Speaking at MDevCon

I'm proud to publicly announce my first speaking opportunity of 2012. I'll be speaking at MDevCon in Amsterdam this year on March 10th. This will be my first trip to Amsterdam and I'm incredibly excited to have the opportunity. I'm so excited, actually, that I'll be staying in the city for several days after the conference to hang out in Appsterdam and visit. When I know exactly which days I'll be in the city, I'll let you know.

I have one other conference that I've already agreed to speak at this year, but that one hasn't been publicly announced yet, so I can't spill the beans quite yet, but I'm equally excited about that one.

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Posted in: conferences,iOS,Speaking

Update on UpdateConf

Just wanted to let you know that I'm speaking at another conference. I'll be speaking at the inaugural UpdateConf in Brighton, UK on September 5th.

As part of the conference, I'm also giving a two-day intensive workshop on OpenGL ES. The workshop assumes no prior experience with graphics program, but will be fairly fast-paced and will cover a lot of ground because there's a lot of new ground to cover. I'll be going over the new GLKit and the incredible new OpenGL debugger as well as the updated OpenGL ES Instruments templates.

 Not interested in OpenGL ES? There are four other two-day workshops going on with some really awesome instructors. Marcus Zarra is doing a two-day workshop on Core Data, Drew McCormack is doing a workshop on Core Animation, Sarah Parmenter is doing one on iOS UI design, and Remy Sharp is doing one on HTML5 for mobile. The worst thing about giving this workshop is that doing so will prevent me from going to one of the other great workshops.

The conference proper has a number of speakers, including the workshop instructors and it's really shaping up to to be quite a conference, and also quite a steal at £99 for early bird tickets to the conference (the workshops are extra). You can sign up for the conference on EventBrite.

 Hope to see you there!

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Posted in: conferences,OpenGL ES

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

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

MacBook Air 11" as Dev Machine

I just got back home from Seattle, where I went to attend and speak at Voices that Matter. The VTM folks put on a great conference, as always, and I'll have more to say about that in future blog posts. But, I wanted to quickly address a question I've been asked numerous times this weekend both over Twitter and in real life. That question was "how productive were you able to be with just an 11" MacBook Air?"

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that after years of using Apple's biggest and most powerful laptops (17" MacBooks and 17" PowerBooks before that), I bought Apple's smallest, least powerful one. This weekend, I decided to experiment by traveling very light. Besides the MacBook Air, my computer bag had an iPad2, a Clear 4G+, the various cables and power cords for those devices, and a mechanical pencil, nothing more. My entire bag weighed 6 pounds, which was quite a change from the monstrosity I usually have with me when I travel to conferences. With a larger computer comes a larger bag with more room for storage that inevitably gets filled with things I might maybe possibly need.

So, how'd it work out?

Absolutely perfectly. Despite being considerably less powerful, the 11" MacBook Air rarely feels slow thanks to the SSD. Certain things take noticeably longer (compiling large applications), but the vast majority of day-to-day tasks feel downright snappy.

The screen is small, but it's a pretty high pixel density, so it's not quite as confining as you might expect. With a few changes to my coding habits, which included going from Menlo-10 to Menlo-9 as my coding font, and committing the Xcode key commands to to hide and show panes to memory, I quickly settled into a workflow that worked really, really well for me.

There may have been a very slight hit to productivity, but it wasn't bad, and it was more than offset by the fact that I could use the laptop anywhere, even sitting in coach. My 17" MacBook Pro is basically unusable in coach if the person in front of me reclines their seat. And the person in front of me always reclines their seat. I got a solid 4 or 5 hours of coding in yesterday that I wouldn't have gotten with my bigger laptop.

So, yeah. It worked out great.

A couple of times this weekend, I was also asked a related question, which is "could you use it as your main development machine?".

The answer to that is "I could, but probably wouldn't want to". However, that's because of factors that probably don't impact most developers. The nature of several of our clients (sorry I can't be more specific than that) means that a lot of our mockups and images come to us as very, very, very large Photoshop files with lots of layers. I regularly have to deal with Photoshop files that are a gigabyte in size or larger.

If it weren't for that, and my occasional dabbling in 3D graphics programming, I definitely could use this machine full time. In fact, an 11" MacBook Air with a 27" Apple display, would be a very capable iPhone dev machine for most developers, though I would definitely buy the "ultimate configuration" if you are looking at getting one.

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Posted in: Apple,conferences,MacBook Air

Voices that Matter Seattle

This is just a reminder that Voices that Matter Seattle is this coming weekend. I'll be presenting on iOS Multitasking on Sunday morning. I'm really looking forward to it. It looks like there's still space available if you're free this weekend.

