From its founding, Apple has always been focused on the individual: the personal computer, the human interface, the computer for the rest of us, and later iMac, iPod, iPhone... This humanistic ethos is carried by Apple to this day. Every Apple product is designed, developed and packaged for an individual consumer. Apple’s position as the top computing company in the world was not achieved by meeting enterprise requirements, but by serving our individual jobs to create, share, listen, connect, purchase, glance, watch…. 

While Apple’s prices typically cater to the top of the market, owning an Apple device is hardly a first-world luxury. Apple products are officially available in 175 countries worldwide. Apple’s global brand expands beyond its products: some $1.3T or about 40% of Apple’s stocks are held by individual investors across the globe—amongst the highest ratios in top public companies. 

Yet, in the case of Apple, even the idea of investment is not limited to the commercial interests of the stock market. Millions of developers invest in Apple without ever trading any shares. Apple developers are also investors in Apple, not in share of stocks but in portions of their careers. 

All ecosystems require professional investment from participants, but on Apple platforms, the subtle pressure on the developers adapt to the latest is much higher. This is due to a trifecta of forces: (1) Apple's continuous and usually meaningful Apple product improvements in sustain mode (2) Apple consumers’ fervor for the latest innovations and (3) Apple’s pervasive consumer-first ethos.

Apple's innovation in this area was to create the AppStore Review process, to codify guidelines and restrict scope of third-party apps so they can be shipped to billions of Apple devices, while adhering to an (evolving) standard of decorum. This approach gave every developer the potential to reach the entirety of the iPhone footprint. On the flip side: Every developer who has ever shipped knows they need to track guidelines closely, or risk learning the hard way in an AppStore rejection letter, as a small nuance can be the difference between a successful launch or a failed or delayed one.

The key observation here is this: there is much more going on in the Apple ecosystems than technical achievement. While Apple implements its guidelines and review as part of a technical process, they are there to enforce Apple’s business priorities: to protect Apple consumers, partners, and developers. Thus, a solid understanding of Apple as an evolving business—and not just a technology stack or product company—is essential to every developer who has skin in the Apple game. 

It is in this spirit that we have created the first Apple Worldwide Investor Conference (WWIC)—to explore the possibilities and the limits of Apple as a business. We are bringing together everyone with a stake in the Apple ecosystem: investors, analysts, and developers to foster a meaningful conversation about the complex interplay of Apple, its consumers, developers. And we will do our best to make it affordable for everyone to attend worldwide.

Join us this Thursday, September 19: In person, in Boston Seaport, or via Livestream, Worldwide.

→ Apple WWIC website
→ Get Developer Tickets to WWIC 24 Livestream - Use px24 code.