
WWDC sold out in ten hours. - sahillavingia
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/about/?soldout
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dangero
Wow. I guess I'll be at home this year crying myself to sleep.

The quickness at which this sold out prompts a few questions:

1\. I guess only small development houses are going this year because most big
companies can't get purchasing approved that fast. I know mine wasn't able to.

2\. Is it time for Apple to consider a format to allow more people to attend?
Their platform has grown 10x in 5 years, but the conference is still in the
same facility.

3\. Did Apple release fewer tickets this year to hold more tickets for their
partners? I know last year, the conference sold out quick, and that didn't
allow big companies time to react. I question if even Apple's purchasing
department could have made a purchase this quick if they were invited to
attend such a popular conference.

4\. Does this mean that people are now going to be scalping WWDC tickets?
Their value is clearly much more than $1600.

~~~
ecuzzillo
It seems to me that most of the innovation doesn't come from big companies
anyway, so why should Apple give them precedence for any seats?

~~~
whatusername
The games pushing the graphics limits of the ios hardware mainly game from big
dev houses (Think ID, Activision, etc) The software pushing the limits of OSX
mainly comes from big software house (Think Adobe or VMWare)

Despite it's success selling it's own software Apple would still have some
massive problems if either Microsoft or Adobe announced that they were no
longer developing for the Mac.

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wtn
The people at WWDC used to be cool. The last couple of years they've been
drowned out by masses of people trying to cash in on iOS fads.

A lot of companies didn't even send their programmers last year—they sent
their managers instead. The idiot managers don't even know WTF is going on.
These people aren't worth talking to.

~~~
dschobel
s/iOS fads/apple's business plan for the foreseeable future/ and you nailed
it.

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wallflower
Since the session videos will be online after the conference for registered
Apple developers (that's what they did last year - setting a new Google
I/O-pressured precedent), I think that leaves the sessions you really want to
go to, Labs, networking, socializing.

The sessions. All of them are top-notch. Learn how to write code like an Apple
engineer or think like one. They all know how to present and they all are
happy to be there.

The Labs are unbelievable. You come with your thorniest bug/problem to the
appropriate section and an Apple engineer will sit down with you to figure it
out. You might have to wait a while but they will bring in other team members,
if you have a particularly thorny issue.

When it comes to networking/socializing - just waiting in line for
sessions/talking to people next to me - I met people who had written top-
selling iPad/iPhone and/or well-known apps.

Oh, and partying. That is almost like networking but with full bar service.

Good luck and congratulations to those going, it's like no other technical
conference.

~~~
ghurlman
I/O Pressured? PDC/MIX has been doing this for a few years now...

~~~
chc
I don't know how long PDC has been doing this, but if it's quite a while now
and Apple ignored them the whole time, then that makes it _more likely_ that
Google is the one putting pressure on Apple.

~~~
ghurlman
To that same note, I think there's probably quite a few developers (like
myself) that were quite used to session videos from Microsoft conferences,
that the lack of them when switching to Apple dev seemed like a big loss.

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pcolton
Startup idea: allow people to share their conference badges during unused days
(or during any non-use times). I often can't stay an entire conference, and
usually ditch my badge. For a sold out show, would be nice to hand it to
someone else. "The AirBnB of Conference Badges"

I'm sure this goes against the badge policies, however.

~~~
seanalltogether
The last wwdc i went to experienced a sharp decline in population after the
keynote.

