WWDC 2014: Changing the world through code

This year’s WWDC may have lacked glitzy product launches and celebrity cameos, but it highlights an oddly touching disparity between the company’s fans, says Rhiannon Williams

Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers his keynote address at the World Wide developers conference in San Francisco

It's technology's premier venue, but the sounds of 5,000 people whooping and cheering, laughing in unison and clapping thunderously are not ones you’d usually associate with the Moscone West Centre, the cavernous and unassuming conference hall in the centre of San Francisco. But for one week, the clean streets throng with thousands of people dressed in the same black zipped fleeces bearing a stylised white 14 on the back, chattering excitedly about their next session.

They are the driving force behind Apple’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) - the passionate programmers, coders and engineers who tweak and develop the company’s software, helping to create new features and apps for the more than 800 million iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches that run operating system iOS.

It would be easy to dismiss the annual conference as a niche haven for Apple fanatics - the screams, gasps and utterances overheard during CEO Tim Cook’s keynote are testament to just how involved these people feel with the Californian company. There’s a vast tribal atmosphere of unity, a fierce loyalty which led to tickets selling out in minutes, despite costing upwards of $1,500 each.

As far as the wider audience goes, there were no new star products to tout, and an inevitable ripple of disappointment spread across the vast hall when Dr Dre failed to materialise onstage, instead answering a call made from a Mac as part of one of the new OS X features.

But what WWDC highlights is the amiable gulf between the masterminds who create the code to power the interfaces of such covetable products, and those who simply desire them with little to no understanding of how they work.

At one point Apple employee Brian Kroll made a “multi-threaded rope” joke about parallel programming (yeah me neither), which was met with hearty laughter from the developers and blank looks from the media contingent. One of the biggest announcements of the keynote was the development of new programming language Swift, which while whipping the room up into a frenzy, left the casual social media observers scratching their heads in bewilderment.

And that’s the beauty of it - while you don’t need to have a deep appreciation of the intricacies of the software architecture to enjoy Apple’s products, it’s utterly fascinating to witness those who are clever enough to. They’re articulate, open and extremely enthusiastic about - to borrow the conference’s slogan - writing the code to change the world. You might not understand the language behind the apps you use every day, but the 13-year-old wearing Google Glass does. And it’s that kind of dedication to a cause which is so extraordinary to see, whether you understand the object of their obsession or not. Google doesn't touch it at their I/O Conference.

Developers of all backgrounds, young and old, male and female, gathered throughout WWDC to engage with and gossip about what truly excited them. It shows any rumours of Apple's decline are premature at best.