Apple

The apple tree (Malus domestica) is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit, the apple. It is cultivated worldwide as a fruit tree, and is the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek and European Christian traditions.

Apple trees are large if grown from seed, but small if grafted onto roots (rootstock). There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including cooking, eating raw and cider production. Apples are generally propagated by grafting, although wild apples grow readily from seed. Trees and fruit are prone to a number of fungal, bacterial and pest problems, which can be controlled by a number of organic and non-organic means. In 2010, the fruit's genome was decoded as part of research on disease control and selective breeding in apple production.

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), is a conference held annually in California by Apple Inc. The conference is used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for software developers. Attendees can participate in hands-on labs with Apple engineers, as well as in-depth sessions that cover a wide variety of topics. Until 2007, the number of attendees varied between 2,000 and 4,200; however, during WWDC 2007, Steve Jobs noted that there were more than 5,000 attendees. The WWDC events held from 2008 to 2015 were capped, and sold out at 5,000 attendees (5,200 including special attendees).

Overview

History

Since 1998, the conference has generally started with a keynote presentation that was usually delivered by Jobs, resulting in the presentations becoming known as "Stevenotes". After Jobs' resignation and death in 2011, his successor Tim Cook delivered the keynotes.

1990s

In 1995, WWDC'95's primary emphasis was a new component technology called "OpenDoc"; a software component technology that allowed end users to compile an application from components offering features they desired most. Apple as one of the OpenDoc consortium (which included Adobe, Lotus, and others) touted OpenDoc as the future foundation for application structure under Mac OS. As proof of the concept, Apple demonstrated a new end-user product called Cyberdog, a comprehensive Internet application component suite offering users an integrated browser, email, FTP, telnet, finger and other services built completely of user-exchangeable OpenDoc components. Claris Works, a principal product in Apple's wholly owned subsidiary Claris Corporation, was demonstrated as an example of a pre-OpenDoc component architecture application modified to enable it to contain functional OpenDoc components.