Apple WWDC 2022: 5 unforgettable Steve Jobs moments from past keynotes

As I was figuring out what to do next after watching a documentary on Marilyn Monroe last week, YouTube recommended a clip of the 1997 WWDC conference featuring Steve Jobs. Watching Steve Jobs in a fireside chat with developers and his vision for turning around Apple, made me realise how WWDC in 1997 proved to be a big breaking moment for the company, which was going through its lowest phase during that time.
Re-watching Apple’s old WWDC keynote videos gave me the perspective to look at the impact of WWDC on developers and the app economy from a different lens. No matter what we say about the “new” Apple under Tim Cook, WWDC will always remain a software conference that is all about a collective effort to take one step in the future.
With this year’s WWDC 2022 event kicking off later tonight, we look back at five memorable and moving moments in the hory of WWDC, when Jobs was still at the helm of affairs at Apple.

WWDC 1997: Steve Jobs returns to Apple and the beginning of macOS
“Focusing is about saying ‘no,‘” the late co-founder explained at Apple’s 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). “You’ve got to say ‘no, no, no’ and when you say ‘no,’ you piss off people.” That’s Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple over a decade after he was forced to leave the company he co-founded. Although Jobs was only a ‘consultant’ at the company, he was brought back to overhaul production and design at the company after Apple’s acquisition to acquire NeXT for $400 million.Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
In a fireside chat with developers at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Jobs explained how he wants to bring change to the company. This was more of a question-and-answer session and less of following a presentation style that Apple has followed for years.

For those who track and cover Apple, the WWDC 97 conference was the beginning of a new chapter in the company’s hory. Rather than unveiling any new products, Jobs addressed the core issues that Apple was grappling with. Its engineers were doing interesting work, but that work sent the company in “18 different directions.”
“I know some of you spent a lot of time working on stuff that we put a bullet in the head of,” he explained at the conference. “I apologise, I feel your pain, but Apple suffered for several years from lousy engineering management.”
But most importantly, Jobs used the 97 WWDC to focus on using NeXT software (you can read the hory of NeXT here) as a foundation for the next version of macOS. An object-oriented, multitasking, UNIX-based operating system, NeXT proved far superior to what most companies offered at the time. And what Apple wanted was to make its Mac lineup more desirable.
Hot trivia: Remembering the time when Jobs predicted iCloud in 1997?
“Do you know how many times I’ve backed up my computer? Zero. I have computers at Apple, at NeXT, at Pixar, and at home. I walk up to any of them and log in as myself. It goes over the network, finds my home directory on the server, and I’ve got my stuff, wherever I am. And none of that is on a local hard disk.”
This is how Steve Jobs described cloud computing in 1997 during a Q&A session with developers at WWDC. Jobs already saw how people would use computers in the future and back up their data when “the cloud” was not a thing at all. Years later, on Jun 6, 2011, in San Francisco, Apple introduced something called “iCloud” – its “upcoming cloud services offering” at WWDC.

WWDC 2002: The end of Mac OS 9
“A friend to us… always at our beck and call, except when he forgot who he was and needed to be restarted,” Steve Jobs opened his WWDC 2002 keynote presentation, complete with a mock funeral for Mac OS 9 with a full-size coffin, a pre-written eulogy, and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor running in the background. That was Apple’s way of saying goode to the “Classic” old Mac OS and telling developers to get their gears ready for the operating system of the future, which was Mac OS X.
“Mac OS 9 isn’t dead for our customers yet, but it’s dead for [developers],” Jobs said. “Today we say farewell to OS 9 for all future development, and we focus our energies on developing for Mac OS X.”
The biggest takeaway from this WWDC was that Apple didn’t shy away from jumping into a new operating system of the future, even if it had to move on from the legacy OS that has done wonders in the past. Apple did the same thing when it launched the iPhone in 2007. Jobs and the team knew the iPhone would make the iPod less important, and eventually make the best-selling music player obsolete.

The annual developer conference gave Apple the chance to preview the next major release of Mac OS X. Code-named Jaguar, it added newer updates including a built-in instant messenger client, handwriting recognition, a new version of Sherlock, and improvements made to OS X’s Mail and Finder, among other features.
Hot trivia: Did you know Xcode was announced at WWDC 2003?
“I have been working with Apple developer tools literally since integer basic in the garage in 1976, and I gotta say this is the best thing we’ve ever done in developer tools,” Chris Espinosa, an Apple employee, said while demoing the first version of Xcode. Announced at WWDC 2003 alongside Mac OS Panther, Xcode is still being used today in developing apps for Apple’s all major platforms.
WWDC 2005: The Intel transition
“It’s time for a third transition. And yes. It’s true.” The next slide was just one word: “Why?” Steve Jobs finally confirmed the rumours that Apple was dumping Power PC chips for Intel processors. It was the major news in the world of technology that year, and perhaps the most important moment in WWDC’s hory. In the keynote, Jobs explained why the switch was necessary and how it planned to transition from PowerPC to Intel processors.
The conference assured developers that Apple’s move from PowerPC to Intel would be a smooth process – and it was completed in two years. Hory repeated itself when Apple announced it will replace Intel chips from its Macs with its own ARM-based Silicon at WWDC in 2020.

In some ways, the 2005 and 2020 presentations were similar. Instead of making consumers excited about the transition, Apple made developers understand the technical reasons and how Apple could build better and more powerful computers. In both cases, as Apple proved with its Macs, the new chips delivered better performance and more power efficiency than the ones they replaced.

WWDC 2008: The App Store
The first iPhone came with apps, but none made third-party developers. Developers didn’t like Apple’s approach – and when pressured developers, Jobs asked them to develop their own web apps that will work on the new platform. However, after a backlash from developers, Apple announced the iPhone SDK and then the App Store.
“Of course, we’ll have all these great apps, but how will we dribute them? The App Store… it’s a way for devs to reach every single user. Users can pick their apps and wirelessly download them right to their phone,” Jobs said while addressing hundreds of developers and attendees.

A few weeks later, the Apple App Store for the iPhone launched with 500 apps and a 30 per cent cut of all sales going to Apple. A decade later, the iPhone is still the best-selling smartphone, and the App Store is a primary way to download apps. More importantly, the iPhone App Store has created new industries and led to companies like Uber, Snapchat and Spotify. But there is another side. Apple has been accused of charging fees and setting unfair rules on its App Store, which is the only gateway to use apps on its iPhones and iPads.
WWDC 2010: The iPhone 4 launch
Steve Jobs’ presentation of launching the iPhone 4 remains one of the best moments in the hory of WWDC and Apple. “Stop me if you’ve already seen this. But believe me, you ain’t seen it,” Jobs said, joking about the leaks surrounding the device months ahead of its reveal. Jobs described the iPhone 4 as “one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.” He even compared the iPhone 4 to an old Leica camera.

Sure, the iPhone 4 was a design marvel at the time, but it also came with a real-time video chat application called FaceTime. It was also the first iPhone to feature a higher-resolution Retina Display. Although critics praised the iPhone 4’s design, it was soon discovered that the device could experience signal drop. In fact, the iPhone 4’s antenna problems brought a lot of PR problems for the company. The following year, Apple announced the iPhone 4s, featuring a redesigned antenna design. The iPhone 4s was launched the newly minted Apple CEO Tim Cook on October 4, 2011. Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, a day after the iPhone 4s was introduced.