A fair amount of head scratching has been going on among the Applenoscenti about the cryptic meaning of the Worldwide Developers Conference 2013 logo. The tickets for the conference itself sold out within 90 seconds. If the
As you can see from the image above, my bet is that one of the primary meanings of the logo relates to the AppleTV. No, no, not that mythical, all-in-one iTV, but perhaps the next generation of the "puck" and, most importantly for this event, the opening of the AppleTV platform to developers. I realize that I'm running the risk of sounding like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster when I say that I predicted the same before last year's WWDC!
And, at the beginning of this year, I wrote, "What has been started with the current AppleTV interface, will become so much more powerful once developers can invent AppleTV apps and users can pick, choose and organize them like on any iOS device. The ideal would be for developers to gain programmatic API level control over the stream of content into your TV—both from the internet and from whatever cable provider you use." The second point that I made there, about API level control of the content stream, seems, from this vantage point, to be a reach. But the opening of the AppleTV app store seems like a good bet.
Why do I think so? Other than just not liking to be wrong about previous predictions, here is a list of the top five reasons and clues:
Corner Radius: OK, I admit this one is highly circumstantial, but Apple is a band of compulsive perfectionists who take things like the proportion of a rounded corner seriously, and what's in the logo perfectly matches the shape of the existing Apple TV. (Both the Mac Mini and the iOS home screen icons have proportionally smaller corner radii.)
Mirroring: One of the hallmarks of the way AppleTV works with AirPlay is that it allows you to "mirror" an iOS device on to your big screen TV. The way The "WW" and "MM" reflect each other is, perhaps a reflection of this aspect of the software. And Apple wanted to express the mirror effect so much that they abandoned their usual Myriad font in favor of one with slightly more classical letterforms (perhaps based on Acronym?)
Competitors: Apple is ambushed from all sides in the TV market. What seemed like its next big thing could be taken away by Samsung (which is making big moves with its SmartTVs) and Amazon (which is rumored to be working on its own set-top box that Bloomberg's Business Week dubs the "Kindle TV.") And then there's GoogleTV,
Timing: Apple needs something big before the next iPhone hits. The fingerprint reader could be big, as could the next wave of iPads, but what if there are further production or software delays? The stock would tank even farther.
Developers: With Samsung eating Apple's lunch in the smartphone market and already the dominant player in TVs, developers remain Cupertino's secret weapon. Of all the positive chatter about the Galaxy S4, I have not heard raves about the built-in software. People like the size and the screen and the speed. The "Life Companion"? I'll go Dutch!
There's bound to be lots more for developers at the Conference as well, but fixing iCloud or Maps or discovery in the App Store or iTunes don't count as new products, just follow-through. Despite the incursions of Samsung and
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
To keep up with Quantum of Content, please subscribe to my updates on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and App.net or add me on Google+.
