The Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is an underwhelming name for an event that has hosted some of the biggest moments in Apple history.
From Steve Jobs’ shock 2005 announcement that Macs would be switching to Intel chips to Tim Cookrevealing the Vision Pro in 2023, it’s become a must-watch for tech fans of all stripes, whether you’re a developer or not.
The first WWDC back in 1983 was a secretive event that gave insiders a first look at the Apple Lisa. But it wasn’t until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 that the event really started to build into the software and tech showcase it is today.
With outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook preparing to host his final WWDC on June 8, before handing the reins over to John Ternus, we’ve made a chronological gallery of classic photos from the event’s modern era to give you a taste of its biggest moments — and also test your Apple memory…
The second Steve Jobs era
At WWDC 2000, Steve Jobs demoed Apple’s upcoming Mac OS X, a huge change for the desktop OS. The public beta would launch in September 2000 — and with 3,500 developers at the event, this was the highest-attended WWDC in Apple’s history at the time. (Image credit: Getty Images)
For his ‘one more thing’ at WWDC 2003, Steve Jobs introduced the world to the Power Mac G5 computer — a desktop workhorse known as the ‘cheese grater’ that become one of the last it developed with IBM. (Image credit: Getty Images)
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Apple sent shockwaves through the computing world at WWDC 2005 by announcing that it’d be ditching PowerPC processors and moving to Intel. Not surprisingly, Intel CEO Paul Otellini (above right) was a very happy man when greeting Steve Jobs (left) at the Moscone Center on June 6, 2005.(Image credit: Getty Images)
WWDC 2005 saw Apple announced its big move to Intel chips — an era it ended 15 years later with the dawn of Apple Silicon.(Image credit: Getty Images)
Attendees at WWDC 2006 ponder how they might afford the new Mac Pro, advertised behind them — the classic workstation was the first Apple made with Intel and became renowned for being almost indestructible. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Six months after the iPhone’s dramatic introduction at Macworld 2007, Steve Jobs talked up Apple’s first smartphone at WWDC 2007. It would go on sale 18 days later on June 29, when he said developers could also ship their first web 2.0 iPhone apps — but the full App Store wouldn’t arrive until 2008. (Image credit: Getty Images)
At WWDC 2008, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 3G. But an even bigger moment happened three months before, when the iPhone’s SDK was released to developers. A month after WWDC, the App Store would officially open — and a new era of apps began. (Image credit: Getty Images)
What’s this, ‘Voice Control’ at WWDC 2009? A few years before Siri, Apple’s SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller talked up new hands-free controls for the iPhone 3GS. Apple acquired Siri in 2010 and it would debut on the iPhone 4S a year later in 2011. (Image credit: Getty Images)
For a brief period, Apple announced new iPhones at WWDC — at the 2010 edition, Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone 4, a model that’s considered a classic thanks to its flat glass back and Retina display. But this was the last new iPhone that would be revealed at Apple’s developer conference — from 2011, they moved to the more glitzy consumer events that we know today. (Image credit: Getty Images)
An uncharacteristically somber Steve Jobs introducing iCloud at WWDC 2011 — it would be his last Apple developer conference, with the legendary CEO passing away almost exactly four months later, and the Tim Cook era began. (Image credit: Getty Images)
The Tim Cook era
A new figure emerges at WWDC 2012 — Tim Cook became Apple CEO in August 2011 after Steve Jobs resigned and his first product launch was the iPhone 4S in October of that year. But his first WWDC keynote was fittingly kick-started by a comedy sketch from Siri, the voice assistant that’s expected to again dominate Cook’s final WWDC as CEO this week. (Image credit: Getty Images)
WWDC 2012 attendees gather around the show’s hardware star, Apple’s new MacBook Pro. It combined a thin chassis reminiscent of the MacBook Air with a new Retina Display, then the highest-resolution screen ever seen on a laptop. (Image credit: Getty Images)
At WWDC 2013, Tim Cook introduced what he called “the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone”. iOS 7 was indeed a major break from the past, moving from the traditional skeuomorphism to a flat design that would split opinion. What does that remind you of? (Image credit: Getty Images)
