No, it was not iOS 7, OS X Mavericks, or even the Mac Pro.
I’m definitely excited about all three of those and Apple will undoubtedly be revealing more hardware and software to come. That much is certain. Apple seems to be set on a once-a-year update cycle for most of their project line and the fall of this year is going to be exciting to see.
However, the biggest, most important reveal during WWDC is that Apple is here to stay and that the current leadership team is ready to go with the future of the company … whatever that might be.
It was late October 2012 that Apple posted this press release to their PR site which announced a rather large organizational shift for the company. The title for the press release is typical euphemism, but it boiled down to Scott Forstall and John Browett leaving and the duties being split between a number of other members. Most importantly it removed the barriers, at the leadership level, between OS X and iOS by putting Craig Federighi in charge of the software for both and putting Jony Ive in charge of design for all of Apple.
That was less than eight months ago.
I can’t imagine that trying to ship a major version of both iOS and OS X while also ushering through a Mac Pro redesign and who knows what else that is coming down the pipeline got any easier after that.
But they announced all of that at WWDC 2013 and the rest of the year is going to be a lot of fun as well. Their keynote was fun and loose (probably the loosest one they’ve had since Steve died) and it was the first time that Apple, as a company, came out swinging in a long time.
It was refreshing, and it was the big reveal of WWDC. Everything else is secondary (and subject to change).