Last week, Apple held WWDC 2014, their annual developer’s conference. A number of tech analysts have been bemoaning the lack of new laptops, beating the “Apple is doomed” drum because Apple didn’t introduce a supersized iPhone, or losing their minds and credibility by saying that if Apple doesn’t release a watch/fitness device in the next 60 days they will become irrelevant.

Since Apple dropped attendance at MacWorld, there are now pretty much two Apple events every year that you can count on: the iPhone Event in September and WWDC in the summer. There are often other events sprinkled in, depending on product readiness and release cycle, but those are the two that you can take to the bank. The a lot of industry analysts have come to expect hardware miracles every time an iPhone is released, and now, every time WWDC happens. They are used to Apple holding it’s cards very close to it’s chest.

What they missed is that Apple has played it’s hand. In full. What they were announcing last week was, as best as I can tell, a New Apple. This is the point where people will look back and say “2014 was the year that Tim Cook’s leadership really started being evident outside of Apple”. Not in the supply chain side of things, but in terms of making Apple focus on tearing down silos and building a better sense of community and collaboration, both within Apple and with the larger developer community.

Apple has given developers a lot of the things they have been asking for for years. Opening up inter-app communication on the iPhone is the most obvious part of this, and everything it enables. App store metrics, beta testing services, new languages, closer integration between the desktop and mobile, access to the raw data in iCloud and so much more. Pretty much they only thing they didn’t do was replace HFS+ and provide an SDK to program for the Apple TV.

Apple is also taking a more realistic approach to it’s fabled secrecy. The NDA’s on the conference, for example, don’t prohibit attendees from talking about the iOS 8 or Yosemite betas. All the conference videos are posted – along with their slide decks – out in public. You don’t need an Apple Developer login to get to them. You don’t need to sign a NDA to agree not talk about the session content.

That’s not to say that Apple isn’t being secretive. I’m not sure how many companies can keep a whole new language a total secret for as long as Apple did with Swift. Nobody really knows what they are doing with sapphire crystal. The Apple TV and the Mac Mini are in desperate need of a refresh, but there’s nothing leaking about where those products are going.

Personally, I’m happy Apple focused on the Developer part of the World Wide Developers Conference. That’s where the focus should be. We’ll see where all of this goes, and if it’s part of a larger trend or just a one-time event. I’m betting that this is a New Apple, and that we are going to see a lot more WWDC’s in the future like this one.