~~~
hamedh
that's kind of sad. you'd think people will stick around to learn stuff, not
just to say they attended the keynote

~~~
silencio
I don't know when the person you replied to last went, but I went to every
WWDC since 2007 and the sessions have only gotten more and more packed and lab
time for some popular topics even harder to come across. Granted there's
always unpopular/niche sessions with half empty rooms, but I also went to
sessions that were so packed all the available floor space that wasn't a fire
hazard was occupied.

I understand the grumbling at the idiots that buy a $1600 ticket to watch the
keynote, but I don't think there's _that_ many people that truly impulse buy
such a thing just to see the damn keynote. I've skipped out on half the
keynotes so far to sleep in and eat breakfast and show up in time for the
SOTUs in the afternoon instead, which are much more informational.

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frankus
If you happened to have added a ticket in your cart on store.apple.com it
might very well still be there (and be able to be purchased) after the
conference is sold out.

That's how I got in last year after slow management approval nearly ruined it
for me.

I lobbied extra hard for quick management approval (new company) this year.
I'll see some of you there :)

~~~
ranebo
Thanks for this, I fortunately added the ticket to my cart on my phone late
last night (I'm in Australia) and woke up this morning to the sellout. Seems
like check out all went well. Now processing so hopefully I'll be able to
repay you with a drink there.

~~~
ranebo
Just an update for anyone still reading this. Apple just rang me today to
refund my money, they received the order after all tickets had already been
allocated :-(.

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iqster
Damnit ... I really wanted to go but 1599 on my own dime was a bit too steep.
I thought I'd sleep on it but it is like they say: you snooze you lose. Oh
well .. I managed to go to PyCon and will hopefully be at Google IO.

~~~
paradox95
I hope you got your ticket for Google I/O already. It sold out in less than an
hour this year.

(I think they are still doing the competitions so if your going that route
then "good luck!")

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narsil
According to [http://gigaom.com/apple/wwdc-2011-sells-out-in-less-than-
one...](http://gigaom.com/apple/wwdc-2011-sells-out-in-less-than-one-day/)
"WWDC 2010 took eight days to sell out entirely". That's pretty impressive
assuming the same number of tickets (5000) were sold.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conf...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conference)
mentions the number of tickets being capped at 5000 for the past 2 years.

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mechanical_fish
So what's the _second_ biggest Mac OS/iOS developer conference?

~~~
wallflower
I've only heard good things about their Austin edition.

WHEN: September 11-14, 2011 WHERE: Denver, CO

<http://www.360idev.com/>

For Mac:

<http://nsconference.com/>

Props for NSConf:

<http://mattgemmell.com/2009/05/01/nsconference-2009>

~~~
zdw
NSConference USA is merging with MacTech Conference:

<http://www.mactech.com/conference/nsconference>

Last year's conference was fantastic. Has IT and Dev tracks. Highly
recommended.

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gaiusparx
I hope Apple will repeat the same event at a venue in Asia Pacific to cater
for the other half of the world. Maybe at Sydney, Shanghai, HongKong or
Singapore.

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danest
I would really love to go to one of these now that I am starting iOS in one of
my courses. I wish Apple had student tickets for this conference. :(

~~~
dooq
Apple used to offer student scholarships to WWDC (I got one back in 2003). It
looks like they no longer do that though (as of just this year).

~~~
rendezvouscp
The FAQ[1] says that “there will be a WWDC Student Scholarship.”

[1] <https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/faq/>

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kin
I find the title kind of exaggerated considering Google I/O sold out in less
than an hour.

~~~
ramanujam
Google I/O got sold out because every body who got the ticket knew that they
are going to get a latest android phone which is priced higher than the ticket
price! Definitely a big motivational incentive to hit the buy button.

Not true for all attendees but probably for a good percentage.

~~~
mrinterweb
To say that attendees know they will be getting the latest Android phone is a
little presumptuous. That'd be like saying if I wanted a new car, all I need
to do is be an audience member on Oprah.

~~~
rbarooah
Have all audience members on Oprah for the past 3 years been given cars?

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koko775
Aaaaaagh! :(

Guess I'm not going after all.

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atrain34
the only way to know about and get tickets in time is twitter. booo apple.

~~~
pohl
I saw them go on sale this morning in my rss reader, and bought one right
away. Tweetlessly.

I've always wanted to attend, but never have been able to.

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blinder2451
I bought all the tickets to sell on StubHub.com!

