That was the overwhelming vibe during Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference presentation yesterday, where the company announced new versions of OS X and iOS, each with tons of new features for end users and app developers. "We are not standing still," said CEO Tim Cook. "iOS 8 is a giant release ... you can extend your experiences and build apps you couldn't build before." And it's a huge list of new features: the keyboard offers predictive typing, notifications are more powerful, a new app called HealthKit tracks your fitness, you can seamlessly make calls and send texts from an iPhone from a Mac, photos now seamlessly sync to the cloud, and on and on. Apple has the unique ability to present somewhat obvious new features as masterful flourishes, and the crowd at WWDC ate it up. Seriously: there was applause when Apple's Craig Federighi announced the ability to mute a too-busy group texting thread. But look past the usual list of new features, and what Apple was really announcing was the next version of itself — a playful, relaxed, hyper-competitive giant that wants the next generation of products and services to be built on its platforms. That's the game now, after all — the mobile revolution is over, and the war is now between Apple and the Google / Samsung alliance for the hearts of developers. continue
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