
How Apple's Developer Conference Grew Too Big for Its Own Developers - Libertatea
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/why-wwdc-is-too-big/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29
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mmastrac
TBH, the same thing happened with Google I/O. It became a rush for tickets for
free devices instead of a true developer-focused event.

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jobu
The WWDC purchase process was _much_ less painful than the Google I/O process.
I didn't get tickets for either, but at least the Apple process was done
within minutes. Google took me nearly an hour of watching a progress spinner
and retrying before it finally denied me. Kudos to Apple for how well their
servers responded and not wasting my time.

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xoail
I agree. I furiously kept trying for 45 minutes for IO and finally failed to
acquire one. It was frustrating. Apple on the other hand closed it in 2 mins
but reaching out after the failed attempt was nice serendipity.

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tehwebguy
This is an interesting problem - I have a YouTube focused event called
Playlist Live and we have a similar problem.

We have three primary tiers of attendees:

    
    
      - Popular creators who perform, speak and collaborate
      - Fans of the top tier who want to take it in and get autographs
      - Up-and-coming creators who want to grow
    

The event isn't selling out in a day and our sell-out this year was only 4200
tickets, but it's increasingly difficult to offer a meaningful experience to
all three groups, especially with fans outnumbering the other groups.

This year we expanded our "Insight" track which gives up-and-comers a chance
to work with the most popular creators one-on-one and it was great! The
problem is that fans are willing to pay more than up-and-comers just to get
_access_ to creators, so charging more for Insight doesn't seem to separate
things.

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roc
Break the fan/performance thing out into a separate event entirely? Playlist
Live/Playlist Creator?

Some fans would undoubtedly still buy tickets for the 'creator' event, but
I've got to imagine their willingness to pay is mostly a function of "no other
good way" to ever get access to the creators they enjoy. If there _was_
another way, a way that was geared to their interests (performances vs
powerpoint) I'd imagine the numbers of fans willing to sit through a talk on
SEO for an autograph would dwindle.

I mean, how many _fans_ are trying to scam press passes to E3 anymore, now
that there are things like PAX?

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protomyth
At this point, I wish they would break-up the conference into iOS and OS X or
have some paid engineering support where we can facetime / screen share with
an engineer.

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pfortuny
It seems kind of weird that they (I mean Apple specifically) have not started
doing online conferences yet. We are talking bleeding-edge development, are we
not?

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rdouble
Apple makes videos of the sessions available through iTunes to registered
developers after the conference.

The main reasons to go to the conference are to network and be a part of the
spectacle.

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protomyth
> The main reasons to go to the conference are to network and be a part of the
> spectacle.

No, the main reason is the Apple engineers in the labs

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rdouble
Yeah that's true, too.

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smackfu
Honestly, if you have a limited number of something, and people know that it
sold out last time in an hour or two, and then you announce the selling time
in advance, all it takes is _slightly_ more demand than capacity, and you will
have a huge rush at the selling time.

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Toshio
Apple developers, Apple developers, Apple developers, Apple developers!

Steve Ballmer must be jumping for joy right now /s

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kunai
I absolutely despise the term "developer". It insinuates that we, hackers,
write code because we want to "develop," not because it's a fun hobby or
because we want to find practical solutions to everyday problems.

As pg put it, "'Engineer' is a kind of bureaucratic term that companies use to
refer to a programmer. 'Developer' is a slightly less bureaucratic term that
companies use to refer to a programmer."

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pfortuny
If pg has a problem with the term 'Engineer' then he's got a problem with its
meaning (which stems from 'problem solving' essentially). I'd rather be called
an engineer (an ingenious person) than a 'hacker' (whatever this means).

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bane
Could part of the problem be that adding an "engineer" to a title is also used
as a pseudo-euphemism for low ranked workers? e.g. maintenance engineer =
janitor

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pfortuny
Well, yes, if "maintenance enginner" means janitor then obviously there is a
bureaucratic problem.

