Why does WWDC get 10x more views than Google I/O?

Apple shows products, including new OSs, that ship just around the corner or that very same day or week.

I was surprised how many "products" presented by Google were merely "concepts" or has a 2023 "estimated" ship date.

That's like car prototypes in car shows: they are not real cars, only concepts and divagations. From a professional point of view, there's not much interest in that comparing to real-new-car launches.

You can't bet on Google effectively delivering the products they announced in Google I/O. Or if they really launch some of them, they can be sunsetted in a really short time, like a coupe of years, or languish without progress like zombies (as Google Travel, comes to my mind).

That's a problem as a user, because Google creates increasing uncertainty over their new products and launches, even with some old ones (like the free Google G Suite under your own domain). And as a developer, it's hard to invest heavily in most of the stuff Google presents.

In contrast, Apple presentations are interesting as a Developer, as any other kind of professional who uses Apple products, or even an average normal person who uses some Apple devices. And they present REAL stuff and when they do present it, it's because they are committed to it.

As an Android developer I can say that a good chunk of Android-related talks on Google I/O is just not interesting to me, like those about Wear OS, Android Auto, machine learning etc. I don't use them professionally, and it's unlikely that I will in the near future, they're just not that popular (who owns a Wear OS watch?). Other than that there are lots of simple tutorial-like presentations, so it's much faster to just read relevant article/documentation instead of watching a video. The rest talk either talk about stuff that's already been announced _or_ preview-alpha-01-unstable libraries that won't get stable for another year or so. Just feels like a waste of time.

I'd guess WWDC is more exciting because the stuff presented is instantly relevant in the ecosystem, as majority (?) of the iPhone users will get an update and will benefit from the new APIs etc.

WWDC’s keynote revolves around a bunch of Operating System and hardware announcements that I’m interested in as a user of their OS and hardware even though I am not specifically targeting their APIs as a developer.

Google I/O’s keynote (had to look it up) had a bunch of random announcements about their sites, like… automated transcriptions for youtube? Some map stuff? As an occasional user of their sites I really am not interested in any of this. I’m sure it matters to some people, but it isn’t universally interesting, I guess.

The closest Google comes to what Apple does is the Android and Pixel announcements, but Pixel hardware is just one option in the ecosystem rather than the whole thing, so I don’t think it necessarily attracts the same kind of attention.

Apple has a history of surprises and engaging keynotes. Google, for all its success, has never launched a category creating product. Every Google success I can think of is a follow-on product, even search.

Apple’s category creation resume:

- iPod

- iPhone

- iPad

- Apple Watch

- AirPods

- ARM Mac/Apple Silicon (still early but looks like an industry shift)

Apple’s successes above weren’t necessarily the first in the category, but they were the first to make the category significant. Watching the corresponding Apple keynotes for each of these launches was a window into the future. What’s the advantage of watching Google IO when they’ve rarely if ever dictated the future?

WWDC is actually a week-long event, so we are talking about the Keynote. The keynote is mostly about the consumer stuff, i.e. a new hardware and most importantly, the new iOS and macOS we are getting this fall.

Can you say the same thing about Google I/O? Most people are not getting the stuff announced anytime soon.

The WWDC keynote is most relevant to most people, I/O is not. Google also announces a lot of stuff that goes nowhere, cool demos that don't amount to much. For example, in 2018 Google showcased Duplex, which is was an AI assistant that can call businesses and make reservations for you in a natural conversation with the employees. It was super cool but 4 years later, are Android users having their AI assistant do their management? I suspect, no. Google I/O product announcements are like a futursm festival, it gets old after the first time.

Well with Apple, you can usually bet the products you build on will still be around and supported for a lengthy life.

If you work with apple-derived products or software, almost all your income is affected by Apple, by WWDC, by whatever they decide that governs the whole Apple world.

Google is not that much of an inescapable center point for a crowd of developers?

Because 95% of the Google announcements will get canceled in at most 2 years :)

Edit: tbh I'm mostly an Apple user but I never watch video announcements for anything.

For one, I read the text summary and commentary on tech news sites which is faster and more informative.

And two: why would you bother with the marketing material from the vendor, be it in video or text form?

Apple's WWDC keynotes are aimed at developers as much as nondevelopers, particular with significant product announcements.

Google I/O keynote tries but doesn't get quite there.

Apple is not the first... but is more relentless.

You get iPhone X, WWDC is about that, then iPhone X+1, WWDC+1 is about that too, etc.

... is like the MCU of the developer world. Is kinda ironic, that MS is more about long-support but Apple deliver it better (eventually), in the sense that it continue building momentum.

Then, together with the continuity, it also trow some nice candy here and there, and if that catch (ie: Apple Watch, Payments, etc), then you see about it in WWDC+1.

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In the other hand, Google is like the DC: Each installment is only loosely connected to THEIR "brand" but it not create the momentum that make developers confident about putting passion on certain stuff. Alone each thing is interesting, but it not create the feel you actually need to continue about that...

