WWDC

As somebody who reads this blog, you probably already know that WWDC tickets are on sale. I wouldn't expect them to be available long. Apple has taken some steps to slow down the sales, such as implementing a developer membership requirement and a one-ticket-per-individual-member and five-ticket-per-organization limit on tickets, but I still expect them to go fast (I've heard rumors they're sold out, but the purchase link still shows for me).

I am glad to see that they've lowered the attendee age to thirteen this year. In the past, they allowed under-age people on an individual ad-hoc basis and prior to 2011, it had never been a problem. But, there were at least two heart-breaking stories last year of under-eighteen developers who bought tickets and then weren't allowed to go. Somebody fairly high up at Apple decided that with the kurfuffle over how fast the tickets sold out, they just couldn't bend the rules that year. They did refund money, but still… the situation didn't sit right with me, so I'm glad they've changed the official policy to allow younger developers in.

I'm currently on vacation, but when I get back, I'll blow the dust off my "First Timers's Guide to WWDC". There are definitely a few things from last year's post that need updating and revising for 2012, but I'm not doing it on vacation. :)

Finally, I've gotten a lot of questions about the annual bus pilgrimage to Apple's Company Store on the Sunday before WWDC starts. Honestly, I don't think I'm doing it this year. I know I've said that the last few years, and I know Scott will try to talk me into it by offering to do all the hard work again, but I really mean it this time. Even with Scott doing the arrangements, managing two trips of three buses each down to Cupertino and back really shoots a hole in my first day on the left coast and takes a toll on me. While I enjoy meeting devs, the sheer number I meet on the pilgrimage is overwhelming and it becomes nearly impossible to remember anyone new I meet, let alone everyone. This year, I'm thinking of a more leisurely Sunday - catching up with some old friends and meeting some new ones over a relaxing drink or three and maybe a meal. I'd really like to start the week not already in a sleep deficit if possible. It's probably not, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Anyway, back to vacation for me, but I hope to see you in San Francisco.

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Posted in: Apple,Developer,iPHone,Mac,WWDC

A Few Seats Left

There are a few seats left for the afternoon trip to Cupertino on June 6th. If you're interested, go here.

As I write this, there are less than 15 seats, though, so if you want one, I suggest you hurry.

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Posted in: Apple,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Bus Update

Just to let you all know, we're down to eleven remaining available seats on the third and last bus, and they're about equally split between morning and afternoon. If you missed getting a seat on the first two buses, and haven't filled out the interest form for the third, there probably won't be a seat. So, go here now to tell us you're interested in one of the remaining seats. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

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Posted in: Apple,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Pre-WWDC Schedule Update

The good news:

The additional bus is a go! We'll be opening up payment for those seats this weekend to people who signed the interest form, and then opening it up to the public 24 hours later until seats are gone. The third bus will leave Moscone a bit later than the other two (11:30 and 3:45), but will not stop at SFO. If you're interested in the additional bus, but need to be picked up at SFO, drop me an e-mail (jeff at martiancraft dot com) or send me a tweet, and we'll see if we can find a way to accommodate you by shuffling a few seats. Update: The third bus will stop at SFO!.

The bad news:

There will not be another bus once we fill this one. We're already threatening to overflow both The Company Store and BJ's, a fourth bus would be overkill even if we were sure we could fill it, which I'm not at all sure we could do anyway.As of right now, there are approximately 25 spaces left on the third and final bus.

The interest form will remain open until we either run out of seats, or we open up the reservation payment again. People who signed up on interest form get dibs on the remaining seats.One final note: last year, we had some people show up without signing up in advance. Please don't do that this year. Simply put, we won't have any place to put you. The bus company won't let people stand while the bus is driving, so if you're interested in going, you've got to reverse a seat in advance.

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Posted in: Apple,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Pre-WWDC 2011 Pilgrimage Additional Buses

Okay, here's the deal folks. We're trying to find out from the bus company what are options are. In the meantime, we need to know how many of you are interested in a seat on the bus. If you want to go, and didn't get a seat, you need to go fill out this form right now. If we get enough interest to cover the cost of another bus, we'll then send you all information on how to pay for your seats. Spread the word, because we really don't want anybody to get left behind if at all possible.

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Posted in: Apple,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Sold Out

Okay, I'm just about to head to bed, but wanted to let you know that we've officially sold out all four bus trips for the June 5 pilgrimage. Scott and I are going to regroup in the morning and see what our options are for adding capacity. Because we have to pay for buses by the day and not per trip, we have to be sure we can fill two more bus trips in order to cover the cost of adding an additional bus. We're also going to see if adding a smaller bus is a possibility and how that would impact the per-seat price. Whatever we do, I'll post about it here and also tweet it. But not until tomorrow. G'night.

