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Under the Radar

73: WWDC Event Planning

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development. I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:04 ◼   ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► So today we wanted to talk a bit about the week of WWDC. This year is a departure, in many ways,

00:00:18 ◼   ► from the last years in a variety of ways. And it seems worth the opportune time to talk about it.

00:00:25 ◼   ► It's also slightly timely, because this is the week where if you are listening to this when this

00:00:30 ◼   ► episode comes out, the week of the WWDC ticket lottery is open right now. So if you are listening

00:00:37 ◼   ► to this early, you still have a chance to decide if you want to put your name in the hat or not.

00:00:41 ◼   ► If you're listening to it next week, I'm sorry, I suppose.

00:00:44 ◼   ► That should teach you to listen to your podcast promptly.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yes. It's only 30 minutes. You should be totally just, you know, the moment it comes out,

00:00:50 ◼   ► you should get a notification the next 30 minutes of your life. That's what you should be doing.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Totally. So obviously the biggest news that isn't news for this week, but is new for this year,

00:01:00 ◼   ► is that WWDC is going to be in San Jose rather than in San Francisco. And I think the pros and cons

00:01:07 ◼   ► and reasons behind that have been discussed at great length on a variety of podcasts. And we

00:01:11 ◼   ► don't need to unpack those here, but that's where it's going to be. And I think it's a big difference

00:01:16 ◼   ► for both of us, because I think all of our experiences were in San Francisco. I don't

00:01:22 ◼   ► think either of us were Apple developers back when it used to be in San Jose.

00:01:26 ◼   ► That's right. Yep.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Yeah. And so it's going to be a new thing. It's exciting and interesting for me in so far as it's

00:01:33 ◼   ► kind of nice that it's new. It's also a bit, you know, like the part of me that likes routine and

00:01:39 ◼   ► predictable things is a little bit sad because I know my way around that part of San Francisco.

00:01:44 ◼   ► I know where all the hotels are. I know where all the restaurants are, whatever I want to do.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I know my way there, whereas I've never been to this part of San Jose at all. So it's going to be

00:01:55 ◼   ► a new thing, but it's exciting and different. And honestly, I'm most glad that they are announcing

00:02:02 ◼   ► the dates early enough that made travel planning and things a lot easier, especially because it

00:02:07 ◼   ► was a slightly different week than I think I'd guessed. But also, I think interesting based on

00:02:13 ◼   ► where they're doing it in San Jose is that this year it looks like they're expanding their kind

00:02:20 ◼   ► of the emphasis that Apple is putting on external events as well. And so in previous years, they've

00:02:25 ◼   ► had, last year, they had on their website a collection, you know, kind of links to different

00:02:30 ◼   ► other events that are happening. And, you know, this year, I think they've even expanded that

00:02:34 ◼   ► further. And if anything, it's made it a bigger deal because the, it looks like the way that the,

00:02:41 ◼   ► you know, sort of the convention center area of San Jose is laid out, that there's going to be a

00:02:46 ◼   ► lot of events, essentially on the same street, like within one block of each other, there'll be at

00:02:52 ◼   ► least four conferences happening simultaneously in San Jose. So, you know, like if in San Francisco,

00:02:58 ◼   ► there were these events that were happening, but you know, they were in downtown San Francisco,

00:03:03 ◼   ► but they weren't all right there. And so I get that it's kind of nice that this year when I look

00:03:07 ◼   ► at, and we'll have links to the show, but if you go to like the more page of the WWDC attendee

00:03:12 ◼   ► site on Apple's website, you know, there's essentially all of these events are just right

00:03:17 ◼   ► next to each other. And so there's going to be a lot of, there's a lot of reasons to go out to San

00:03:22 ◼   ► Francisco or San Jose. There you go. I almost said the wrong name. There's a lot of reasons to go out

00:03:26 ◼   ► to San Jose this year, whether or not you're going to WWDC itself, or whether or not you're able to

00:03:31 ◼   ► get a ticket to WWDC itself, which I kind of like. I mean, I think there have been different events

00:03:36 ◼   ► that have happened for years. I think since it started to sell out, I think AltConf was the first

00:03:42 ◼   ► sort of alternative conference that was happening at the same time that started up and then others

00:03:48 ◼   ► have sort of grown. And this year, we have the main sort of WWDC conference, then we have Layers,

00:03:54 ◼   ► which is, you've I think attended, I've never had, but it's a conference that's more around

00:03:59 ◼   ► geared towards a design and that side of things, but typically, it's still with sort of an Apple

