The official news is finally out: what we believe will be one of the most important Apple events ever held, this year's World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC), will be taking place in San Francisco's Moscone Center the week of June 10-14, 2013. Tickets will go on sale in short order, and it is anticipated that there will be a mad rush for every one of them - the event will likely sell out in minutes.
For Apple developers and a mountain of techies and geeks, this is the Apple event of consequence, where Apple tends to announce its coolest new initiatives across all facets of its various business lines, as well as where one can interact intimately with all of Apple's tech folks. Coincidently, it also happens to be the event where Apple occasionally stuns the world with something of the "Oh, by the way" sort.
We're looking ahead to receiving our media access badge with great anticipation this year. Yes, we do still, even in our old age, love to dig deep into the technology sessions themselves, but this year we expect WWDC to go much further than this. More or less since last November, we have regularly made note of the intense need Apple has to deliver on new innovation.
We aren't alone in our recognition of this, but the preponderance of analysis to date has focused on Apple delivering a big, fat (as in wide, not thick), large screen smartphone, an inexpensive iPhone and every iPad imaginable that falls between a large screen iPhone and the next 9.7 inch iPad. Yes, Apple will no doubt deliver on these - all of them in the face of shrinking gross margins, but none of them having anything to do with Apple's future success.
Apple's future rests entirely on an incredible next wave of innovation - whatever that may prove to be. And the proper setting for Apple to deliver on at least the detailed message, if not the products themselves, needs to happen - we believe - at WWDC 2013. This is the event that will determine Apple's future and whether Apple ends up at $1,000 per share or falls back to $96 per share.
Yes, the stakes are truly huge this time around and Apple CEO Tim Cook can no longer simply fall back on saying yet again - as he did the other day during Apple's Q2 2013 earnings call, that he is thrilled with (but can’t yet talk about) the incredible pipeline of new products and services Apple has up its sleeve. It is now time to put the innovation cards on the table - or to put it more directly, it is time for Apple to put its money where its mouth is.
Here are a few of our articles that provide numerous details on what we believe Apple must deliver on at WWDC 2013:
The common thread in these articles is WWDC 2013. Apple must absolutely transcend incremental growth and incremental innovation this time around.
We'll be there hoping to see history take place… yet again.