Minority Thinking 017: Behind the Scenes at WWDC

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This is a photo I have always treasured in my mobile phone. In 2017, Minority was honored to be invited to the WWDC conference in the United States, and participated in the presentation and reporting of the Apple Design Award. As a little-known small media It is indeed rare, and it is a small recognition for our insistence on recommending high-quality paid applications in the past five years.

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Since this year, understanding WWDC with a picture has become our signature dish, using the most concise and beautiful design to interpret the key information of the conference. I usually have to stay up all night with two or three colleagues. Although I don’t participate in the design, I will try to accompany me and do some social communication work.

It was this time that I learned about some standard keywords of the Apple Design Awards: Usability (Ease of Use), Design (Design), Innovation (Innovation), Technology (Technology Application) . And in 2014, based on the user’s point of view, we summarized four standard keywords for minority reports and recommended products: “original, beautiful, practical, interesting” , and marked them in the footer of the website.

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I didn’t expect such a high degree of overlap between the two standards. Although it seems very coincidental, in fact, this is the same original intention of the platform to maintain the “user perspective” . These words are simple to say, but it is very difficult to face the business world. In order to adhere to this principle of recommendation and reporting, we gave up many opportunities for advertising, and the commercialization progressed slowly. Finally, after the first investment was used up, we entered into serious business difficulties and had to significantly shrink the team and transform and expand. And this painful phase comes just a month after we were first invited to WWDC.

The reality is like this, the brilliance in front of the stage may not be seen, but you cannot escape the pain behind the scenes.

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From 2017 to 2019, Minority was invited to live coverage of WWDC in the United States three times in a row, and with the experience, we also prepared more. In 2019, we interviewed many developers live and recorded some live videos. That year, we just established the video content group and started to expand some new formats. Although the shooting and editing are relatively immature, the content is still full of dry goods.

In the next two years, the epidemic came, and WWDC was also changed to online recording and broadcasting. Although the offline sense of ceremony was lacking, we still maintained the habit of staying up late to report and produce a picture stream. For a middle-aged man in my early 40s, staying up all night still hurts my body, but this is both a job and a hobby. It hurts and is happy.

In the past two years, with the decline of smartphone sales and the catch-up of domestic brands, the attention of WWDC seems to be fading, because users want to see more surprises, but the reality is that both hardware and application innovation have entered a bottleneck period. This time at WWDC 2022, the value of Apple’s ecology has begun to be revealed. The four major OSs have basically been completed and have begun to communicate with each other. For example, the camera coordination between iPhone and Mac computers, such as the front-end scheduling of macOS is integrated into iPadOS, and the The new CarPlay with in-depth access to car and machine information is not simply pinching the devices together, but providing the best combination solution based on the user’s scene needs. The ecological barriers built over the years have once again opened up the gap between Apple and other rivals. distance.

But think back, how did Apple’s ecology come about? First of all, you can’t follow the trend, but from the user’s point of view to make future layouts; secondly, you can’t be greedy, you must give up short-term interests to build long-term user trust; finally, you can’t be lazy, you must ensure that every product and service Experience, and constantly accumulate product power. In addition to these basic tasks, we also have to deal with a series of tests such as developer relations, investor returns, and supply chain management. Therefore, the ecology with barriers is not called out, but is made step by step.

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In a blink of an eye, five years have passed. I am glad that the minority is still there, and a basic business closed loop has been established, and Apple has become the most valuable company in the world. We also participated in the interview and report of WWDC and Apple Design Awards again. . In the past five years, many external things have changed, but more underlying things have not changed.

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