Concentric Sky, Inc.

Here it is! Our (belated) post about this year’s WWDC adventure. It was a high profile event and Apple did not disappoint.

Aside from the great tech talks, one of the highlights was the effort Apple put into polishing the event. The video below shows a wall of monitors - but this is no ordinary wall of monitors. This demo consists of an array of iPhone app icons dropping into place at a rate of speed that corresponds to their real-time sales. I thought the arrangement by color was a nice touch. I had the opportunity to speak with one of the engineers who worked on this and I was quite impressed with the amount of work that went into it. It was a stunning opener that made me feel really welcome at the event.

Video: The App Store Matrix

The first thing I noticed when I reached Moscone West via the path through the Yerba Buena Gardens was the huge line that started at the entrance, went down the length of the block, and turned the corner.  Fortunately I decided to go inside prior to getting in the line, which proved a good move; to get into the keynote at the front of the line the registration badge was required.  The lines are pretty much the single downside of the WWDC conference; although Apple reserves time spots near the end of the week for repeating sessions that fill up, which is nice.

Badge in hand, I headed outside and down the line to find my place at the end.  It turns out I would have been better off going the opposite way around the block, as the line nearly came all the way back to the entrance around the building.  Fortunately the lines never got nearly so long after the keynote was finished.  But the lesson was still valid: it’s worth getting to anything you really want to see at WWDC as early as possible.

The keynote was impressive. Steve Jobs is quite the showman. He has a way of getting people excited about even the smallest new features. Of course, the announcement of the new iPhone 4 was the most exciting point. Some of the other revelations are quite exciting from a development perspective, but are covered by Apple’s NDA. (If you’re curious, MacLife covered the entire presentation in great detail.)

The tech sessions at WWDC are generally great.  Some are geared for more experienced people than others, so picking and choosing the right sessions can be difficult based on your experience level.  I found that as a more experienced developer it was often a good plan to skip the first session in a multi-session series.  There are also many sessions running in parallel, only some of which repeat, so sometimes one is forced to pick between a few sessions that look interesting.  The Apple engineers at the sessions are generally the folks that are working on the code they’re discussing, so they’re certainly knowledgable. I got a lot out of chatting with them about various issues I’d run across while coding.

While the sessions are helpful, there are two more things that make WWDC a great experience: the labs (which are full of Apple engineers) and the other developers from all over the world.  The labs offer developers a place to go interact with Apple engineers on specific issues with their own code.  I didn’t come prepared to do this, so I spent most of my time in sessions.  However, looking forward to next year’s WWDC I plan to have some example projects for things I want some help with ready to go when I leave for San Francisco.  Lastly, talking to other developers in sessions, labs, and even the lines was generally a great experience.  It’s nice to hear what other people are working on, what problems they’ve run into, and what they’re currently trying to solve. Oh, and the cupcakes were a hit too!

All-in-all WWDC 2010 was a very worth-while experience for me and I hope to attend again in future years.  It’s great to feel like part of such a passionate development community.