Attending WWDC 2022
May 19, 2022 • Extra Ordinary
I am very excited to announce that I will be attending Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, WWDC 2022, on June 6 at Apple Park in Cupertino, California.
Traditionally a week-long event in the San Jose Convention Center, WWDC went to an all-online format starting in 2020. Many have said the online format is better, many others have missed the in-person event for meeting up and networking.
This year is even weirder: Apple is hosting “a special all-day experience at Apple Park” with select invited developers and students “to watch the keynote and Platforms State of the Union videos alongside Apple engineers and experts, explore the all-new Developer Center, and so much more.” This appears to be a compromise where everyone can watch sessions and book meetings with engineers online, and (a randomly chosen sample of) the developer community can meet up and network.
There are some outstanding questions that even I, someone attending this event, do not have the answers to, as of today, May 19:
- What is the Developer Center? Apple casually drops that in the announcement as if it is something we know, but this is a new part of the campus.
- Is it just the randomly selected developers and chosen students? Are the top names in the Apple press community invited, or am I going to be the only blogger there?
- What will the gift bags include?
These questions and many others will be answered in my coverage of the in-person event for Cult of Mac. My thoughts on the announcements will be here on Extra Ordinary later that week. Follow my writing on Twitter to stay updated.
What does this mean for next year?
This strikes me as a small-scale test of what Apple plans to do in future years. In 2023, I bet the sessions will continue to be prerecorded and released online. The one-on-one meetings with Apple engineers will, at the very least, continue to be available to everyone remotely. Whether these have the option of taking place in person depends on how long future in-person events will be.
Monday, the day of the Keynote and State of the Union, will play more like a big Apple Event. The full roster of press will be invited, randomly-selected independent developers and students can attend for free, the wider community of developers can pay for a ticket.
The jury is still out on whether I will be a published developer by then.