Is like the video game world: If each game a company launch is "different", then each game a company launch needs to be great.

Instead, Apple launch something, at first interesting but probably considered not that big of a deal (like iPod), then iterate, it become MORE interesting (but: Without requiere EACH LAUNCH to be massively interesting) and somewhere along the line you get caught in the wave, and your next time? You are already hooked.

As the saying goes in the mobile app world : "Android generates twice as much downloads as iOS, but iOS generates twice as much revenue as Android".

As a professional, you care about what pays your salary. And that is iOS.

Are you talking about the keynote or the developer content, the keynote it seems to be the Apple's keynote has much more effort put into how and what is presented - there's also functionally two distinct keynotes, the primary and the State of the Union which is entirely developer focused.

My /impression/ has been that the individual developer sessions are much better and more clearly presented.

The other aspect - for developers - is Apple has like 40 years of being an actual OS developer, and recognizes that ABI stability matters. Even when APIs are superseded, the old APIs remain for many release cycles - not to MS levels of insanity, but not far off. As a result the APIs are designed for longevity, and considerable thought is given to ensuring that APIs should be sufficiently forward thinking to avoid the need for frequently replacing APIs with new APIs that do the same basic thing. A result of that is the developer sessions have value for more than single OS release - and remain available on the WWDC site for many year.

In a word: showmanship.

Apple makes its sales events (WWDC is a sales event) feel like something big, an occasion, something special to look forward to, like the revealing of a secret to the in-crowd.

This focus on the spectacle, the presentation and the perception, is a huge part of the company’s DNA.

People love this. Google is pretty terrible at it. Like Microsoft, they are getting better by watching Apple but showboating is not in Google’s DNA.

This isn’t just about Apple presentations. It’s all through the products and everything the company presents externally (internal tools are sometimes ugly and shit though).

Go back and look at the release of the original iMac; an outdated computer with a shoddy OS, built into a curvy, shiny, colorful case… people literally lined up to buy them. I refused on the grounds that I knew what was in that box… yet I still want one today. Mmmm shiny…

WWDC is the same. It’s not an accident. They think and work hard on making it happen.

Apple has been optimizing for this for... forty years? A part of the corporate culture. Google has put a bit of effort into it recently. That about sums it up.

Because in my country I can’t get my hands on a Pixel, how do I play with the betas? While on WWDC 2022 I was able to install dev Beta 1 on Day 1 of the conference.

I don’t use AI/ML on my apps.

I don’t use any Google products besides Gmail or Chrome.

I am an Android dev and I am more interested in Jetbrain’s Kotlin releases.

Google is famous for dropping projects, perhaps reducing enthusiasm?

Disclaimer: I've never owned a mac and my current iPhone I got from work is the first Apple device my household has ever had for longer than a week.

I don't watch either shows, but... and I can't tell you why, but reading the summary articles of "Apple showed X and Y" is still more interesting to me than ANYTHING Google has unveiled in the last 10 years. I'm a very disappointed Android user of roughly 12-13 years (my main point is that the damn phones never get updates after 1-3 years) and they never bring out anything exciting. I mean, I don't find the stuff that Apple unveils exciting (except the M1, that was something new) but I can hardly imagine anything less interesting than Google products.

Sure, many WWDC updates are like "number behind 'iPhone' goes up" but at least it's something of a cycle and you can't really escape it if your friends are talking about it. There seems to be at least some sort of innovation. Maybe it's also a little "hey this sounds kinda nice, wouldn't it be cool..." (typical grass is greener on the other side).

But in retrospect I couldn't actually tell you any meaningful feature in Android that I found really good in a new version. It has always somehow worked for the basic things I do. Also one main point is that they have a non-convoluted lineup. Even I, as someone who should have zero clue, could summarize the current things in two sentences. Google? I have no idea. I/O feels as if this was WWDC + AWS Summit + half of E3.

One theory could be that unlike Apple, the Android market is fragmented and unless you're the (relative) minority with Pixel devices bought directly from Google, you depend on your device manufacturer and/or the carrier to include any announced features.

If you see something at an Apple keynote you know exactly when that's landing. If you see something at a Google conference, it's much less clear when you can take advantage of it, if at all.

Apple creates new products. Google acquired and kills products. Which would you rather spend time watching? Seems self-evident.

Because Apple is a category leader. Their conferences set the new high-bar for the categories they lead.

One aspect is that if I go to apple.com on the day of the WWDC keynote, the stream for it will be front and center. If I'm going to the site to shop or access any of the other services there on that day then I'll see it. The same is not true for google.

Because Google in 2022 is about as exciting as Oracle or IBM.

>Is it a failure on Google's leadership to put on a good show?

It is a failure on Google’s leadership to create good products that people (developers and users alike) can be enthusiastic about.

