[MarkHernandez]

WWDC is many things.

It's purpose is twofold... One is to inform and instruct attendees about all the latest technologies so you can build-and-go as quickly and correctly as possible, and the other purpose is to provide a rare opportunity to meet with Apple engineers and get help with your application for either the iPhone and Mac OS platforms.

The WWDC experience is both exciting and disappointing. It's exciting because you're there in geek land learning about cool stuff. It's disappointing because it's information-only and very sterile -- you attend the sessions, you eat in the giant cafeteria, you meet with Apple engineers in the labs and that's it. No vendors, no promotions, no club meetings, no special interest groups, no bulletin boards, just pure Apple. And that's understandable, otherwise it would turn into a zoo.

But there's also something wrong with the WWDC conference format, and it's showing its age because of modern technology. There are a few things that this is happening to...

MacWorld has become unnecessary for Apple to attend because in many ways you can have a MacWorld every day at the Apple Store. While it's cool on one hand to have an event like MacWorld in which everyone displays their products you can see and touch, only a fraction of the planet's people who would benefit from seeing it actually get to go there. So it's ineffective to say the least.

Online forum technology is also showing it's age, like this forum, because the software isn't self-organizing, self-searching, self-updating, and self-purging (when info becomes outdated and irrelevant), and it needs to be better meshed with files, video, blogs, WiKis, web technologies, and more.

Likewise, the WWDC conference is a format that has some severe downsides. Again, only a tiny fraction of the planet's people who would benefit from it get to attend. And if you do get to attend, you can only take in a fraction of the information presented because so much of it is presented concurrently. Apple does make the session videos available so you can catch up on what you missed, but last year they weren't available until four months later. You can't call that a way to "catch up on what you missed" when you're already a third of the way to the next WWDC.

Video technology is becoming an essential way to inform. iPhone developers now have quite a few videos to watch these days so that's a good thing.

But if video is going to be the way to inform, it should be embraced fully. It should be timely. And like documentation, it should flow freely. Furthermore, it should employ better explanation technologies, such as 3D visualizations of the software environment we work in to make it child's play to understand stuff so we can quickly move on and rise to a higher level of correct accomplishment. I mean, look at what we are all struggling with right now... Are we not reading all these "words" and watching these flat slide-show format videos to construct our own hopefully correct 3D model in our heads of the iPhone object-oriented software environment, with the constant feeling that we're missing important pieces?

Like most things, we have a mix of the old and the advanced. We still have conferences, but at least there's video that's mostly helpful, at some later date.

Once you start thinking about all this, about the extreme advantages of existing 3D explanation technology, and thinking about Apple and Pixar being so closely related, and that the subject here is computer technology, you just scratch your head and wonder in amazement. What dynamics are at play that keep many things stuck in old-school ways of doing things? How do we get those dynamics to change?

(I had a daydream fantasy about passing out little cards at WWDC that said "Ask Apple about it's new 3D Explanation Technologies!" as a way to both plant the cool idea in people's heads and get Apple to see that it's something that strikes a chord with its developers. But passing out anything of any kind at WWDC will get you kicked out in a flash.)

You've got globalization, old physical communication formats, and new technologies all coming together like three galaxies merging in space which both tear each other apart, yet form new things as a result.

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There is one other dynamic at play that should be mentioned. Let's give it a name: The Developer Competitiveness Dynamic. This is where developers are so busy struggling to just do their own stuff that they don't have the time to make the infrastructure around them any better. Another important part of that dynamic is many if not most developers subconsciously DON'T WANT to make things better for other developers because it will just slow them down and make things easier for their potential competitors. (Some don't even have the time to spell out words fully, use punctuation, write more than one sentence, or come back and say thank you. )

I see that happening in every forum, including Apple's special developer forum available only to enrolled developers (that paid their $99/79 Euro fee). It's old technology, full of unanswered questions, questions that are already answered but unfindable, and no one really having the time, energy and desire to make it all better.

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Anyway, if you couldn't make it to the conference, don't be disappointed. I'll be going again this year and I will again be both excited and disappointed. And I feel my advantage is unfair, because I live so close by.

If anyone of you guys are going, too, let me know and we can meet up, even if it's just for a second. Last year I met up with Andre from this forum and it was fun.

Mark

[MarkHernandez]

Apple also created an online forum for those attending WWDC, only viewable by attendees, for discussing meetups, transportation and hotel accommodations. It's the only place so far where attendees can talk to each other about anything. One person created a thread called "So many sessions, so little time...". It hit a chord (see above) and had a useful conversation going in it, and lasted for a couple of days and then Apple deleted it. Like WWDC, even the forums they have are sterile and benign.

Apple knows that even though the subject is the amazing iPhone platform, the conversation can devolve because of a few yeehaws who have "underdeveloped critical thinking skills." And I respect that, but there are always possibilities. There are creative solutions out there to protect the many, from the few.

But, that's what WWDC is like. You go, you listen, no talking or discussing because of what negative things might happen. That's all well and good, but then there isn't any discourse outside either. It's 2009, but our ways of having a discourse are either squelched or seriously messed up, e.g. in online forums where it seems people are talking to themselves (like me here), ignored, or like they're all talking in one big room all at the same time with great confusion.

In any case, I've trained myself to defer to Apple. When I look around at the array of computers around me, and realize how every time I turn around the Mac is the preferred platform, I'm reminded that there are A LOT of brilliant people at Apple, and they have a fundamental philosophy which has served them well over the decades. Whatever shortcoming I might see at first, I know that a lot of smart people at Apple have discussed it, and they made a decision that balances the difficult factors at play. And I know they do listen.

