WWDC Wrap-Up

Since I can’t talk about anything I saw (at least, I can’t go into any further detail than has already been publicly explicated on apple.com), I’ll agree with someone and criticize a different group of people. Here it goes:

The Agreement

WWDC is a developer conference. Aimed at developers. Who develop software. Those of us who are developers are freaking amazed at all the great stuff that’s in Leopard. Guess what, we can’t talk about it. So, you’re going to see a lot of opinions from people who aren’t here and have only an uninformed opinion…

Yes, Steve didn’t announce any new consumer products. Here at the developer conference. Wow. What a shocker. I really expected Slash and/or Edge to come out and sing us a song and announce a new iPod bundle, or at least give me a close shave. (Seriously, “Edge?”) (via Wil Shipley)

Indeed, this conference was a bit less of the media circus than last year’s WWDC (Intel switch, anyone? No one could talk about anything else!). The advantage of this is that Apple engineers were able to individually explain, in depth, the technologies on which they have been working since last April. We all develop different kinds of software, and different technologies are of varying levels of interest depending on what our product is. And, this year, no one issue dominated the conference to the exclusion of everything else, like last year’s Intel bombshell.

O, Woeful Criticism

Holy smokes, the security staff at Moscone West are assholes. They’re a blemish on the otherwise pleasant experience of WWDC — imagine, you are busy talking about some new idea and some fat woman, smacking her gum, leans into you and yells USE THE OTHER DOOR. TURN YOUR BADGE AROUND. YOU CAN’T USE THIS ESCALATOR. And they are so obsessed with crowd control that they are more than willing to step into a conference session and talk louder than the presenter: MOVE TO THE FRONT OF THE ROOM PLEASE, THERE ARE MORE SEATS OVER HERE. Dickhead, we are 45 minutes into some serious performance-optimization shit, and we’re all trying to concentrate. It is pretty pitiful when the audience has to yell shhhhh at the security staff.

Let’s face it, WWDC is expensive and we engineers aren’t really used to being treated like cattle. Every time I have to turn my badge around (hint: next year, print double-sided badges) or walk 300ft out of my way to go use some specific door, or some special escalator, I feel more like a chump for having shelled out $1400 of company money so that I can be bossed around by overweight rent-a-cops.

I’m not sure how best to communicate this to Apple, I thought about filing a Radar bug, but that seems too smart-alecky. We’ll see.

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Published:: 8.11.06 / 12pm

Category:: Programming

Hub 8.15.06 / 7pm

You could still file a feedback form on ADC. It seems to be read be people as I have gotten answer, even if unsatisfactory. Link them to the public post you made here.

That’s what I would do.

toxicsoftware.com » Obligatory WWDC Wrap-Up and Leopard Analysis 8.16.06 / 9pm

[…] Everyone else is doing it so I figure I ought to. […]

Chris 8.17.06 / 3am

As a member of the press I had to be escorted everywhere. I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to stand outside, I couldn’t go to the press room unaccompanied, I was even taken to the toilet and back. The guy waited at the wash basins and had to radio for permission to take me back to the press room. Security was mentally tight. What did they think I’d see there that I wouldn’t see on the net in a few days time? Still, I didn’t pay for my ticket so perhaps it’s all I deserved.

apt 8.17.06 / 8am

Seriously, I’d rethink your colour scheme:

White background, dark grey text I can live with…

But making your blockquotes light grey on a white background???

I shouldn’t have to hit Ctrl, option, command & 8 to read a website

Scott 8.17.06 / 9am

Ahh! someone who thought the same — I didn’t find security that bad, but things like the campus bash was simply poorly organized –They had the apple store on campus which was the ONLY place to get souvenirs (t-shirts, pens yada yada) and they drop 4000 people off in front of it for a 4 hour event — I spent close to 3 hours in line to get the knickknacks I wanted for friends and family. Not that I missed anything in the music. (oh boy — a DJ — like yeah!) I came out of the store and had to immediately get back on the bus. At least I had dinner and a couple of beers prior to getting into line. Apple should have had souvenirs available at the conference site where they would have 5 days for people to buy things, not 4 hours.

Dave 8.17.06 / 10am

I called this out in my ADC feedback. For $1500, I expect to be treated better than I was this year. It was ridiculous. The experience was bad enough that I don’t plan on attending next year.

One day I watched them place carts full of fresh cookies out just as a session started. Then, about 10 minutes before the session ended, the food workers picked up the still full trays of cookies and took them away. WTF?

Also, what is the deal with drinks at WWDC? Last year soft drinks were almost non-existant. This year it was somewhat better in that you could possibly find one during the afternoon sessions. None in the mornings or for lunch.

David Young 8.17.06 / 12pm

So, I changed the blockquote color to be a little darker, it had always annoyed me, but this is a precanned style, so I figured I’d defer to the WP theme designer.

The Apple Campus Store always has an enormous line outside it on the Beer Bash night. I can only imagine it’s gotten worse as attendence has swelled over the last few years.

The one important beverage I thought was missing from the beverage selection was water! All that soda, no H20 except from the fountains. WTF?

Bryce M. 8.17.06 / 1pm

Yea, we found the security staff amusing…

We were told to pick up our “computers and crap” from off of the floor by one person.

And then there were the entry door badge Nazi’s - “Turn it around”, “Wear it around your neck”, “Take the map out so I can see the whole badge”. They’d only seen me 20 times that week already but still had to ask.

I had thought pre-school was over - I guess not, at least if I go to the WWDC. However, I did kinda need an afternoon nap by the end of it all.

Tyler 8.17.06 / 1pm

According to someone I spoke to at WWDC, the bottled water was reserved for diabetics only… so give the rest of us only sugared water and candy drinks so we can, you know, develop diabetes ourselves.

Anyways, while I didn’t mind the security too much, I really agree that the badges need to be double sided. Going to WWDC for my first time, and going alone, being able to actually see the badges of the people I was talking to would have been helpful in memorizing my new friends’ names.

Don’t forget to do the WWDC06 survey, I think you can comment there about the security.

Joe Maller 8.17.06 / 3pm

Hah, I was in the shushing session too. The group running the Pacific Heights room was crazy — like they were competing in the crowd control and safety olympics or something. I didn’t have problems in other rooms although the escalator management was dumbfounding.

I didn’t bother going to the Company Store this year since the line already looked to be several hours long when I stepped off the bus. In previous years I got in line early.

Overall I think (hope?) they were being restrained due to the SEC kerfuffle. When you’re under investigation it might not be the best time to spend lavishly. That, and much of this year’s show had the feel of being finished the night before. Nothing wrong with that, I wouldn’t want to try and present anything 9 months away from being finished.

All in all, I had a fantastic time in the labs and learned a lot this year.

Drew Thaler 8.19.06 / 11pm

Apple’s security has always been ridiculous. I don’t know where they find these jokers.

There is a saying about how a company’s org chart starts to resemble it’s CEO’s personality, and I think that has a kernel of truth. Maybe that’s part of the reason for the insane security people … Steve Jobs has been known to go freakin’ ballistic when people get out of line.

Speaking of security, that reminds me of something similarly kooky… right after 9/11 Apple Security stopped letting people park at the little 15-minute parking spots (sort of a semicircle that holds ~3 cars) in front of each of the buildings on the Apple campus. WTF? Oh yeah, curtailing parking … that’ll most definitely stop that everpresent danger from terrorism that they’ve constantly had at Infinite Loop. Wait… what?

Sam’s random musings » David Young on the WWDC Moscone Security Staff 8.20.06 / 10am

[…] David Young on the WWDC Moscone Security Staff: David Young […]

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WWDC Wrap-Up

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