I was just talking about the FAANG companies with a few of my buddies over a couple of beers just last week! Here's the gist for how the conversation went.

Google. When was the last time you remember anybody being excited about anything Google did? The biggest success Google has had is turning Google into a verb that's synonymous with web search - whether people are using Google, DDG or Bing they're "Googling" something. Even Go and Kubernetes are quite old ideas now and Samsung is Android in most consumer's minds. Seems like Google's heyday was 10 years ago.

Netflix. They solved the problem of the uninterrupted video streaming to tens of millions of subscribers. A lot of modern DevOps practices came from Netflix. Now everyone and his brother has a streaming service. It's no longer a technology problem but a content problem, and Disney is the king of content. Why would you want to work at Netflix today?

Facebook. I'd be concerned about no one ever hiring me if I had Facebook on my CV. Even so, like the other companies in FAANG they seem to have peeked.

Amazon. There are still a lot of problems to be solved in logistics and distribution, not to mention there's a lot of work in their AWS services. Amazon seems like a place to work where you're still solving relevant problems. Their ultimate goal is to be the Walmart of online shopping and to do it cheaper than their brick-and-mortar rivals can.

Apple. At least you know there will always be incremental mods to be made to Mac OS, iOS, iPad OS, Watch OS and TV OS! You might even get the chance to work on the "next gadget" OS! Or some other service. Seems better for the hardware-minded than for us software folks.

Bottom line - seems like the FAANG companies, with the exception of Amazon and possibly Apple, have lost their bite! We came to the conclusion that Microsoft is doing more interesting things today in 2022 than most of the FAANG companies are. We also all know people working for small, unheard-of companies that are doing really interesting things.

Back to your question - why does WWDC get 10x more views than Google I/O? Because it's not aimed at a technical audience and they work to make it as entertaining as possible considering you're dealing with a bunch of geeks doing the presentations.

Because you can count on Apple to make an honest effort for the products that actually make it to retail.

With Google, products are usually beta quality when released, and it's a crapshoot as to whether they'll ever release a fully functional version of the product before they cancel it. Or worse, Google will release a functional product and their horrific internal promotion system will lead to the removal of functionality so that some idiot engineer can justify a promotion for reprogramming the product in a new language.

I/O keynote feels like an scattered collection pre-alpha of announcements. There’s neither excitement nor a thread.

WWDC keynote has both to some degree.

Both have gotten painfully sterile and wooden over the years.

Apple is dramatically better at both marketing and showmanship than Google is, and so Apple events draw much larger crowds.

Loads of people might buy the pixel 19s when they come out, but nobody will lust over them the way that Apple has taught it's fanbase to do for it's products over the last 2 decades.

WWDC announces hardware (sometimes improvements, sometimes innovations) and incremental improvments to software.

Sometimes they royally screw the pooch, but it becomes a talking point/memeable (the $1000 monitor stand, "courage" to remove a socket etc)

Google I/O announces.... the next rehash of the sms messsager, of and btw they're deprecating the one they made last year...

Can't speak for others - and, while I don't watch either of these live - I'm more interested in WWDC because Apple launches new hardware also in this event. For the same reason - as an Android user - I find CES more interesting than either of these two events, as a lot of new Android phones and tablets get announced during it.

Probably because you can make 10x more in the App Store than in the GooglePlay Store.

Ok maybe not 10x but the point still remains.

Google I/O is still largely followed by devs, especially in the google ecosystem despite Google's massive (successful) efforts at dumbing it down.

WWDC on the other hand is watched by a wider range of people that go beyond just apple devs like techies, nerds and devs from other ecosystems.

In addition to all the other good reasons listed here: developers make more money developing for iOS.

Does it have to do with what kind of market iOS/macOS can access vs Android?

I don’t know the numbers here. But I would assume, part of the pull is that people consider Apple products to be luxury items. Hence maybe this is attractive to participants?

Maybe people still hope that the mojo WWDC had in the old days will magically return.

I think it's as simple as the non-developer interest segment. At least where I work, the non-technical leaders are very aware of things like WWDC and re:Invent. They don't seem to know about Google I/O.

I didn't even know Google I/O still existed, which about sums it up.

Google events are generally boring and of poor production value. Plus, what Google is known for primarily is the search engine which is not what they announce at Google I/O.

Because Apple developer documentation in its current form sucks so the best place to learn some library or framework is now the WWDC videos.

Google is not a product company and Apple is. That just means Apple WWDC has mainstream appeal while Google I/O hasn't.

The day Google will fix its killing product policy, I may invest time and money on them.

Because Apple ships and Google deprecates without warning

It gets 10x the votes because it is 10x as interesting.

Apple users are chock full of disposable income

Google’s products are very weak , and no one expects google to invest in them for more than a couple years . they are basically pet projects with big budgets that die off

Google never announced any consumer products that revolutionized whole industries. Apple did that several times.