WWDC 2013 – June 10-14
developer.apple.com
developer.apple.com
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?
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.
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.
MS/Win8 has shown how frustrated people get when you try to force a common UI - It's been generally regarded as a clusterfuck.
Instead, decouple your display code from your app logic, and build related, but distinct displays for each application.
It looks that everyone is working to that goal. But no one is sure yet.
It's a goddamn curve.
Nice to see they learned from last year's timing.
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.
The access to engineers and networking with other developers etc is really the main reason for dropping 1500.
And meeting people, having a good time, etc.
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.
But it's been great timing for a new Mac Pro for a long time.
http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/calendar...
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.
Check out the design of last year's invite: http://macosrumors.com/2012/04/25/apple-wwdc-2012-june/
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....
Guess I'll have to wait!
Apply and worry more about funding your travel once you get accepted.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Do whatever you can to go. If you need a place to stay I've got a free couch.
[1]: http://auc.edu.au
let's break the record and make it 2min in 2013 :)