WWDC 2019

Apple announced a variety of great products and tools and WWDC 2019. However, not all those in attendance were happy with what they saw from the stage, AppleInsider found. Some of the Apple announcements were variations of these developers’ products. Apple is perfectly entitled to do this, of course, but it makes life harder for the developers.

Apple innovates and Apple introduces new technologies in hardware and software, but it also does its own version of other people’s apps. You might have built a business up and Apple announces it is doing the same thing as you. That happened this year to hardware developers Duet Display and Luna Display, whose products have been providing the features that Apple has now built in under the name Sidecar. And it’s happened to software developer James Thomson, whose PCalc for Apple Watch will have to compete with Apple’s own calculator in watchOS 6.

Apple wants developers to make its new Sign In with Apple feature more prominent that rival sign-in options.  MacRumors reported on the change to the company’s Human Interface Guidelines.

One detail in Apple’s updated Human Interface Guidelines is raising eyebrows – Apple is asking developers to position its Sign In With Apple button more prominently by putting it above all other rival sign-in options. The guidelines are regarded as suggestions about how developers should build their apps, rather than mandatory requirements. Even so, many developers believe that following the guidelines give their apps the best chance of passing Apple’s approval process. Curiously, Apple is also asking developers to place its Sign In with Apple button above other options on websites, an area over which it wields no review power.

There were many standout moments during the WWDC 2019 keynote. Not least when Tim Cook unveiled a new Mac Pro. However, it was not just the machine that drew gasps. Apple asking nearly $1000 for the Pro Stand for the computer’s new monitor certainly attracted attention too. At Wired, Sophie Chara argued the Pro Stand’s price is indefensible.

We could try to mount a defence. An Apple Watch Series 4 costs $399 (we’re sticking with dollars, as there’s no UK price for the stand, display or Mac Pro yet)) and the new Pride Watch strap is $49: that’s 12 per cent. The new iPad Air is $499, the 2nd gen Apple Pencil is $129 and the Smart Keyboard is $159: that’s 25 per cent and 31 per cent respectively for the iPad accessories. Suddenly, $999 – or ten/twenty per cent – isn’t so outrageous. Only it very much is. Apple itself is known for commanding high prices, but even compared to its own kit, the Pro Stand seems to have created a class of its own in terms of the Cupertino excellence mark-up.

Away from the excitement of new Mac Pros and operating systems for Mac and iPad, another thing stood out at WWDC 2019. Apple is making privacy-as-a-service a core part of its offering, as Darrell Etherington noted at TechCrunch.

Apple has been playing up its privacy game for at least a few years now, and in the Tim Cook era it’s especially come to the fore. But today’s announcements really crystallize how Apple’s approach to privacy will mesh with its transformation into becoming even more of a services company. It’s becoming a services company with a key differentiator – privacy – and it’s also extending that paradigm to third-parties, acting as an ecosystem layer that mediates between users, and anyone who would seek to monetize their info in aggregate.