I have been wating for a long time to get a ticket to this amazing experience as Apple Developer. The lottery is a complicate method to win a ticket, but fortunatelly, I’ve won one, and that was my experience.
The first handicap was the money. From Spain is a long trip to San Francisco and the price of this trip is really expensive. You need to add the hotel, really really expensive too, and finally your daily expenses. All this money needs to be added to the ticket, around $1500. In summary, a lot of money, and you need to be sure about this experience.
I arrived in San Francisco on friday, and after I’d left my bags in the apartment, I went walking around the city, but the jet lag and the long trip made me feel really tired, and I went to sleep early.
On saturday, I woke up with time to enjoy the city and take time to visit the highlights, but with calm, because I have been to San Francisco two times before. San Francisco is a really enjoyable city, and I recomend walking and walking around the city, but at this point, I founded the second handicap, the Homeless.
I can’t stop thinking in this situation. San Francisco is a city with a lot of companies like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Oracle, etc… and a lot of people are earning a lot of money with this jobs, but the streets are crowded of homeless, it’s insane. I stayed in an apartment near the Moscone and the Civic Center, a great apartment but with scary streets. Every day a found in the morning dozens of homeless sleeping, drunk… a really sad situation. They never bothered me, but it was shocking to me and made me feel worried walking in this streets at night. But, as I told you before, I hadn’t any problem.
Ok, now I started with the main topic, the WWDC. On monday the WWDC started as usual with the Keynote. I went two hours before to the queue and I sat on the second floor. The Civic Center is a big building, but I didn’t have any problem to see the conference. I think you can go one hour before the keynote starts and you wouldn’t have any problem.
My experience with the Keynote was amazing. I know, maybe I’m a fanboy or wathever, but it was like a dream, watching the conference in person and enjoying with the amazing environment. A great experience to start this week.
After the Keynote, I went to eat to the park a menu provided by Apple, and then I returned to the Civic Center to see the Platforms State of the Union. A better explanation to the developers to know better the new feattures on iOS 10.
I could go after de Platfomrs State of the Union to the Apple Design Awards, but I prefered to go to the Xamarin party in the Twitter building. A nice experience with the Microsoft people developing to the iOS platform. Really nice office and great party before the conferences.
On tuesday, the WWDC starts, and the Moscone Center was my new home. I spent eight or nine hours every day in this building learning tips and understanding the new feattures from iOS 10. Some conferences were really interesting, and others not at all, but in general, I learned a lot of things, and I met people like me, that they are enjoying their jobs.
The conferences in general were greate but more interesting than the conferences were the labs, a place where you can get help about especific problems with your app. I recomend you that brings the idea clear to explain, because the queue is long and you need to have the problem ready for the Apple staff.
I found out too late the possibility to take the lunch in the main stage while you are attending a TED’s conference style. These conferences were really interesting. If you aren’t too tired to keep in the room, you should attend this kind of conference.
After the daily schedule, you can go to lab room, and attend to a conference where you meet people interested in the development of social apps, like apps to people with disabilities, or apps for the sport, for the business… this is a really great way to meet people and stay focused in some kind of apps that maybe you’ve never thought about it.
While you are in the Moscone Center, you will feel really confortable because of the awesome staff of Apple working on this event. They help you all the time to find your conferences or anything that you need, besides you find coffe, coockies, fruits to stay confortable before and during the conferences.
After all these explanations, I only can tell you that this has been an awesome experience. Is expensive, is tiryng, you can watch the conference from home… but, if you love developing for the Apple devices, this is an amazing experience to live at least one time in your life. I hope we will see you next year.