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Posted in: Apple,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Pre-WWDC Pilgrimage 2011 Update

If you signed the interest form, you should have received an e-mail telling you how to reserve seats on the pilgrimage buses. If you did sign the earlier form but didn't get an e-mail, let me know. If you didn't sign the interest sheet, don't worry, we'll be opening registration up to the public tomorrow. We thought it only fair to give the people who signed up in advance a bit of a head start. We should have enough room for everybody, as we're able to add additional buses if we need more capacity. We just have to make sure that we have enough additional people to cover the cost of another bus. Keep an eye here or follow me on twitter to find out when we open registration up to everyone else.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,Pilgrimage,WWDC

Bus Trip Update

Just wanted to give you all an update on the bus pilgrimage to Cupertino on June 5th. We had a tremendous show of interest. Approximately 300 people expressed an interest, plus several people tweeted and e-mailed after the interest form was closed down. Last year, we took 100 people.

Scott Knaster is investigating bus options, including a possible bus directly from SFO to the Apple Store and then up to WWDC for people who wouldn't be able to get up to San Francisco in time for the bus.

We'll start the official signups the middle of this month, once all the arrangements are squared away and we know how many seats there will be. Once the arrangements are made, the seats will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you filled out the interest form, you'll get an e-mail with details of how to reserve your seat and pay for it as soon as signup opens. If you didn't fill out the interest form, you probably want to follow me or Scott on Twitter, as we'll tweet when the signups start and then periodically re-tweet until the seats are gone.

I want to set expectations, especially for first timers. The only thing open at Apple HQ will be The Company Store, which is similar to an Apple Store, but with a lot of Apple schwag and paraphernalia (t-shirts, pens, mugs, sweatshirts, etc). Being not just a Sunday, but the Sunday before WWDC, don't expect to see many Apple employees coming and going, and you will definitely not be able to get into the quad (the inside portion of One Infinite Loop). There is no official Apple recognition of this trip, and we don't have any expectation that there will be.

In the parking lot near The Company Store, there is a restaurant called BJ's, affectionately referred to as "IL7" by Apple employees (the buildings at One Infinite Loop are named IL1 through IL6), which is fairly good for what it is. You can have lunch or a drink there, but if you do, I advise you to order quickly and have your check brought with your food. Since the same bus will be used for multiple trips, we won't be able to wait for stragglers. The bus will leave at the scheduled departure time with or without you. We didn't leave anybody behind last year, but we had one table that cut it awfully, awfully close. It's an awfully long damn walk back to San Francisco, and they get pretty busy on Sundays even without a bus full of additional customers.

Lastly, if you see Scott on Sunday, make sure to say a big thank you to him. Scott has done nearly all of the legwork again this year and the trip is happening very much because of him, so thanks Scott!

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Posted in: Apple,Apple HQ,WWDC

WWDC Mothership Pilgrimage 2011

Okay, after telling many people I wasn't going to organize a trip to the Mothership on the Sunday before WWDC, I may have had a change of heart. Scott Knaster, who did most of the hard leg work on arranging the buses last year, has offered to take the same role this year, and a lot of people have expressed interest, so we're thinking about running the bus trip again this year.

If you're interested in taking the bus trip down to One Infinite Loop, go here and fill out the short form. This will help us gauge how many buses we'll need to arrange.

If anybody's interested in sponsoring all or part of the trip, do let me know.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,WWDC

On WWDC Now Being "Broken"

Over at TUAW, fellow author Erica Sadun opines that WWDC is broken because it sold out fast. And she's right. It's so horribly broken that more people want to attend than they've got room for. Th… wait, what? Where I come from, that's called "success", and it usually indicates that you're doing something right. It's not usually a big red flag that you need to make a complete about face in your approach.

But that's exactly what Erica is suggesting Apple do.

I used to work in the Enterprise software world and know all about these large conferences that Erica is referencing. I was a developer at PeopleSoft (now part of Oracle), and I've been to (and have even spoken at) mega Enterprise conferences like the old PeopleSoft conferences (20k attendees at its peak) and OracleWorld (which is now, I guess, called Oracle OpenWorld because Oracle is so… open).

Making WWDC more like these giant, soulless, "enterprise" conferences is not the answer. Scaling WWDC to 10k, 20k or 40k is fixing the problem by shooting the golden goose. Trying to scale up WWDC like that would utterly destroy everything that is wonderful about it.