00:04:04 ◼   ► flavor. There's AltConf, which is kind of a, it's kind of a, it describes itself as a free community

00:04:12 ◼   ► supported developer conference. And then this year new is the CocoaConf Next Door, which is

00:04:18 ◼   ► a multi-track conference with trainers, authors, and developers from the Apple community. It's the

00:04:22 ◼   ► way they build it. And so there's going to be those four conferences within one block,

00:04:26 ◼   ► which is kind of nice. I mean, one way or the other, and I've decided to put my name in for the

00:04:33 ◼   ► WWDC lottery, and I'll get into my reasons for that a little bit later. And you know, so I'll see what

00:04:38 ◼   ► happens if I didn't get a ticket, but for right now, my number one plan would be to go to see

00:04:44 ◼   ► WWDC. And you know, if I don't, it's nice to, but either way, I'll be out in San Jose and have a

00:04:49 ◼   ► couple of different options if I wanted to try something different. Yeah, I'm looking forward

00:04:54 ◼   ► to seeing what this is actually going to be like in practice, because as you said, like, this is

00:04:58 ◼   ► all new to, you know, San Jose as a conference's destination is new to probably most iOS developers,

00:05:05 ◼   ► because the time that WWDC was held in San Jose was before the iOS boom. So it's new to most of us.

00:05:14 ◼   ► And the time that it was held there back forever ago, Apple was such a different company, and it

00:05:20 ◼   ► was such a smaller event, really, that even people who have been there before for that, who are kind

00:05:27 ◼   ► of like, quote, the old timers in the community, it's probably going to even be new to them. So

00:05:32 ◼   ► this was really new to pretty much everybody, including Apple. This is like, it's going to be

00:05:36 ◼   ► all new experience, you know, and there might be some rough patches, you know, maybe certain

00:05:40 ◼   ► things, you know, maybe Apple didn't foresee, you know, certain problems or bottlenecks that

00:05:46 ◼   ► will happen there that will have to be improved on for future years. So it's going to be kind of

00:05:50 ◼   ► like, I think it's going to be a little bit of a rough draft, honestly, but I'm kind of looking

00:05:53 ◼   ► forward to that. That's going to be interesting. It's an opportunity for just variety, for freshness,

00:05:59 ◼   ► and to try to fix some of the shortcomings of having it in San Francisco all these years.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Obviously, there were many. Price was a big one, especially hotel pricing. That was a big one.

00:06:12 ◼   ► Just kind of getting around town in San Francisco is a very different experience than being in a,

00:06:20 ◼   ► I hate to say smaller city, because San Jose is actually pretty big, but being in like a more kind

00:06:26 ◼   ► of commerce-focused city, I guess. So that's all going to be very interesting. I like that there's

00:06:32 ◼   ► all these different events happening in one spot. One thing that we don't know yet is whether,

00:06:39 ◼   ► is basically how much there will be to do for people who don't have WBC badges. And I'm going

00:06:46 ◼   ► to find out, because I'm actually not entering the ticket lottery. This is the first year that

00:06:52 ◼   ► I'm not going to seek a ticket, since I started going in 2009. And the main reasons why I've

00:06:59 ◼   ► decided not to, and this is not to try to convince anyone else for, again, this is just the reasons

00:07:04 ◼   ► why I chose to do it this way, is that WWDC is very predictable in a lot of ways. And maybe this

00:07:13 ◼   ► will change this year, who knows, but the areas that I'm going to talk about, probably not.

00:07:16 ◼   ► It's very predictable in the sense that you generally know, okay, there's going to be the

00:07:21 ◼   ► keynote, the State of the Union on day one, maybe that night there might be the ADAs or some other

00:07:26 ◼   ► featured thing. And then the main session content the rest of the week is going to follow a certain

00:07:33 ◼   ► formula. It's going to be introduction to all the new stuff they announce, there's going to be big

00:07:38 ◼   ► sessions for that, there's going to be big sessions for introduction to best practices for UI design,

00:07:44 ◼   ► best practices for modern web technologies and modern graphics technologies and how to do

00:07:49 ◼   ► accessibility and how to do internationalization and how to use iTunes Connect and how to optimize

00:07:53 ◼   ► for X, Y, and Z. And it's formulaic in a good way and a bad way. It's formulaic in a good way that

00:08:00 ◼   ► you generally know how to, once you've been there once, you kind of know how to operate the

00:08:05 ◼   ► conference. You kind of know what you should go to, what you might be able to skip and catch later

00:08:10 ◼   ► in videos, what will not apply to you at all. And for newcomers it's also very good because there's

00:08:18 ◼   ► so much introductory content there and so many of the sessions are really just kind of high level

00:08:23 ◼   ► overviews and then you're kind of left to read the documentation or start playing with the API

00:08:26 ◼   ► to actually get the gist of it. It's really good for what Apple is probably optimizing for.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Every year they say that X percent of our visitors, or X percent of attendees this year are

00:08:40 ◼   ► attending for the very first time. And usually that percentage is around half, sometimes higher.

