Tickets for WWDC 2013 Sell Out in Two Minutes

[bbeagle]

Exactly.... yo Bagel, your not exactly batting 1000 here, perhaps you should jus sit down. If you doubt what we say... and if as you say you actually attended one of these things you would know there are no photos on them. If you doubt that try googling wwdc badges and looking at the images. You'll find some showing them back for the last 10 years.. not one had a photo.

I must be mistaken about the photo then. I've still got my 2009 badge. I'll dig it out and take a look at it. It's been 4 years, and I've been to a lot of conventions in that time.

Seems like this whole scalping thing will continue then if there are no photo IDs on the badges and no ID checking. Why does Apple even bothering ensuring you're a developer if their badge security is so bad?

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Are you kidding me? Are you saying he is "promoting" StackOverflow?
Do you know what StackOverflow is? Obviously not.

StackOverflow is a website that pretty much every single developer has visited in their lifetime, and probably at least once a week. For developers, it is more common to search StackOverflow before searching Google. (I do admit I always use Google to find SO pages)

I've been a developer for 20+ years, I've never once visited StackOverflow except it being a result of a google search.

Google is my friend when it comes to searching the web for coding problems.

 

[dusanv]

I successfully completed the checkout (got a confirmation code) but I still didn't get a confirmation e-mail. Should I be concerned? I can call them up...

 

[Schmitty11]

Some people need to get lives.

 

[timborama]

You got your ticket or the same order confirmation that everyone else got?

Got activation code already. And activated it. #

 

[benspratling]

$1599 x 5,000 = damn!!!

For some perspective, Apple grosses that every 75 minutes. sorry... misread the financial report, 25 minutes.

 

[powers74]

Haha!

Holy cow.

 

[rmwebs]

I'm sorry this happened to you. Apple is trying and I think there will be more than just videos because the ADC page says this :

"However, you will still be able to take advantage of great WWDC content. Stay tuned for exciting announcements on videos and more".

How exactly is Apple trying? They made things worse by pre-announcing it. Other than that, its the same as always, they make the sessions available to devs.

Realistically they need a minimum of 2 US conferences a year, 2 EU conferences and 2 Asia conferences.

Thats the realistic outcome here. The OP is right. Apple are really coming across as not giving a damn about their developers.

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Some people need to get lives.

Clearly those 'some people' do have pretty damn good lives when they can spend $1599 + travel expenses on a conference.

 

[dusanv]

Realistically they need a minimum of 2 US conferences a year, 2 EU conferences and 2 Asia conferences.

You expect them to lug a good part of their developers to 6 venues around the world and still be able to release software?

 

[Ted13]

If you planned on working on some IOS applications and such, than maybe it makes sense.

You do realize it's a developer conference, right? Everyone going is planning on working on apps. $1600 is an absolute bargain for it.

 

[ctdonath]

I've never once visited StackOverflow except it being a result of a google search.

Um...that's pretty much the only way I go there, which I do several times a day. I wouldn't say "I never visited StackOverflow".

Your comment is like saying "I never go to the grocery store, except by car."

 

[carestudio]

too late for me..... all sold out.

 

[rmwebs]

The 'staff' working there are the ACTUAL Apple employees who wrote the code you're questioning. These aren't minimum wage fry people here.

Sounds like you're lying, and promoting this website, or you ended up asking cafeteria help.

Clearly you aren't a developer if you actually think he was promoting Stackoverflow. You have no idea how much of a crazy idea that comes across as.

 

[ctdonath]

The $1600 for a week's conference like this is a bargain.

For those still exhibiting consternation at the price: that's about $40/hour for training, a very reasonable - even cheap - price.

 

[conradwt]

Same thing happened to me, got all my information entered and when I hit the "Purchase Ticket" button, I got an error, kicked out to the main store page, nothing in cart, already sold out. I figured that once I was entering my information I had a spot reserved, but they apparently screwed that up. Is it too much to ask to give me a couple minutes to make sure my information is entered correctly? I guess it is.

It would have been better to have a credit card on file within their system. After login, it's a rush to get through checkout and you simply want to be clicking buttons instead of typing text.

 

[oliversl]

Thats fast! Faster than Google I/O?

 

[rmwebs]

You expect them to lug a good part of their developers to 6 venues around the world and still be able to release software?

Not at all, but theres nothing stopping them having multiple smaller conferences. There are a lot of ways of doing it. You dont have to go full blown keynote every time, a developer conference can be about having, say 20 developers on hand, doing smaller keynotes, and drop in sessions, group chats, etc. It'd be way better than just 1 conference a year. For anyone outside the US, you're looking at more like $4k to go to WWDC when you take flights, transport, food and accommodation into account.