WWDC is community. WWDC is actually being able to talk with the engineers who wrote the software you're having problems using. WWDC is a chance to get on a first name basis with people in our community, including (if you're lucky) some of the awesome people who make the APIs we use to make our living. It's a time for learning, absolutely, but it's also for making friendships, making business connections, and looking for future employees/employers/subcontractors. The current size of WWDC is part of what makes it great and is part of why so many people want to attend. In fact, the past few years, it's bordered on being too big, with lab slots becoming harder to get and many sessions having long lines and being standing room only.

What WWDC is, is not what giant corporate conferences like OracleWorld are. If anything, they're the polar opposite. Which is not to knock what those big conferences are - they serve a particular market, and they serve it well, but we are not their market and our needs cannot be met by adopting their model. Conferences like Oracle World are places where groups of people from the same large company or government entity go together, hang out together, and then leave together. They're places that people go because their employer is paying for them to go and has instructed them to go. They're places where people wander through large convention halls picking up swag they don't really want while being sold on the merits of various products their employers don't really need. They're vendor fair as much as a place to learn. In fact, they're usually more like one big fucking advertisement that your company pays for you to attend.

They are not events (by and large) that people save up and do without in order to attend. They're not events that people make sacrifices in order to find a way to go.

But that's exactly what WWDC is. WWDC is a conference that people want to go to even if they have to pay money out of their own pocket. It's something people look forward to attending and talk about having attended for months afterwards. It's a conference where a great many people pay their own way to attend and are thrilled to do so.

Monstrous mega-conferences don't develop community. That's simply not what they're there for. Forty thousand people isn't a community: It's a city. Forty thousand people is so far beyond anybody's monkeysphere as to make the concept of "community" meaningless. Wandering around conferences like OpenWorld no more engenders a sense of community than does walking through Times Square.

I don't want WWDC to become that. You don't want WWDC to become that. I honestly don't even think Erica really wants WWDC to become that. I think what she wants is a perfectly egalitarian world where everybody gets what they want. But that only exists in fiction. In real life, everything involves tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs with her suggested solution would be disastrous for our community.

Scarcity always increases value. Apple could have chosen to jack up the WWDC ticket price until they stopped selling out, but they didn't do that. In fact, the price hasn't increased in years. Yes, they did get rid of the early-bird pricing and group rates, but the base ticket price for WWDC has remained unchanged for quite some time (8 years maybe? Anyone know?). Apple could gouge us and many of us would pay the inflated price happily. But they don't do that. In fact, they charge us less than the early bird prices at big mega-conferences like Oracle OpenWorld, Tech Ed, and PDC, despite the fact that WWDC has no sponsors or advertisers and no vendor floor.

The simple fact of the matter is that any mechanism that Apple might implement to "level the playing field" for tickets would result in somebody feeling like they didn't get a fair chance to purchase. The more complex the scheme and the more advance notice Apple were to give, the more opportunities there would be for people to game the system and create true inequity in the process.

What Apple did do was put WWDC tickets on sale without advance notice and sold them on a first come, first served basis. That's not perfect, but it is about as close to a level playing field as you can get. Yes, some people were on planes, and some people were sleeping (including people in Silicon Valley, it should be noted), and some just weren't paying attention to the Internet when the tickets went on sale. But those tickets were available for over ten hours and everybody should have known they were going to sell out quickly. Yes, people got left out, and it sucks. That's the nature of scarcity.

This is not an artificial scarcity, however. WWDC tickets are like money, you can't just solve the scarcity by printing more tickets. Every additional ticket reduces the value of the conference to the rest of the attendees. Letting everybody have what they want means nobody gets what they really want, or need.

I'll take scarcity and a once-a-year scramble to buy tickets before they sell out over a soulless commodity conference like OpenWorld any day, thank you.

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Posted in: conferences,Rant,WWDC

WWDC 2011 is Sold Out.

I told you they'd go fast.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,WWDC

WWDC First Timer's Survival Guide, 2011 Edition

Today, WWDC was announced. This is the earliest they've announced WWDC during the iPhone epoch, so there's a little more time to prepare than we've had the last few years. Given how popular it's been the past few years, I thought it was worth updating and re-posting my WWDC First Time Guide from last year and the previous year.

Again, WWDC is different every year, so don't take anything written here as gospel, but hopefully these hints and suggestions will help some of you.

