WWDC10: The Conference
Wahey! No surprise that all content for WWDC is under NDA save for the keynote. That being said, some information is okay to reveal. So here goes.
Moscone West
Like the previous year, WWDC10 is hosted within Moscone West. It is made up of 3 levels with the first housing the labs as well as the catering service. The second level is full of halls that let Apple engineers present their sessions. The third level is one that is a huge hall on keynote day and smaller halls and a lounge areas for the rest.
Apple set up two different WiFi networks this year, one for devices named “WWDC” and the other appropriately named “iPhone”. In addition, there are places with wired LAN which provided super fast bandwidth for grabbing the latest Xcode/iOS firmware updates.
Keynote
Thanks to jetlag and over enthusiastic attendees, we got up pretty early on day one of WWDC to queue for the keynote. Sometime around 2.30am in the morning, we woke up to find out through Twitter, people have already began queueing and the queue had almost reached the width of Moscone West.
We got out of bed, the hotel and made our way down. The streets were empty and the only activity was all happening down at Moscone West.
Essential queuing tools include a computing device and a way of getting an internet connection other than WiFi. The rest will most often be provided for.
We were fortunate enough to have one of our friends in the queue already and promptly went to join him. And so began the 7 hour wait for the Keynote to begin.
For people who have never queued before, it is very different compared to doing things back home. The weather is perfect for queueing. No humidity to make things uncomfortable. Plenty of like minded people who are courteous and willing to strike up interesting conversations.
This year was also slightly more interesting due to the fact that I was helping Wilfred with the liveblogging, had back up computing devices that last really long on battery (iPad) and also a decent connection to the net other than the Apple provided WiFi.
We also had another friend pushing out his 3G connection over a WiFi sharing Nexus One.
By the time it got brighter (and the queue waiting for Starbucks started to thin), the queue had stretched all the way around the block. And along with it came the showering of free swag for the people queueing.
This year there was no free pastries but ample amounts of coffee. FastMac was also on hand to give out their awesome T-shirts.
It was rumored that the first guy in the queue started queuing the day before at about 10pm. I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that in Singapore. The weather here is just atrocious. Close to sunrise was also when the appearance of the numerous news people and vans made their presence felt due in part to Steve Jobs returning to Keynote this WWDC.
By the time I made my round about the block, Apple has started to let the VIP in. These are the people that occupy the 20 odd or so rows in the centre column of the Keynote hall (or Presidio).
After a little more waiting, they began to let us in order to reduce the line by moving us to the last waiting area before the hall.
This year, we were treated to the hyperwall again. Just that instead of a bunch of app icons rippling whenever the related app was downloaded, the icons now fall like rain.
So we sat and waited again. This time with the option to grab the food that was placed along the corridor. Did final equipment checks to make sure we are going to be able to do the liveblogging without problems.
And after more waiting, we were let into the main hall. Once again, as per last year’s strategy, we went to the right most side of the hall so that we could be about 8 or so rows from the front. Couple that with the 50mm prime lens I had, it was an easy peasy job to shoot photos.
Being able to see Steve Jobs live was something. And this year just gave me more insight into the idea of his Reality Distortion Field.
Its not that he has incredible charisma or some hypnotic power. Steve just has incredible confidence in the things he does. And it rubs off on you, especially when the announcements all have profound impact is hard to fathom if you are not a developer.
The external antenna, retina display and the gyroscope. No other company I know would pay such attention to wanting to make something better. Its not about having a product that has as many ticks on the feature chart, but about giving developers things that can enhance the user experience.
And no body does it better than Apple.
After all the announcements it was time for lunch which is then followed by the real stuff. The Keynote was for the PR people and the layman. The really cool stuff happens after during the State of Union addresses. Sadly these are NDA sessions.
Still, got to see Walt Mossberg.
Sessions
With WWDC running for 5 days, the remaining 4 days after the keynote were jammed packed with sessions about all sorts of technical information that is relevant to developers who are writing software on either OS X platforms.
These sessions are all under NDA but suffice to say it is pretty much like any lecture in an university. Where the similarities end is the quality of the presentation and the level of enthusiasm that the presenters have for their related technologies.
You would believe that Steve Jobs has made it mandatory that all Apple employees know how to stand up on stage, fiddle with keynote and talk for an hour if you had a chance to attend the sessions.
What’s cooler is that the sessions are recorded and made avaliable online for attendees along with the slides.
Finishing up, most sessions would have Q&As and contact with Apple engineers who are working on the technology you are using. Of course if your problem is something that takes a little more time, they would ask you to attend the labs.
By far, the facilities provided for attendees are the best of any conference I’ve ever attended. Super fast wireless networking as well as power points on every alternate row.
Also, there is a near limitless supply of snacks in between session to get you going throughout the sessions.
Interestingly, this year, because of the retina display of the iPhone4, all sessions with demos related to it happened in the largest hall in Moscone, Presidio. Apple managed to source for Hi resolution projectors in order to showcase the fantastic resolution of the Retina Display.
Only Presidio had such equipment.
Labs
Once again, this year I didn’t get the chance to attend the labs. Partly due to the fact that I don’t really have a shipping app that really needed help from the Apple engineers. That being said, I would have really loved to attend the UI consultation if only it didn’t require queueing way before the conference and breakfast has even started.