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Thats fast! Faster than Google I/O?

Yup, IIRC Google I/O was about 7 minutes. Altho I dont think they pre-announce the launch date either.

 

[GenesisST]

For those still exhibiting consternation at the price: that's about $40/hour for training, a very reasonable - even cheap - price.

Don't forget travel and hotel accommodations for those not from SF.

I'd love to attend one day, though. The idea of a travelling show would be nice!

 

[simultech]

First time I've missed out since 2006. Server errors until the point of being sold out. The saddest part of it is missing out on the community (the main point for going apart from getting bugs fixed at the labs), but it looks like a lot of the community missed out too. Oh and stump, genuinely sad about missing that.

Sessions are all online immediately (not that they have anything very useful), and can get others to get lab help on code, and most of the community isn't going to be there - not a huge loss.

 

[lkrupp]

Thats fast! Faster than Google I/O?

What are these people thinking? Why attend a developer's conference put on by a company on its way out? Why develop for a dead platform? How can you make money on software nobody will buy because there are no customers anymore?

Sincerely,

A MacRumors troll.

 

[skellener]

Two minutes? There's something wrong with this. Sure Apple loves to brag like a rockstar, but seriously?

They either need to expand it so more people can attend or have multiple events throughout the year. There are a lot of developers that will be missing out. How much money does Apple have in the bank? They could show their devs a little love by allowing more of them to attend don'tcha think?

 

[JELaVallee]

You expect them to lug a good part of their developers to 6 venues around the world and still be able to release software?

Apple is sitting on mountains of cash that they can invest in a number of different ways and I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest that they spend some of that on bolstering their training and support-engineering staff to provide the same kind of great customer service you get from their stores to their developer community.

Multiple events, multiple venues, and the ability to support larger volumes is not ridiculous to ask and a number of other tech companies do the same for their developer communities.

 

[conradwt]

I think they should end the conference. Instead of it, they should still produce and distribute the videos/slides/example code of technical presentations.

They should also offer in-person and video conference design/technical labs for a fee based on how long the lab runs.

This combination would better serve the developer community.

First, you wouldn't able to ask questions after the standard sessions, no Apple Awards ceremony, no Stump the Experts, no Bash, no going to the Apple Employee Store to get non-Apple Computer hardware (i.e. t-shirts, shirts, and so on), and the list goes on.

Second, the video conference sounds like a good idea on the surface but they have some level of support now:

https://developer.apple.com/support/technical/submit/

Also, it isn't the same as speaking with several engineers in person with your laptop and code. Also, if you count the number of attendees + non-attendees, they wouldn't be able to scale a video conference for the many developers. It would be like trying to get Apple Support at the Genius Bar but you'll have to wait several months before they can see you. When I attended past WWDC conferences, I spent my time in sessions, labs, and networking. Thus, there was always time to sit with several engineers in a single day without much waiting in and outside the labs.

BTW, it says that they will be releasing content during the conference to registered developers. Please see the the following page:

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/more/

Thus, we might see a much faster turnaround of the videos and slides this year than previous years.

Lastly, it would be great if they would/could stream the keynote as well as the kick-off sessions (i.e. provides a high level overview of core areas) to registered developers.

 

[matt3526]

To everyone that didn't get to buy a ticket: If only Safari was snappier...

 

[tshrimp]

Like Apple, but don't care.

 

[PatrickCocoa]

Culture Club

Apple is sitting on mountains of cash that they can invest in a number of different ways and I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest that they spend some of that on bolstering their training and support-engineering staff to provide the same kind of great customer service you get from their stores to their developer community.

Multiple events, multiple venues, and the ability to support larger volumes is not ridiculous to ask and a number of other tech companies do the same for their developer communities.

A. Steve built Apple and the Apple culture around smallish (100 person) teams that are focused on one problem/project/device. The idea is that the team works like a start up and the size reduces communication problems that occur with larger teams.

B. Someone (Steve?) decided that WWDC would be staffed by actual engineers responsible for the various technologies under discussion.

Both A and B are different from most larger companies. Neither is inviolable, so if Tim Cook wanted to he could change either or both. For example, Apple could hire a couple hundred mid-level iOS / OS X developers and use them as full time trainers, traveling around the world at 3-day and week long events training up the next generation of developers.

I wouldn't have a problem with that, but it would be a big change in how Apple is run and would be the start of the segretation of employees into functional units, which would result in varous inefficiencies.