1. Arrive on Sunday or Earlier. Registration is usually open most of the day on Sunday. You really, really want to get your badge and related swag (bag, shirt, jacket, etc) on Sunday. The line for the keynote will start forming many hours before the doors to Moscone West open up on Monday (the past three years, people started lining up before midnight Sunday). If you do not have your badge when you get to Moscone on Monday morning, you will almost certainly end up in an overflow room for the Keynote and may even miss part of it. Even if you don't care about being in the main room, there's still a lot going on on Sunday and it's a good time to meet new people and catch up with old friends. You really don't want to deal with the badge process on Monday.


2. Do not lose your badge. If you lose it, you are done. You will spend your time crying on the short steps in front of Moscone West while you watch everyone else go in to get schooled. Sure, you'll still be able to attend the unofficial after-hours goings-on (but not the Thursday night party, which is usually a blast), but you'll miss out on the really important stuff. No amount of begging or pleading will get you a replacement badge, and since they're likely to sell out, no amount of money will get you another one, either. And that would suck. Treat it like gold. When I'm not in Moscone West or somewhere else where I need the badge, I put it in my backpack, clipped to my backpack's keyper (the little hook designed to hold your keys so they don't get lost in the bottom of your bag). Yes, there have been isolated stories of people managing to convince a sympathetic conference worker to print them a new badge, but don't expect it, those are exceptions. The employees are not supposed to print new badges, and most won't.


3. Eat your fill. They will feed you two meals a day; you're on your own for dinner. Breakfast starts a half-hour before the first session, and it's most likely going to be a continental breakfast - fruit, pastries, juice, coffee, donuts, toast, and those round dinner rolls that Californians think are bagels, but really aren't. If you're diabetic, need to eat gluten-free, or are an early riser, you'll probably want to eat before-hand. Lunch used to be (IIRC) a hot lunch, but three or four years ago they switched to boxed lunches. They are pretty good as far as boxed lunches go, but they are boxed lunches. A lot of people complain (loudly) about them and choose to go to a nearby restaurant during the lunch break, which is pretty long - at least 90 minutes.


4. Party hard (not that you have a choice). There are lots of official and unofficial events in the evening. There's often a CocoaHeads meeting at the Apple Store. It fills up crazy fast, so go early if you go. It's usually competing with several other parties, but it starts earlier than most events and finishes early enough for people to go to other parties when it's done. Best bet is to follow as many iPhone and Mac devs on Twitter that you can - the unofficial gatherings happen at various places downtown, often starting with a few "seed crystal" developers stopping for a drink and tweeting their whereabouts. The unofficial, spontaneous gatherings can be really fun and a great opportunity. The parties often start before WWDC - there are usually a few on Sunday, and there have been ones as early as Saturday before. Pretty much any other bar within stumbling distance of Moscone West will be used for planned and informal gatherings. As we get closer, there will be lists and calendars devoted to all the events and parties. Some are invite-only, but many are first-come, first-serve. Although there's a lot of drinking going on, these are worth attending even if you don't drink. Great people, great conversations... good times.
   
   At some point, one or more lists will pop up to track the official parties, gatherings, meet-ups, and BOF (birds of a feather meetings - meet-ups for people interested in a particular subject).


5. Take good notes. You are going to be drinking knowledge from a firehose there. The information will come at you fast and furious. As an attendee, you will get all the session videos on ADC on iTunes. It used to take some time before the videos were available, but hopefully they'll continue to get them out quickly. Even so, make sure you write down the information you need immediately.


6. Collaborative note taking A few years ago, people started taking communal notes using SubEthaEdit and Panic's Coda (they are compatible with each other). That worked out really, really well. My notes from the past few years are ten times better than from previous years. With SubEthaEdit, you don't have to type fast enough to catch every detail. Instead, the audience works as a team and everybody gets great notes. The license fee pays for itself in one WWDC, especially considering you can see notes being taken in other sessions, not just your own.


7. Labs rule. If you're having a problem, find an appropriate lab. One of the concierges at any of the labs can tell you exactly which teams and/or which Apple employees will be at which labs when. If you're having an audio problem, you can easily stalk the Core Audio team until they beat the information into your skull, for example. It's unstructured, hands-on time with the people who write the frameworks and applications we use every day. People start remembering the labs later in the week it seems, but early on, you can often get an engineer all to yourself, though people have started to catch on. Every year the labs fill up earlier in the week.


8. Buddy up, divide and conquer There will be at least a few times when you want to be at more than one presentation at the same time. Find someone who's attending one and go to the other (Twitter is a good way to find people), then share your notes.


9. Make sure to sleep on the plane. You won't get many other chances once you get there. Everybody is ragged by Friday, some of us even earlier. Everyone remains surprisingly polite given how sleep-deprived and/or hungover people are.


