Well, the rule of needing to have a dev account prior to this morning's announcement may help some of us get tickets, but it's gonna be a little nuts. I like the idea that was floated on twitter: give us a simple coding quiz. A 'Captcha' for Objective-C developers. Adding to that, make the test graded. The better you do, the bigger the pool of available tickets for your percentile.
Or solve the actual problem by divorcing the media event from the developer conference, thus removing the ridiculous incentive for everyone and their mother to get a ticket for 2 hours worth of content and denying the rest of the week to people who could actually benefit from the sessions.
No, I like the general idea. Especially if not everyone gets the same questions. Given the demand vs. scarcity, there'd be enough lag in the dispersal and consumption of answers that most of the tickets would be obtained by the intended audience.
Now we can talk about who that "intended audience" is. Certainly there are some people who belong at WWDC that don't do Objective-C?
I addressed the different questions issue with "answer(s)". But I guess I need to spell it out for you.
The whole purpose of the quiz is to slow down how quickly the tickets sell, thus giving "real developers" a pool reserved for them based on them having knowledge the average person does not have.
This reservation method would be circumvented in a matter of minutes by people collecting all the correct answers on social media.
Additionally it's pretty reasonable that anyone who wants to come who doesn't themselves know Objective-C probably has a friend who can answer the questions for them in their contacts.
This is an obvious idea which would not work enough better than the current free for all to be worth the effort. That was my point with my one line response, and I thought it was pretty clear originally.
The original commenter addressed your concern about intended audience by saying there would be different tiers of tickets available. But again, this is moot because the whole idea is too flawed to be worthwhile.
The most experienced people won't necessarily derive the most value from WWDC. My personal experience is that each time I've gone to WWDC, I've learned less. There's a fixed amount of new tech that's created each year, and a large amount in the past. Newbies have ~6 years of material to learn (since iPhone), whereas veterans only have 1 year to catch up on.
The most interesting part of WWDC is going to be seeing whether the SDKs for iOS and OSX unify.
If developers can have one code base and deploy to all the Apple products (AppleTV, Mac, iPad, iPhone) it could be a real game changer for the whole industry i.e. the first multi-device platform war. I assume MS is thinking the same way (XBox, Windows, Windows Phone) with their recent moves as well as Ubuntu.
Sure. You could have a scaleable/responsive UI, separate layouts for each platform i.e. xibs or completely separate interfaces. But you would still need that common SDK.
It looks that everyone is working to that goal. But no one is sure yet.
I'm not sure it would be a disaster. If it's implemented in the same way as universal iOS apps are currently done, with separate NIBs for each platform, and if the main UI components are merged (i.e. UIButton and NSButton) then I can imagine UI development on multi-platform apps being quite easy to do, and easy to to well also.
Agreed... Last year the company paid for my ticket this year I don't think the new place I am working can afford it. Hard to decide if I should get a ticket anyways.
While the videos are available online, what are the odds you will actually watch all of them? Especially within one week?
I'd venture a guess that most of the benefit is derived from the fact that you get to focus for the entire week on taking all of this in, rather than fitting in the videos around your work/family life/etc. That, and the labs and other in-person events that won't be recorded.
You certainly don't get the chance to watch all the sessions while you're actually there due to the fact they all overlap. There's little advantage between those who did / didn't go to WWDC in respect to the sessions.
The access to engineers and networking with other developers etc is really the main reason for dropping 1500.
I felt the same way, but it's true - the intangibles you get from being there are what make it worth while. Being able to talk to the engineers and attend open labs is invaluable, and not available outside of WWDC to most people.
If you are going to WWDC to just watch the lectures then you are missing the point.
The point is to have Apple engineers look at your code, ask questions of the presenters, give feedback to Apple execs, network with fellow developers, attend the various BOFs etc.
Suggests an iWatch at $199 released July 24th, an Apple TV (two sizes) at $699 later in the year and a brand new Mac Pro. Oh and completely flat design of iOS.
Very colorful, many different colors of rounded squares, in many different sizes.
Everyone thought the design and colors of the invite was some kind of hint at a new product. There was a lot of speculation that we would be seeing iPhones in different colors (besides black and white). There was speculation that this would hint at some kind of new design trend for iOS, some people thought it had something to do with a TV, etc. And we have seen how that turned out....
Given that Ive is now in charge of UX as well he will want/need to differentiate himself from Forstall. And iOS/OSX are definitely due for a major overhaul.
It's nice that Apple offer scholarships for students wishing to attend, but it's unfortunate that they don't cover travel expenses. I would really like to apply to attend, but living in the UK and not having enough funds to travel such a large distance is preventing me.
I was fortunate enough to get two student scholarships to WWDC through the Apple University Consortium[1]. Unfortunately the AUC is no longer subsidized by Apple and doesn't issue scholarships. Both trips were life-changing. 2010 convinced me that I had to live in SF so I finished my degree to be eligible for a visa. In 2011 Dave (my now co-founder who was writing iPad games) and I hashed out what later became Minefold.
Do whatever you can to go. If you need a place to stay I've got a free couch.
If Apple wanted to, they could offer free tickets to everybody.
For example, 5,000 tickets at $1,599 each is just under $8 million, which is a drop in the ocean when you consider Apple has around $145 billion in cash.
While shareholders are rewarded with dividends and share buybacks for taking on risk, developers have to pay to take on the risk of building Mac/iOS apps.
$8 million represents %0.000055172 of Apple's cash. That looks to me like a pretty cheap way to throw a party for developers and celebrate all that they've done over the years.
And how do they distribute the free tickets? By charging, and by charging a significant amount, they can be sure that only people who really want to be there will be there, and they can be pretty certain that the people coming are developers who will directly benefit from the talks and labs.
That said, I do think they should have separate press tickets for the keynote, perhaps priced a little higher, but with priority entry or something. As a developer I'd like to see fewer tickets taken by the press, but really care about being in the main hall for the keynote.
It surely costs Apple a lot more than $8 million to have so many of their developers engaged in WWDC, both during the event and before, preparing for it.
I was thinking of applying, but you have to apply by creating an app to show off your skills. Well that's so open ended, do I put in 1 hour or 10 hours? I really can't afford to put in much time with exams and coursework, so is it worth putting any effort in at all?
Apple do this for at least some of their internships as well. I think it's a shame because I suspect it puts many students off from applying.
My first year (2008) I made a Mac alarm clock app with the unique twist that you had to enter random characters before it can be disabled.
The following year I made a Mac app that lets you compare audio files side by side.
These were apps I wanted to make anyway and I just timed their release with the application period. Those were the first years the conference was selling out, so I'd estimate that competition was far less fierce.
Worth a shot, if you can afford the time, as the experience is exceptional!
I noticed this just recently. It's a shame really, they could have held the "competition" earlier in the year and given people more of a chance. People won't want to put the time in given how close it is to exam season.
I got the scholarship in 2007 and 2008, it was a great experience. In 2007 they had a deal with a nearby hotel, maybe Pickwick? I don't think they did in 2008. I'd try to beg, borrow, and steal to get there if I were you for the experience.