Somehow me and some of my friends are going to change the way we leverage our efforts and accelerate our progress when developing software, and invent something better! It's really up to us out here. Apple isn't going to do it and in many ways it's inappropriate for them to do it. Online forums are ancient and wikis are a start, but my brain sees something much better.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons people decide not to pursue the development of new ideas is because the world is full of jerks that will go and f*ck up whatever you are trying to do, and the developers spend MOST of their time building in security and safeguards which takes all the fun out of it. iPhoneDevForums is built with some of the most advanced forum software available with the tightest security, and still Mac Tyler and I have to clean out the ads for Viagra that still get through almost on a daily basis.

Mark

[MarkHernandez]

You can follow the keynote address in real time from a variety of places. Here's one of them...

Ars Technica

[MarkHernandez]

I'm embarrassed to say it, but Apple did not delete the thread "So many sessions, so little time." What happened was that it got quickly buried.

"Enrolled Developers" who've paid the fee have access to Apple's forums and they know what they look like. They're simple and minimalist, and I got confused and didn't see how you go find other posts.

Part of the problem is the design, but I think most of the problem was that I had a brain fart and I am a dork.

There were a few replies after my post and then the thread died, just like all the ones here do.

Yeah, no matter who makes it, even Apple, the "online forum" way of communicating is so 1980's and needs to be replaced.

Mark

[MarkHernandez]

Well, WWDC 09 is half over and it's been an overwhelming amount of information, even though I've only been able to attend a fraction of the sessions (like every other attendee).

I've learned that the new version of Xcode (3.2) has a number of new features that are just incredible. It's a major update. While I am under non-disclosure and can't be specific, let's just say that Apple used it's advanced capabilities to to find over a 1000 bugs in it's own code that went unnoticed. I have no idea when it will be released, possibly not until September along with Snow Leopard.

Also, Core Data is a layer on top of SQLite3 that simplifies everything. It's been ported over from MacOS so there is lots of information that already exists, but I didn't realize how insanely easy it is to use and it's very efficient too.

I'm even more convinced now that when Snow Leopard is released in September and all the other apps like Photoshop have been updated to 64 bit, Grand Central compatible and utilize OpenCL, Apple will be pointing out that you literally own a supercomputer. It will be no sweat for your MacBook Pro to churn a quarter of a tera-flop. They showed an 8-core Mac Pro doing over a teraflop.

The iPhone already does so much. Just wait for peer to peer gaming with chat starting to crop up everywhere. The video capability is amazing too. The compass will just take things to the next level.

Too bad about AT&T. They just can't keep up with Apple. Tethering was announced last November and they still don't have a due date. I'm tired of doing dial-up at my mom's house!

Mark

[MarkHernandez]

Well, the conference is over. I'm sure after I'm away from the "reality distortion field" that I've been in over the last week I'll still feel that I couldn't be working with and on a platform that is as cool, powerful, and creatively and financially rewarding as the iPhone and iPod Touch platform. And, really, it's true. We're just getting started.

As the sign says when you walk in to WWDC...

     One Year Later, Light Years Ahead

[MarkHernandez]

Edit 6/29/09: This post is now irrelevant. Apple released the WWDC 09 Session videos just two weeks after the conference, unlike four months after WWDC 08. Thanks Apple!!! You rock!

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Here's a copy of a message I sent to Apple regarding the prompt availability of the WWDC '09 session videos. After talking to some engineers at the conference, I have every confidence that the session videos will be made available much sooner this year than last.

But what is interesting is to think about how information and knowledge is transmitted....

Mark

===================================

Everyone agrees that Apple’s WWDC sessions are well thought out, excellently presented and first-class in every way. But they’re like books which are being read to us quickly without the ability to pause, rewind or later re-view. And all the rest of the sessions we cannot attend are like books we can only see the covers of and read the inside flap.

When we’re attending a session, our retention of the information is going to be something like, what, 30% or less? And for each attendee, they’ll only be able to attend 30% or less of the sessions they know (right now) they need to see at WWDC. So 30% of 30% is...

While the sessions themselves are all about teaching us how to code correctly and efficiently with the intent of getting those features into our apps, the method used to get that information into attendee’s heads is seriously inefficient.

The solution, of course, is access to the session videos, which returns WWDC’s effectiveness back up to near 100%.

But if we have to wait four months to get them, like last year, the effectiveness of WWDC drops way back down again.

The pressure on iPhone developers in particular is increasing exponentially now with 50K apps in the App Store and the rapidly increasing number of features and APIs. Even within WWDC there’s a bit of unfair advantage afforded between attendees depending on what sessions one saw and another did not, without timely access to the videos of the sessions that we were forced to miss by the very nature of a conference with parallel tracks.

Please make the session videos available to attendees as fast as possible after the conference so we can work more quicky, efficiently and independently.

And thanks so much for the excellence of the conference sessions and the attention to every detail.

Mark Hernandez
Information Workshop

[MarkHernandez]

What I said!

Woo hoo!!!

And only two weeks after the conference, not four months later like last year. Way to go Apple!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

So if you attended WWDC 09, you can go into the Developer Connection website and at the top click ADC for iTunes and it will show you the additional conference videos.

If you did not attend WWDC, then supposedly the videos will be available for sale, and an announcement regarding that will be made probably only in the section of the iPhone Developer Connection for "paid" developers.

Mark