10. Thank your hosts. The folks at Apple - the engineers and evangelists who give the presentations and staff the labs, kill themselves for months to make WWDC such a great event. So, do your mother proud and remember your manners. Say thank you when someone helps you, or even if they try and don't. And if you see one of them at an after hours event, it's quite alright to buy them a beer to say thanks.


11. Remember you're under NDA. This one is hard, especially for me. We see so much exciting amazing stuff that week that it's natural to want to tweet it, blog it, or even tell the guy handing out advertisements for strip joints on the corner all about it. Don't. Everything, from morning to night except the Keynote and the Thursday night party are under NDA.


12. Brown Bag it. Most days there are "brown bag" sessions. These are speakers not from Apple who give entertaining, enlightening, or inspiring talks at lunchtime. Check the schedule, some of them are bound to be well worth your time.


13. Monday, Monday I don't know what to say about Monday. The last few years, people started lining up before midnight the night before. I'm typically on East coast time and usually walk over around 4:15 to see what's going on. I've done the line, and I've done the have-a-leisurely-breakfast route, and both have their merits. If you straggle too much, they may start before you get in the room, however (happened to me two years ago).
    
    Waiting in line is not really my thing, but you do get to talk to a lot of very cool people while waiting in line, and there is a sense of camaraderie that develops when you do something silly with other people like that. Some people probably want me to suggest what time to get in line. I have no idea. Most people will get into the main room to see the Keynote. There will be some people diverted to an overflow room, but because the number of attendees is relatively low and the Presidio (the keynote room) is so big, it's a tiny percentage who have to go to the overflow rooms (maybe the last 1,000 to 1,500 or so, depending on number of VIPs in attendance). On the other hand, you'll actually get a better view in the overflow rooms unless you get in line crazy early - you'll get to watch it in real time on huge screens and you'll get to see what's happening better than the people at the back of the Presidio. So, go when you want to. If you want to get up early and go be one of the "crazy ones", cool! If you want to get up later, you'll still get to see the keynote sitting in a comfy room with other geeks.


14. Turn off your MiFi/Clear/other wireless router. I'm so totally not kidding on this one. People will punch you if they find out you've got one on. Last year, so many people had MiFis and other mobile hotspots running during the keynote that it interfered with the conference center's (very good) WiFi network and disrupted some of the tech demos. Once you're in the building, you don't need it. They have crazy fast pipe in the building, so just use the provided WiFi and turn your wireless router off. Seriously.


15. Park it once in a while There will be time between sessions, and maybe even one or two slots that have nothing you're interested in. Or, you might find yourself just too tired to take in the inner workings of some technology. In that case, there are several lounges around where you can crash in a bean bag chair, comfy chair, moderately-comfy chair, or patch of floor. There is good wi-fi throughout the building and crazy-fast wired connections and outlets in various spots on all floors. So, find a spot, tweet your location, and zone out for a little while or do some coding. You never know who you might end up talking with. If you move around too much, well, let's just say a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one.


16. Twitter is invaluable, but don't expect it to stay up during the keynote. There's really no better way to hook up with people you didn't travel with than Twitter. Two years ago, we completely overwhelmed twitter during the keynote. Last year it fared okay, though there were some delays and hiccups.


17. It's okay to leave. Don't worry if a few minutes into a session you decide that you've made a horrible mistake and it's too boring/advanced/simple/etc, or you're just too hungover. Just get up and leave quietly and wander to a different session. Nobody is going to be offended if you leave politely and without causing a disturbance.


18. Bring proof of age on Thursday night. The official party is always on Thursday night, and it's always a blast. There's good food, good drink, great company, and usually a pretty good band. The last three years featured OK, Go, Cake, and the Bare Naked Ladies. They are pretty strict about making sure only people who are over 21 get alcohol. So, if you want to have a drink or five on Thursday, don't leave your license or passport in your hotel room, even if you're 70 years old.


19. It's okay to take breaks. Your first time, you're going to be tempted to go to every session you possibly can. Somewhere around Wednesday or Thursday, though, that effort combined with lack of sleep, is going to take its toll on you. If you're too tired or overwhelmed to process information, it's okay to hole up on a couch or at a table instead of going to a session, or even to go back to your hotel (you did get a close one, right?). In fact, it's a darn good idea to map out a few "sacrificial" time slots that won't feel bad about missing just in case you need a break. You don't want to burn out and then miss something you are really interested in. And some of the best, more advanced sessions fall at the end of the week, so don't shoot your wad early in the week.