Still, this year’s number of labs was about 1.5 times more than they had last year, which was a good thing considering the main focus of the conference seemed to be on iOS; OS X developers need help too.
ADA/Stump/Brown bag
Apart from all the official technical stuff, what is most awesome is the extras that come with the conference. Its here you really feel the heartbeat and the culture that is everything Apple. If anything, developers can be said to be Apple’s greatest (and perhaps most temperamental) fanboys.
Apple Design Aawards
The Apple Design Awards is Apple’s way of recognizing the work of developers and rewarding them. This year’s mode of getting in is vastly different with them requiring that you are already shipping your app and it has to be on the App Store. This largely excludes Mac OS X developers and has caused a certain amount of ruckus with the developer community.
Personally though, this seemed the most logical form of competition compared to the previous year where developers actually prepare special versions of their apps specifically for ADA. Still, I lament the lack of OS X submissions.
Of note, one company won 2 awards for the only 2 games they actually have shipping. Firemint ships Flight Control and Real Racing. Pretty impressive titles and totally deserving of the win.
With clockwork precision, as soon as the ADAs were over, Apple put up signage of the winners. This would be the best recognition an App developer would ever get.
Stump the Experts
Very much in the culture of WWDC, Stump the Experts is one of the very unique events. Without spoiling too much details that you can probably read up on Wikipedia, Stump is a game show where its the audience versus the experts. The contention would be Apple trivia. If you can ask a question that the experts cannot answer, the audience gets a point, if not the experts get a point.
Its a must for any Apple fan just to experience it once.
This year was extra special to have Bill Atkinson try to stump the experts. Still, it was pretty awesome to see one of the original people that made significant contributions to the Mac.
Brown bag sessions
The brown bag sessions are another interesting fixture of WWDC. These involve special talks by companies and individuals related or sometimes not so related to developers and/or development. Since the content is under NDA, this gives companies great flexibility and freedom to present anything they want.
This year, Pixar, NASA and CNN spoke about their workflow and the technologies they use. To not spill beans on the content, these talks were all awesome and often inspiring and absolutely a must for all attendees.
Bash
No event can be complete without a party. Apple hosts the WWDC bash with food, alcohol and a band that is in their own way related to Apple. Attendees who are of the legal age (>=21) are required to get a band which will allow the caterers to server them alcohol.
Since the bash happens an hour after the last session has ended on the 4th day, there is usually a line by the time you are done with your sessions.
Its just fantastic to be amongst people who are like minded and just to strike up conversations and network.
After some food and lots of beer, a (possibly) buzzed Scott Forstall came on stage and introduced the band that will be playing this year - OK Go.
I would love to think that every band that plays at WWDC would see a spike in sales on the iTunes store once their set ends. Overall every WWDC bash I’ve ever attended just rocked my socks off.
Food
It would not be Singaporean if you don’t talk about food. WWDC provides for your lunches and breakfast after keynote day. The food are packaged and usually served cool so if you like your food warm you might wanna head out of the convention centre. San Francisco does boast of lots of fantastic food places so its not a problem to find good food.
Networking Opportunities
Of everything, the best thing about WWDC is the numerous opportunities to network with people and build relationships with people that you might possible have a chance to work for in the future.
Being able to meet the people I met was the most awesome experience I’ve ever had because they are the people I most want to work with. I never want to be stuck in box that only has the local context in mind but want to be a global minded person and WWDC has helped in more ways than I can count.
Apart from the networking opportunities within the Apple community, there are other avenues from companies that either compete with Apple or are complimentary to Apple. Along with that, there are numerous parties before, during and after the conference itself to attend to get to know more people.
I had the opportunity to attend a party thrown by Palm to market their development environment to Apple developers to show how easy it was to port their iOS apps over to Palm’s webOS. Food was served, free flow beer and Palm Pres were given up to lucky winners every hour.
Had the chance to talk to one of their directors who moved over from Symantec to handle webOS security. Overall a very eye opening event, one that you can’t really get anywhere else.
Famous last words
Every WWDC is different. Last year was special because it was my first. This year was fantastic because I finally got to meet people whom I’ve been building a relationship with since last year. That plus an actual shipping app does put lots of things into perspective.
Whatever it is, as a student it is the opportune time to go. Your ticket’s paid for so all that’s left is to deal with the remainder yourself. Not a bad deal for an experience you will probably never forget.
And there are millions of ways to remember the event by. Most noticeably would be the compilation of all the awesome music that was played at the conference. There are those from the previous years too.
I’m looking forward to WWDC11 already.
Shout outs
Met a bunch of amazing people this year, though I would’ve loved to meet more. In no order of anything,
Tools
Here’s a bunch of stuff used throughout the trip to make everything much easier.
- Expedia.com for cheap US flights
- Booking.com for accommodations
- Tripit.com for coordination of itineraries
- TripDeck for offline syncing of Tripit
- T-Mobile FlexPay SIM (500mins voice + Unlimited Data)
- Stanza for eBooks on epic long flights
- Twitter for communication
- Boxcar for instant notification of twitter messages
- iPad for super portable computing
- Mindnode Touch for mindmapping
- Subethaedit for sharing of conference notes
- Good DSLR with a fast prime lens