It was at WWDC 2013 that Apple’s Phil Schiller (above) came out with his infamous soundbite. “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass,” he said bullishly while introducing the new Mac Pro. Unfortunately, the powerful workstation’s resemblance to a bin would later see it become branded the ‘Trash Can’, which wasn’t quite the innovation Apple had in mind. (Image credit: Getty Images)
The Weeknd performs at WWDC 2015 to celebrate the launch of a new streaming service called Apple Music. The Canadian R&B star performed a worldwide premiere of “Can’t Feel My Face”, which later hit number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 — and is still one of the most streamed songs on Apple Music. (Image credit: Getty Images)
WWDC 2016 took Apple’s keynotes to a new level, with a much bigger live audience packed into the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium instead of the traditional Moscone Center (which was still used to host conference sessions). The following year Apple would move WWDC to the San Jose Convention Center and eventually Apple Park, where they take place today. (Image credit: Getty Images)
One of the biggest announcement’s of WWDC 2017 was Apple’s new HomePod, its attempt to take on both Sonos and Amazon’s Echo smart speakers. Progress was slow, with the HomePod’s launch delayed and a second-gen version not arriving until January 2023. A HomePod mini is rumored to be arriving later this year with next-gen Siri powers. (Image credit: Getty Images)
At WWDC 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a major change for iPads — they would switch from iOS to the new iPadOS. This would take Apple’s tablets closer to the ‘touchscreen Mac’ experience many craved, but the company continues to deny that it will ever merge iPadOS and macOS. (Image credit: Getty Images)
“Today we’re announcing our transition to Apple silicon, making this a historic day for the Mac,” said Tim Cook at WWDC 2020. Like all tech events in the early pandemic era, this was a virtual one. It was a tumultuous time for other reasons, with Apple facing a developer backlash over its 30% cut on in-app purchases, plus regulatory scrutiny from the European Commission. But Apple Silicon made it a landmark WWDC moment. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Remember the strange era of virtual tech conferences in 2021? WWDC 2021 saw Tim Cook go on stage to a sea of Memoji faces, but it was an otherwise unremarkable event with no new hardware launches and fairly incremental updates to iOS, macOS and, fittingly, FaceTime. (Image credit: Getty Images)
WWDC 2022 saw a return to relative normality and some exciting new hardware — above, Tim Cook poses with the redesigned MacBook Air M2, a model we concluded at the time was “so good it’s given Apple a problem”. With today’s M5 version retaining the same fundamental chassis, our concerns that it’d be hard to improve upon seem well-founded. (Image credit: Getty Images)
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Tim Cook stands alongside the Apple Vision Pro, announced at WWDC 2023. The “revolutionary spatial computer” was perhaps too revolutionary (and expensive) for its time and visionOS has since become a footnote at Apple’s developer conferences.(Image credit: Getty Images)
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Who’s this in the crowd at WWDC 2024? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on at Apple’s developer conference, where a partnership between the tech giants would announce an (ultimately underwhelming) integration between Siri and ChatGPT. Apple later announced a “multi-year collaboration” with Google that will see Gemini models power next-gen Apple services, including the new Siri. (Image credit: Getty Images)
After the WWDC 2024 keynote, the YouTuber iJustine sat down with John Giannandrea (Apple’s SVP of machine learning and AI strategy) and Craig Federighi (SVP of software engineering) to talk about the event’s biggest announcement, Apple Intelligence. The feature would ultimately be seen as a misstep by Apple, with countless delays and even a federal lawsuit for false advertising. (Image credit: Getty Images)
The biggest announcement of last year’s WWDC 2025 was the new ‘Liquid Glass’ design language, arguably the biggest change since iOS 7. It’d ultimately prove polarizing and Apple has since introduced a number of tweaks that let users tone down the effect — a trend that may well continue at WWDC 2026. (Image credit: Getty Images)
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