20. Get a close hotel If at all possible, try and get a hotel within two blocks and definitely not more than five blocks from Moscone West. Five blocks doesn't seem like a lot, but it can become quite a hassle, especially if you're North of Moscone West because you'll be climbing up a pretty decent hill in one direction.


21. Official Evening Events In addition to the Thursday night Beer Bash, there are other official activities in the evening that are very entertaining and usually happen in the early evening before the parties really get going. The two stalwarts are the Apple Design Awards and Stump the Chumps (it's actually called "Stump the Experts", but most of the participants refer to it as "Stump the Chumps"). Stump the Experts is an Apple trivia game-show like event with notable tech luminaries and former Apple employees. Lots of sharp wits and deep knowledge of Apple make for some good entertainment. There used to also be a Monday night reception and cocktail hour, but if memory serves, it hasn't happened in a few years.


22. Take the BART If you're flying into either SFO or OAK and are staying near Moscone West (or near any BART station) there's really no reason to bother with renting a car or taking a cab from the airport. Just take BART and get off at the Powell Street station and walk up 4th street (South). Moscone West will be about four blocks on your right.


23. Bring a Sweatshirt or Jacket A lot of first-timers assume that it's California in the summer so it's going to be hot. Well, it could be, during the middle of the day, but look up Mark Twain's quote about San Francisco in the summer. It can be downright cool in San Francisco in the summer time, especially in the evenings and early morning. Bring a sweatshirt or light jacket, and wear layers because the temperature differential over the course of the day can be forty or fifty degrees.


24. Sample Code Many sessions will have sample code, usually downloadable from the schedule or class descriptions web pages. The sample code will stay up for a while, but may not stay around forever, so it's a good idea to download any code samples you want as soon as you can. Edit: It looks like starting with 2009, you can get to the old source code for years you attended by logging in to ADC on iTunes, however I always save off a copy just in case.


25. Get a Battery Pack You might want to consider a battery pack for your iPhone. You'll be in for some very long days, and it's not uncommon for your phone to be bone dry by early evening if you don't remember to charge it during the day. AT&T reception in San Francisco is notoriously bad, and that takes a toll on battery life.


26. Don't Sound Like a N00b It's technically called the "World Wide Developer's Conference", so logically, you'd expect people to refer to it as "the WWDC" (e.g. "I'm going to head over to the WWDC")… only nobody does. It's just "WWDC" ("are you gong to WWDC this year?). Less commonly, it's also called the "Dubdub", with or without the "the": ("Man, what an awesome Dubdub that was", or "What time are you heading over to the Dubdub?").

Have more suggestions for first-timers? Add them to the comments.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,WWDC

WWDC 2011 Announced

June 6-10 at Moscone West. You should go. If you're going to go, don't wait, they will sell out.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,WWDC

WWDC 2010 Post Mortem

WWDC. The Dubdub. Christmas in June.

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know Apple's annual developer conference is my absolute favorite week of the year, and it just seems to get better every year. For the days leading up to leaving for San Francisco, I'm like a kid on Christmas eve. I can't sleep from excitement and the time passes way too slowly.

Every year, there are less "must-see" technical sessions for me, personally. That was especially true this year because something like 60% of the attendees were first timers who haven't shipped their first app yet and the session schedule was designed accordingly, with quite a few beginner and intermediate level sessions. But WWDC is so much more than the sessions (and those come out on video anyway). Your first year or two attending, it's all about the sessions, but by this point for me, it's about the sessions that focus on new technologies, labs and, most importantly, a chance to catch up with people I only see once or twice a year. Well, it wasn't just new technology sessions. For obvious reasons, I also attended all of the OpenGL ES sessions this year, and they were great. They were much deeper technically than last year, and were much more focused on the OpenGL ES 2.0 programmable pipeline.

Even thought it was the same number of attendees as the last two years (5,200 attendees plus the various engineers and other staff), this year felt way busier than past years. Lines to get into sessions were often very long, and many sessions filled up. Some even filled up an overflow room. Although we've seen long lines for sessions going back to the introduction of the iPhone, it's never been like this year. Last year, for example, for the State of the Union addresses, I meandered into the overflow room ten minutes late and found a seat in one of several empty rows. This year, I sat on the floor of the overflow room for the overflow rooms. I guess that's good - people were serious about learning this year.

