Well, Apple has one platform that is winning (for some definition of "winning") in a market that will be the focus of the coming decade(s), and another platform that lost long ago (even if it's currently growing) in the market of the past two decades. I'd think it irresponsible of them not to focus their efforts on the iPhone OS.
Also note that the only development platform for those Apps is the Mac.
Mac is a minority platform. iPhone OS is a minority platform. Both are tremendously successful for Apple and growing consistently. To say the iPhone is a winner and the Mac is a loser is cherry-picking your criteria pretty carefully. Yes, the iPhone is bigger in its market and didn't have an unfortunate stretch of history under Gil Amelio, but both seem to be doing extremely well these days.
They're saying "Look, we've got this new platform that's more interesting than boring old computers, let's us have absolute control over everything about, and practically prints money for us." It's pretty obvious why they've made their choice, even if it affects me as a primarily desktop user. In fact, I'd be willing to bet all of Apple's management team uses their desktops way more than their mobile devices. But it's all about cool factor and the iPhone OS has it right now.
Guess it's a good time for the Linux desktop to improve!
I don't think there'd be that much less Mac sessions per se, I think they're just dividing their tracks by categories rather than platforms. i.e. Instead of having Mac/iPhone/etc tracks, they have Core OS, Dev Tools, Frameworks, etc.
Yeah, there may be some of that, but it's hard for me to look at http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/sessions/ and come away with the impression that this is anything but an iPhone OS conference with a bit of Mac thrown in.
The main part of the lead paragraph: "Sessions will dive deep into advanced development and design techniques that show you how to harness the revolutionary technologies in iPhone OS and apply them to your application development."
A very old quote, but it seems relevant:
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
– Steve Jobs, Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
Look at their latest releases: OS X hasn't changed for the most part since the last WWDC (Snow Leopard, GCD, OpenCL, and other new toys) nor have they released many new frameworks or features. On the other hand, iPhone OS has undergone many revisions and added a lot of new technologies worth educating developers about. I don't see why they wouldn't concentrate on it..
I also wouldn't read too much into that quote, he was being snarky at a company he no longer lead, imo.
I don't mean to sound like the Mac is dead or anything. But the very fact that they introduced Snow Leopard, touting it as having no new features (well, sorta), and selling it for $29 makes me wonder if they plan to ever return to the $129 Big Big Release model. I think in Steve's mind — and of course I'm only prognosticating here: who knows what lurks there! — the "computer" as of about the 10.5 Leopard timeframe is a mature platform. I of course can easily be proven wrong (and half expect to be) if they introduce 10.7 (or 11.0) as a full release and with something more than UI tweaks and slight refinements.
I see more bitching on Twitter this morning about the lack of ADAs for Mac apps than about the reduced number of Mac-specific sessions; I think that change is an even bigger sign that they're not really interested in the Mac. You're right that there haven't been any big OS releases for the Mac lately so it doesn't make sense to focus on that, but there continue to be big Mac app releases and there's no reason I see for them to cut off the ADAs for Macs unless they just plain aren't all that interested in Mac apps anymore. It would seem odd for ADAs for Macs to be reintroduced at WWDC 2011... I think they're gone. Message from Apple: build iPhone OS apps.
And I agree with you about the quote, but I do think Jobs' focus tends to fall on one thing at a time, and the company's focus seems to be very, very much on iPhone OS. I don't see it ever suddenly returning to Mac OS with much fervor.
Well, we are still a long way from it (2+ years?), but at some point there will be an interesting discussion on how you merge the iPad with the desktops... Will Apple merge the two product lines and OSes?
You know, I've done a bit of thinking about this and I'm not sure what one would change about Mac OS X to "merge" it with iPhone OS.
The kernel level stuff is already quite shared between the platforms. That'll continue to evolve.
The apparent user interface doesn't seem to me too likely to be merged: "computer" (I'm not including "iDevices" in this usage) tasks are much more suited to having multiple overlapping windows - I don't see multiple overlapping windows being removed from Mac OS nor added to iPhone OS. Likewise, computer apps are designed around a keyboard/pointing device paradigm, which doesn't seem likely to change... I wouldn't be at all shocked to see some more touch capabilities come to Macs, but I don't see them becoming primarily touch-based... anybody that has used iPad's Numbers app or done a lot of text cutting/pasting on an iDevice knows that heavy usage of these types of functions are more suited to a mouse/keyboard than touch. And it's just less comfortable when sitting at a desk to have to reach out and touch a several-feet-away screen.
And, while many do, I don't see the unrestricted Macs vs restricted-to-the-App Store iDevices split going away... I just can't imagine how to make a successful computer that has such restrictions on it. Could be wrong here of course.
So what does that leave? Lots of the APIs are already quite similar, but there's of course room for more unification there: AppKit isn't as nice as UIKit in a lot of ways. But that doesn't seem too exciting.
Full disclosure: I'm one who shunned the idea of touch as a primary means of interface, but these days I use my iPhone and iPad far more than my Mac. So take everything I say with a grain of salt. :)
The fact that they did one release that was essentially laying the ground for the future and for which they didn't think customers would be willing to pay full price (since features = value in a lot of people's minds) makes you wonder if they'll ever do another big release?
It's almost like Apple's trying to tell us something...