“Apple holds one developer event each year, the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC),” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “It’s great, but tickets are at a premium, not every developer can make it to the show… Not only this, but the scale of Apple’s business has grown to a vast extent. It now provides so many products and services that even a two-hour keynote speech just isn’t enough space for it to explain all its plans.”
“There is life beyond Cupertino (and San Jose),” Evans writes. “Today’s Apple developer community crosses international borders, straddles multiple cultures and identities.”
“Perhaps it’s time the company… began a new global developer conference closer to where tomorrow’s technology is going to emerge from,” Evans writes. “WWDC India? WWDC China? A return to one of NeXT’s spiritual homes, with WWDC Paris?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Each ticket to attend WWDC costs 1599 United States dollars (“USD”) and includes access to five days of sessions, hands-on labs, and special events. Tickets are non-refundable. Due to limited availability, tickets are allocated through a random selection process. More information here.
Problem is they can’t have valuable hands-on staff creating those products and services going all year long and prepping for multiple global WWDC’s. They would have to have a full time staff dedicated to this and they would have to work in close association to the actual doers in Cupertino. It’s a good idea if it can be managed.
Why not use that money on a new MacBook ?
I’m just saying, from a normal, average, kinda guy.
Paris?
Barcelona?
Sao Paulo?
Johannesburg?
Singapore?
Hong Kong?
Mumbai?
Any and all would help extend APPLE’S reach.
Management is a problem. As one poster just suggested, maybe Apple is going to need a full-time conference planning and management team.
Why not? They have the resources and capabilities and they would be well served by helping developers in small foreign startups that they support them as well.
No a full time staff to do that is a waste of time.
How about a full time staff to work on Macs ?
Is a web based world why not have these online?
Apple is developing VR in order to be able to have multiple VR WWDCs worldwide capability.
all the talks are available online to registered developers after the wwdc..
“Today’s Apple developer community crosses international borders, straddles multiple cultures and identities.” So maybe a transgender Aborigine WWDC? Or a disabled minority WWDC?
I have had my differences with Johnny Evans, but this suggestion makes some sense, particularly because Apple has ceased attending some other public venues over the years.
For example, Apple could hold roughly one WWDC per quarter anchored by the one at the new Apple HQ each year. The others would rotate among six to nine other locations distributed across the world. That would result in each spot getting a WWDC every two or three years.
Many companies participate in numerous events across the world each year. I think that a company like Apple can afford to organize four of them.
I don’t think that’s really practical — at least not at the direct engineering involvement of the current WWDCs.
The engineering staff that supports WWDC (and it’s a significant fraction of the Apple engineering staff, which has always been one of the best things about WWDC) allocate over 80 hours in preparation, attendance, developer interactions (Q&As, hands on support, presentations, etc.), and wrap up for each WWDC. That’s not bad, effectively two weeks of effort out of 52 in the year (actually out of about 47-48 a year when vacation, holidays, sick leave, etc. are taken into account).
Now quadruple that. Apple really can’t afford to have key engineering staff take 8 weeks (almost two months) out of 48 or less every year just to support four developer conferences a year. That’s 1/6th of their time. That’s way too big a hit.
I prefer the idea of a reduced fee (10-20% of the in person fee) for those who attend — live — over the web. They can see presentations live, submit questions live, etc. Many developers would do the online experience rather than pay full price (plus travel costs) to do an online experience if it were live and interactive. For those that move from in person today to online/live in the future there would be two waiting in the wings to take their place in person. Plus, Apple would certainly get more developers directly involved through a combination of in person and online/live.
Paris? In order to get gunned down or run over by some Islamic extremist terrorist? No thanks.
You should try it.