One negative aspect of the massive influx of newbs this year was a certain loss of etiquette. I've always been super impressed by the way my fellow WWDC geeks treat the staff and the facilities. I've never seen garbage left around or more than isolated cases of people being rude to the catering or cleaning staff. This year, unfortunately, that respect was somewhat lacking. During the keynote line, hundreds of people just left their litter laying around on the floor. It was really disgusting and I was embarrassed at that moment to be part of the group. And it didn't end with the keynote line, either, unfortunately. I saw many examples of people not bothering to pick up after themselves, or being rude to the staff. Even a few instance of people being rude to Apple engineers who were trying to help them with problems. I almost feel like I need to add a few items to my annual first timer's guide with things I had assumed any decent person would already know, like throw out your garbage, treat people with respect, and be nice to people who are trying to help you.

Let's be better next year, okay? Almost everybody I met or talked to seemed like super people, so I'm hoping this was just a one-time anomaly. I really, really would like it to be an isolated occurrence. Enough said on that topic.

Although the new iPhone 4 was the belle of the keynote ball, the real buzz at WWDC this year, as you probably know by now, was Xcode 4. For the first time in history, Apple has released the session videos to all registered developers for free, so if you haven't done so yet, you should go watch the Developer Tools State of the Union and the handful of Xcode 4 sessions. Apple's Developer Tools teams have been working really hard for quite a long time on this upcoming release, and even in the early preview state it's in, I already wish I could use it full-time. Fortunately, the Xcode team foresaw this and they made the project file format 100% backwards and forwards compatible between Xcode 3 and Xcode 4, so I can work in Xcode 4 then switch to Xcode 3 to do my ad hoc and release builds.

Honestly, one of my favorite parts of this particular WWDC was having the opportunity to buy a few rounds of drinks for some of the engineers who worked on Xcode 4. I'm not sure if those engineers have forgiven me yet, so I'm not going to call them out by name, but it's important to me during WWDC to show my appreciation to as many as I can of the people who make all the cool stuff I work with everyday. Steve Jobs gets a lot of credit, and rightly so, but he doesn't do it alone. It was really nice to see him call out some of the people who worked on iPhone 4 and iOS 4 during the keynote, but there are a lot of unsung heroes working at Apple, and most of them don't get a lot of recognition for teh awesome they bring. WWDC is the one week a year where we get to show our appreciation in person.

The User Experience lab appeared to be the biggest hit among the labs this year. Each morning, within minutes of the Moscone West doors opening up, there was a long line extending around the corner waiting for the UX lab to open. People waited in line literally for hours to get a UX review. I guess word got out this year about how good those reviews were. I know I saw several people raving about them last year. In general, I think people have really started to grok the fact that the labs represent an incredible opportunity to get questions answered by the people who really know the answers. If you're having a problem or an issue with a certain part of the system, likely you can find someone who actually works on that part of the system to answer your questions.

As for MartianCraft, we gave out all of our away team shirts pretty quickly this year. Sorry to those who wanted one but didn't get one. We way underestimated demand for the shirts and just didn't have enough with us to give them to everyone who wanted one. We'll be better prepared next year, and we're looking into making the shirts available online for anybody who's interested, but that probably won't happen until we've dug ourselves out from the hole that got created as a result of all three of us not working for a week.

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Posted in: Conference,WWDC

Grand Slam!

Apple has set a new record for WWDC video avialability this year, getting them out not even a week after the event ended. Amazing.

Even more amazing, they're not selling them this year. Registered developers can access them for free. Want to know what all the fuss is about with Xcode 4? Go watch the videos.

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Posted in: Apple,iOS SDK,iPhone SDK,WWDC

WWDC 10 Update

Well, we're well into the second day at WWDC and it is, as always, amazing, exhilarating, exhausting and, most of all, fun.

Unfortunately, there's not a heck of a lot that I can report on. Other than the keynote yesterday, which was heavily covered by both liveblogs and technical media. The iPhone 4 looks amazing. I haven't seen it myself, but I've talked to several people who have and without exception they just gush over the it, especially the screen.

But there's stuff going on here that's got me so much more excited than even the new phone. A lot of really smart people at Apple have been working very, very hard to give developers some really cool stuff and I just wish I could share it, because they really wowed me and many others I've talked to.

It's an exciting time to be an iPhone iOS developer.

Update: Okay, it's Xcode 4, it's not available to non-attendees, but it has been announced, so I can say what it is that has wowed us. Apple has completely revamped the developer tools with a new workflow. The current beta is still unfinished, but it's extremely impressive.

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Posted in: conferences,WWDC

MartianCraft Away Team

This is a teaser photo of part of the MartianCraft T-shirt that Rob designed for WWDC. We've got a small assortment of these to give away at WWDC. We haven't yet figured out how we're going to decide who gets to be red-shirts on our Away Team, but we'll get it figured out before Monday, and hopefully it won't require you to embarrass yourself too badly.

