launch in the form of a spectacular comeback.
WWDC14 was a blast! And today I'm looking forward to it. I'm already wearing an apple t-shirt. :-D Fanatic.
Just replace Pampersky and you're ready ;)
I'm looking forward to it too and I'm not ashamed of it either :-)
I think that thanks to Federighi (and not only him), the keynotes have again moved several orders of magnitude higher. I'm honestly looking forward to the new products, but I'm also looking forward to Federighi.
He's just a fighter.
Exactly. Federighi is great and WWDC was great because of him. Fortunately, Cook is talking less and less because his speaking style is downright annoying to me.