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Posted in: conferences,Speaking

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

Voices that Matter Seattle

So far, 2011 has been pretty light for me in terms of speaking. I do, however, have one speaking engagement lined up for this year: I'll be speaking at Voices that Matter in the land of Mordor Seattle on April 9th and 10th. If you're interested in going, early bird pricing ends on February 25.

You can use the speaker code SEASPK2 to get $100 off.

There's a great speaker lineup for this conference, including Andy Ihnatko.

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Posted in: conferences,Speaking

Presentation Slides

For those who weren't able to attend, here are my presentation slides from the Voices that Matter conference last month in Philadelphia. The first talk I gave was on Multitasking on iOS 4 (PDF | Key), and my second one was a high-level Introduction to OpenGL ES 2.0 (PDF | Key).

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Posted in: conferences,Multitasking,OpenGL ES

Voices that Matter Philadelphia

Just wanted to let you know that I will be speaking at the next Voices That Matter iPhone Developer Conference in Philadelphia, PA which runs from October 16 and 17th. I was originally asked to do a talk on 4.0 Multitasking, which I will be doing. I've also recently been asked to give a second talk on OpenGL ES. I've agreed to do that presentation as well, and now I have a few days to decide on the specific topic and audience and to write up the abstract.

I was thinking of doing a "from 1.1 to 2.0" kind of talk, exploring the differences between the fixed and programmable pipeline and trying to explain some of the more daunting concepts of the programmable pipeline. The goal would be to make the jump from 1.1 to 2.0 (which Apple is pushing) less scary.

I'm not sure if that's a topic with broad enough appeal, though. Are you going to VTM? What would you like to see from an OpenGL ES talk?

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Posted in: conferences,OpenGL ES,Voices That Matter

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

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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Can't Make it to WWDC? Go to NSConference Mini!

I really should have mentioned this earlier. The late announcement of WWDC this year made it difficult or impossible for many European developers who normally come to WWDC to make it this year. As a result, Scotty of the Mac Developer Network has decided to hold an "NSConference Mini" in the U.K. the same week as WWDC. It's a one-day conference being held in Birmingham, UK on June 11th (the final day of WWDC).



As you probably know, I will be going to WWDC. But I'm also a big fan of NSConference. If you can't afford to make the hop across the pond or, for any other reason, didn't get a ticket, you should give very serious consideration to buying a ticket to NSConference Mini. I can virtually guarantee that the sessions will be informative and the company will be excellent. Scotty and his crew do a really great job in every way.

It looks like the details are still firming up and attendees will get to vote on which of the proposed sessions will be included, so if you want a say in the agenda, it's better to sign up sooner rather than later.

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WWDC First Time Guide, 2010 Edition

Today, WWDC was announced. It's never been announced this late, so there's not a lot of time to prepare. On the other hand, there's a lot less time to wait. Because of the iPad, I'm expecting there to be a fair number of first timers at WWDC again this year, so I thought it was worth updating and re-posting my WWDC First Time Guide from last year.

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

Updated May 5th with two additional recommendations taken from the comments.

1. Arrive on Sunday or Earlier. Registration is usually open most of the day on Sunday. You really, really want to get your badge, bag, and t-shirt on Sunday. The line for the keynote will start forming many hours before the doors to Moscone West open up on Monday. If you do not have your badge, you will almost certainly end up in an overflow room for the Keynote and may 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 you 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 edumacated. Sure, you'll still be able to attend the after-hours and unofficial goings-on (except 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. They're not supposed to, 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 probably 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 two or three 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 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 usually 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. The Harlot at 111 Minna is a common place for official parties, as are Jillians in the Metreon, and the Thirsty Bear on Howard. For informal gatherings, Eddie Rickenbockers, the Chieftan, the House of Shields, and pretty much any other bar within stumbling distance of Moscone West. 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, but it takes a little while before they become available, so the things you need to know now, write down. Last year, the videos took less than a month to come out, so hopefully they will be just as fast this year, but even so, make sure you write down the information you need immediately.


6. Buy SubEthaEdit Last year, people started taking communal notes using SubEthaEdit, an awesome collaborative note-taking tool, and it worked out really, really well. My notes from last year 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. SubEthaEdit pays for itself in one WWDC, especially considering you can see notes being taken in other sessions, not just your own. Note: I've been informed that Panic's Coda is also compatible with SubEthaEdit's colaborative note taking


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 (that example is from personal experience - those guys are awesome, by the way). It's unstructured, hands-on time with the people who write the frameworks and applications. People start remembering the labs later in the week it seems, but early on, you can often get an engineer all to yourself.


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 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. Last year, people started lining up at midnight the night before (again). I'm typically on East coast time and usually walk over around 4:15 to see what's going on. Two years ago, I stayed and became an insane person myself and did the whole line thing. Last year, I visited for a while and then went and had breakfast. If you're not in line early, you will still see the keynote, though you may be in an overflow room watching it on a big video screen. If you straggle too much, they may start before you get in the room (happened to me last year).
    
