WWDC 2012

Another keynote has come and gone, and this one was one of the most emotionally charged and content-packed of recent memory. One of the things that struck me from CEO Tim Cook's opening and closing remarks was the sheer amount of emotion in his voice when he began describing how the iPad and iPhone have changed people's lives for the better. When you combine this with some other key features of both iOS and OS X that Apple heavily pushed at developers today, you can start to see a common theme emerging - Apple wants to continue the tradition of making the world a better place, in their eyes. When Steve Jobs was CEO, this meant making the world a better place in his eyes, and doing so under his personal criteria: better design, ease of use, and making computers fit into their place in user's lives. Tim Cook's approach, however, appears much more heavily focused on globally-beneficial improvements. Almost ten minutes was spent talking about how VoiceOver helps the blind, how the iPad and AirPlay improve teaching, and how apps like Airbnb help people connect.

The common theme here is helping, and it's easy to see what Apple - or at least Cook - see as the purpose of the devices they sell. They should help people with something.

After the keynote, Apple began the first of their confidential sessions. While I can't relate details, they spent significant time on the new accessibility features and hammered home the point that accessibility is important. There are more and more users, and this means more and more people to help - and more and more ways in which software can find ways to improve their lives.

That's my justification for spending half our funds on new MacBook Pros, anyway.