I'll post some more pictures as we get closer to WWDC.

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Posted in: MartianCraft,WWDC

Almost WWDC

Well, it's the Thursday before WWDC and, as always, I'm swamped yet super-excited. The Pre-WWDC Pilgrimage is all planned. If you expressed interest, you should have received an e-mail with the details about how to pay if you want to take the bus.

I shy away from making predictions before big events because I don't have any inside information and I'm likely to be more wrong than right with anything but the safest predictions (like a new model iPhone being announced). However, I do think there's something big this year that hasn't leaked yet. Something completely unexpected. Chances are, if there is, it will leak the night before the keynote. The number of people who find out about new projects increases exponentially in the 24 hours leading up to the actual presentation, and leaks become nearly impossible to prevent at that point, but I have a gut feeling there's something we haven't heard about yet, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it might be.

Of course, I think a new iPhone model is almost a foregone conclusion, and perhaps some moderate hardware refreshes on the Mac side, though I think the focus of this WWDC is clearly going to be the iPhone OS. We might see a price drop, speed bump, or something similar on the Mac side, but I don't think we're going to see any Mac line completely refreshed or much time devoted to the Mac in the keynote. It's within the realm of possibility that the Mac Mini, which is sorely overdue, or the Mac Pro, which is also sorely overdue, to get revamped, but probably not. I expect Steve to spend a fair amount of time giving us details about how many iPhones and iPads have been sold, how many applications have been downloaded, and whatnot. I expect to hear more about GameCenter and to see some silly montage about some developer's success story with the App Store.

I've seen rumors about a iPhone OS-based AppleTV. Maybe. Steve's comments at D8 might have been the sort of mis-direction he's known for, and the AppleTV is definitely in need of a refresh if it's going to continue being sold, but I think Steve was telling the truth about the subsidized TV box market, so if there is an AppleTV refresh, it's going to be combined with something else: a partnership, new business model, or something that will make it a viable, profitable product.

Steve will almost certainly have us watch a new commercial, either for the new iPhone or some other new product. If he's really excited about it, he'll make us watch it twice.

For the most part, I really don't care what gets announced. The incredible interest in the iPad and growth of the iPhone as a platform already provide me with more to explore than I have time for. I'm looking forward to sitting in the RDF on Monday with 6,000 other Apple geeks. It's an extraordinary experience watching Jobs work, especially in person. He's a master showman, and my only complaint about the last few Stevenotes has been all the time he's given to third party developers who lack his presentation skills. I really do hope there's more Steve and less awkward third-party developers on stage this year, though I suspect the format will be similar to previous years.

Last year, I didn't do the Keynote line-thing. I visited with people in the line much of the morning because I was still on East Coast time, but then I went back to my hotel and had breakfast, then went back over to Moscone West just before 10:00. This year, however, I'm going to do the early-morning geeky wait-in-line thing. My fellow Martian Rob is attending his first WWDC and I feel like the line is something you have to do your first time, and I don't him to do it alone. Besides, it is fun. And, hey, maybe there will be strippers again, because strippers never seem out of place at a developer conference, especially walking around at 6:00 in the morning in 55° weather wearing bikinis and high heels, right?

If you're going to WWDC and want to say hi, the best way to find me is to follow me on Twitter. I spend most of the day at Moscone West and am pretty easy to find. If I'm not in a session, I usually park at a table to work and tweet my whereabouts.

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Posted in: conferences,WWDC

Pre-WWDC Pilgrimage Sign-Up

If you think you're interested in traveling from Downtown San Francisco to One Infinite Loop, Cupertino on Saturday Sunday, June 6th to go to Apple's Company Store, or if you live in the area and just want to join us for lunch, please fill out this questionnaire. This does not obligate you to attend, it just will help us make sure that everybody who wants to go down, has a chance.

If there aren't enough drivers to carpool, we may look at what it would cost to charter a bus or van. We will notify everyone before we do so with the cost so people can decide if it's worth it. Hopefully, we'll be able to get everyone down without the hassle though.

Please do spread the word on your blogs and over Twitter so we can include everyone who wants to be included.

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Posted in: Apple HQ,WWDC

WWDC Trip to Cupertino Update

There has been quite a lot of interest shown in traveling down to One Infinite Loop to go to the Company Store on the Sunday before WWDC. I'm going to put something together this weekend to serve as a "signup sheet". I'm going to solicit information about who has cars and how many spare seats there are, what time people are arriving, etc. We'll give people a few days to sign up, then we'll formulate a plan for getting as many people down there as we possibly can.

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Posted in: WWDC