    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 1,500 or so). On the other hand, you'll actually get a better view in the overflow rooms unless you get there 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. 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, or moderately-comfy chair. 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.


15. 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 overwhelmed twitter during the keynote. Last year it fared okay, though there were some delays and hiccups.


16. 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. 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.


17. 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. It was the Cake last year, Bare Naked Ladies the year before. 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.


18. 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 whole wad early in the week.


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


20. 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, which 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 didn't happen last year.


21. 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 get off at the Powell Street station and walk up 4th street. Moscone West will be four blocks up the hill on your right.


22. 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 cold 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.


23. 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 will 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.

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

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iPadDevCamp NYC April 16-18

iPadDevCampNYC will be held in New York city from April 16 through April 18 at the AOL New York offices. The non-profit event is inspired by MacHack, BarCamp, and SuperHappyDevHouse, and will be three days of hacking combined with social events, speakers, sessions, and panels. Large chunks of time are devoted, of course, to coding on the iPad.

Sounds like a great opportunity to meet other iPad devs. If you live in the NYC area, you might want to check it out. It's only $50 for the entire three-days.

Unfortunately, I can't attend, but if I lived closer I absolutely would.

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Posted in: conferences,iPad

NSConference

I had intended to do a full writeup after my experience speaking at NSConference Europe, but with all the travel I've been doing lately and all the work that built up as a result, I just never got around to it. Now that the US edition of NSConference has come and gone, I don't want to miss writing up my feelings.

To put it bluntly, Scotty and his small crew (Tim, Robert, Dave, Claire, Lyndia, and (of course) Simon - did I miss anyone?) did an absolutely fantastic job both times, as did all the other speakers. I think I saw all the presentations at one conference or the other (and several at both), with the exception of Andy Finnell's, which is unfortunate, because people were absolutely raving about it in the U.K. Unfortunately, Andy wasn't able to speak at the U.S. conference, but I'm looking forward to seeing it on video.

Prior to the European conference, I had only met Scotty twice, once at WWDC, and then again in SFO as I was leaving WWDC for home. Scotty was heading to Atlanta to scout out locations for a new American edition of NSConference. I had only ever heard good things about NSConference, so I jumped at the chance to speak when he asked.

The funny thing is that my trip to England went wrong in nearly every way it could. I ended up at the conference with no clothes except what I wore on the plane, no shoes (only fuzzy slippers because it was a red-eye), and with a very severe case of jet lag. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have gotten the impression that I was having a miserable time.

Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the travel difficulties and inconveniences, people were bending over backwards to help me. The official conference crew are some of the nicest and most genuine people you'll ever meet. The attendees were just about as nice. I had a great time talking with so many people, and I can't recall a single moment I didn't enjoy. Heck, nobody even made any negative comments on the backchannel about the fact that I could barely keep my eyes open during my first presentation, or that I was giving my presentation in sweat pants and fuzzy slippers.

The sessions were great, and I honestly felt a little like I didn't belong on that speaker list (but, hey, I'm not complaining). Several of the speakers were introducing relatively new open source projects, including Aaron Hillegass' BNRPersistence, a lightweight persistence engine that uses a key-value store (Tokyo Cabinet by default) rather than a relational database and Marcus Zarra's ZSync an awesome looking framework for syncing data between Mac and/or iPhone applications. Drew McCormack, a core member of the Core Plot team also showed off that great framework's capabilities at the end of his presentation.

All of the sessions sparked good (and often lively) discussions and more than a few in-jokes, including many about KVO, delegates, time machines, and the mothers of all speakers with the last name of Lee. Most of the jokes would be hard to explain if you weren't actually there, but the fact that the group became so quickly comfortable enough together for these kinds of in-jokes to evolve really says a lot about the tenor of the conference. It really was the coming together of a community. In many ways, it felt like family. Hanging out was fun and you honestly felt sad when it was time to retire to your room for the evening (or morning, as it was).

I can't recommend NSConference more highly. Whether you're a professional or just a serious hobbyist, you really should plan ahead for next year's conference. The information you'll get is great, but more importantly, the connections and friendships you'll make will be invaluable. Plus, you'll have a blast.

I'll be back next year whether I'm asked to speak or not.

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360 iDev Conference, San Jose 2010

I am very sorry to report that I have had to back out of going to 360 iDev San Jose due to some personal commitments that have arisen. I'm very bummed about this. John and Tom put on a great conference (you should go), but I have a conflict in my personal life that I simply cannot get out of.

Hopefully I can make Denver in the fall. But, seriously, you should go.

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Posted in: conferences