WWDC no hardware.

Every year the Apple Developers Conference (WWDC) is full of expectations, but this year's General Assembly is particularly hopeful. But the expectations of developers and consumers are slightly different, and so there is a difference between the exciting points.

In the week before WWDC's opening, Apple's senior vice president for Internet services, Eddy Coux Eddy Cue, publicly claimed that it would be the most exciting new launch this year for more than 25 years. Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, also mentioned several times last year that Apple will release many exciting new products in 2014 years.

In fact, high expectations for Apple is not a good thing. Because if consumers and investors expect too much, the end result is likely to be disappointment, and even a small loss can have a direct impact on the stock price trend. After the WWDC conference in 2014, Apple's share price did not last week's strong rally, and showed a micro-adjustment trend.

Because Apple did not release any hardware today, this year's WWDC is a thorough software assembly. No 12-inch high-definition screen air, no retina screen of the imac, no previous exposure of the big screen iphone 6, but also not the buzz of the Apple smart hand ring. If Eddy Coux is not so novices, then it looks like Apple's 2014-year new feast, the hardware part of the autumn's two. By then, Apple will have to update at least three product lines for mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

Perhaps to stay up for the consumer, they are more concerned about the exciting new hardware, and therefore will feel slightly insipid. But for 9 million of Apple developers around the world, this year's WWDC has been a delight, and Apple's three new software products are their main concern. And as the WWDC of the developer conference, it was supposed to be a feast for the developers.

Today's release of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite not only improved Apple's already proud user experience, but also cemented Apple's inherent strengths, breaking through Apple's previously deficient areas, and exerting strong pressure on Apple's biggest rival, Google. and iOS 8 is undoubtedly the biggest bright spot and surprise on this WWDC.

OS X 10.10 was named after this year in California's most famous national park, Yosemite. Since last year, Apple's desktop operating system has given up on cats and has switched to California's renowned sites for naming. Apple has been working with the California Tourist board to repay the tourist business in California (the sentence is purely humorous). However, Yosemite is already the crown of California, and in the next few years OS X may no longer be able to exceed that level.

The desktop system gradually absorbs iOS design elements, emphasizing the interaction between Mac and iOS devices, which is the biggest feature of Yosemite. Yosemite not only desktop icons in the overall use of iOS 7 design style, Notification center, toolbars, browsers are the use of mobile design concept. Transparent processing, bright colors, flat style, these are the original iOS 7 of the biggest features.

On the one hand, desktop and mobile platform integration is the industry trend, Microsoft and Google have the same update improvements. Apple, on the other hand, is currently the core user group of 800 million iOS users, including 500 million iphone users, perhaps Apple hopes to attract these iphone users to use the Mac through the excellent interactivity of Yosemite. After all, in the context of the overall decline in the PC market, it has been quite difficult for the Mac to maintain a small growth.

For iphone users, the most surprising new feature of Yosemite is the Cross-platform call and SMS capabilities. In the past, Macs could only send imessage and video calls to Apple users, and now the iphone users can use the Yosemite to send and receive cross-platform messages to non-Apple users in their notebooks, and can even make direct calls. In a sense, Apple notebooks have become a big-screen terminal for iphone users.

The icloud Drive and the large mail attachment feature also make up for the original cloud services of Apple's desktop system. These services, originally provided by third-party companies, are now integrated into desktop systems. The introduction of Yosemite, so that the Mac users do not need to use other software, but the third party software developers feel pressure.

If the Yosemite is a continuation of the Apple Desktop Mobile, experience the design trend of the iphone, then iOS 8 is the WWDC meeting the biggest surprise. While the iOS 8 interface extends the iOS 7 framework without a refreshing feel, a lot of human details are added to further strengthen the iphone and ipad user experience advantages. The user experience was originally the biggest advantage of iOS versus Google Android.

The company has upgraded its information capabilities on both desktop and mobile platforms. The SMS feature of IOS 8 not only enables group chats, supports location sharing, but also adds voice and video messaging capabilities. This means that the SMS capabilities of the iphone can already replace the current mainstream IM applications, an upgrade that could pose a significant challenge for iOS users, such as WhatsApp and micro-mail applications.

The top notification bar can respond directly to SMS and social application interaction, and users no longer need to switch the current interface. Input methods, search, photo editing, and voice assistant Siri are also functional enhancements that significantly improve the deficiencies of the original iOS system. The Device enrollment Enterprise market function, makes the Apple handset more suitable for the Enterprise Office environment, strengthens in the enterprise market competition.

automobile, health and home are the three major intelligent markets that are most concerned. And Apple in these three emerging areas does not seem to continue the inherent strategy of hardware and software integration, but through the software to integrate Third-party hardware to achieve growth. This was CarPlay by the previous car system, and the new iOS 8 health HealthKit and smart home apps HomeKit also continued this way. Apple does not need to launch hardware in all areas, as long as it can control market growth by integrating third-party hardware and services with its own software.

As early as last year, Mr. Cook said Apple's iOS system would further open its system to third parties. This trend is best seen in iOS 8, and in terms of openness and scalability, iOS 8 is Apple's most revolutionary software product. Third-party applications can not only use TouchID fingerprint identification, such as multiple API functions, but also through the security mechanism of iOS to implement the interaction between applications.

Previous Android's biggest advantage over iOS was flexibility, including utility desktop plug-ins, multiple sharing options, and more. But in iOS 8, users can share content to many third-party applications, use other applications in photo applications, add Third-party apps to the notification bar, and even install Third-party input methods. iOS 81 maintains the security and focus of Apple's iOS system, and a significant increase in flexibility, which will put pressure on Google's Android system to be very straightforward.

The new programming language Swift (SWIFT) is the third largest new product released by the WWDC. The Swift is more intuitive, simpler, safer and more efficient than the previously cumbersome and complex C. With the swift real-time code effect display function, the developer can look at the execution effect while entering the code, greatly improving the development efficiency. The developer's code input on the swift will also be significantly less than before.

Since the release of the iphone in 2007, Apple's growth myth has finished its first season, leading the world's technology industry. The biggest challenge for Apple today is how to make a breakthrough, find new growth areas, and keep growing on a very high footing. For example, Apple's second-quarter earnings, while revenue and profits remain dazzling, continue to grow. But the momentum for growth has been clearly single, and Apple's growth is increasingly reliant on the iphone, as growth slows and even declines in both the Mac and ipad's main product lines. The iphone's share of Apple's revenues has risen every quarter, reaching a 57% per cent high.

With the iphone's quarterly sales reaching 50 million levels, to continue its rapid growth, another source of growth is the high-end Android market, particularly Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC, in addition to accelerating expansion in emerging markets such as China. IOS 8 has enabled Apple to push Google through Third-party apps while consolidating its original experience advantage. This fall, the launch of the big screen iphone 6 and iOS 8 hardware and software products may be the beginning of Apple's crackdown on the high-end Android market.

Although Apple did not release any hardware today, the release of the three major software products is the WWDC of the real actor-Apple developers. The consumer feast, perhaps, will have to wait another three months for the new launch this fall.