00:08:44 ◼   ► So it's clearly geared towards first timers. And if you go every year for like five years in a row

00:08:53 ◼   ► or more, like what we have, it starts to get a little repetitive and it starts to get a little

00:08:58 ◼   ► less necessary and you get less benefit out of it. Now every year there is always new stuff,

00:09:03 ◼   ► but there's less and less new stuff every year that if you've gone for the last five years,

00:09:11 ◼   ► like there's less and less value to going every single year for people who have been there a lot.

00:09:17 ◼   ► And I think I've reached the point now where when I go I don't take full enough advantage

00:09:25 ◼   ► of the sessions anymore. There are too many sessions that I either go to and realize that

00:09:32 ◼   ► it's kind of moving too slowly for me or I'm already kind of past that stuff or it's repetitive

00:09:36 ◼   ► from last year and so I duck out. Or there are too many that I just defer to watch on video later at

00:09:43 ◼   ► faster than 1x speed in QuickTime Player and maybe just skim the notes for before I even start

00:09:49 ◼   ► watching the video. And so for me I've decided to stop seeking tickets for the time being. Maybe

00:09:54 ◼   ► I'll start again in the future, but this year I'm skipping it because not that WDC is only for

00:10:02 ◼   ► beginners and not to say that I'm super smart and don't need anything, that's not what I'm saying at

00:10:06 ◼   ► all, but that what it usually is I've seen most of that already. And so I'm gonna, and I think

00:10:14 ◼   ► I'm at the point now where I can benefit more from conferences like Layers and AltConf where

00:10:23 ◼   ► they talk something, somewhat about the technical stuff like what Apple does,

00:10:27 ◼   ► but very little. Most of their talks, especially Layers, are more about the business side and the

00:10:34 ◼   ► design side and it's more about what you should build and maybe how it should look and work

00:10:41 ◼   ► rather than here's how to use this new API. Because I'm finding as time goes on that the new API stuff,

00:10:49 ◼   ► first of all it's less and less stuff that I actually want to use because as iOS, as a

00:10:54 ◼   ► platform is maturing, it's getting, all the new APIs are getting more and more specialized and

00:10:59 ◼   ► the kind of general stuff that everyone uses is really getting a lot more stable and having less

00:11:04 ◼   ► change every year. But also that the bigger challenge to me in my career, in my apps in

00:11:11 ◼   ► recent years is not the technical side of it. The technical side of it is fine, I can look it up

00:11:16 ◼   ► as I do it. The bigger challenge to me is the business side and the design side and that's where

00:11:22 ◼   ► I feel I can get the most value out of a conference style setting. And the API stuff I can catch up

00:11:32 ◼   ► with reference material later or I can watch the videos really fast in QuickTime Player.

00:11:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause I think there's really, when I was thinking, every year I have to decide if I want

00:11:43 ◼   ► to put my name in the hat and this year I did. I've registered for the conference and I'm very

00:11:47 ◼   ► hopeful that I will randomly be selected for it. And mostly it seems like there's two reasons why

00:11:55 ◼   ► going to W2DC is a good idea. The first is kind of the same reason that it's fun to go to a band's

00:12:03 ◼   ► concert rather than just listen to the album, that there's an experience part of it that I remember,

00:12:09 ◼   ► I have some very strong, positive memories of the experience of going to W2DC, of waiting in line

00:12:14 ◼   ► for the keynote, of seeing Steve Jobs speak at a keynote or things like that, that are just,

00:12:19 ◼   ► they're experiential. It's not like from purely practical standpoint, it is the same information

00:12:25 ◼   ► is transferred to me, but there's an excitement and an interest in that. And I think especially

00:12:31 ◼   ► if you've never been to a W2DC, that kind of reason of just wanting to go for the experience

00:12:35 ◼   ► of it makes a lot of sense. Because I think generally the information transfer part from

00:12:41 ◼   ► the sessions, they've done a tremendously, they've accelerated dramatically the rate at which

00:12:46 ◼   ► the videos come out. Many of them are even live streamed now, so if you wanted to watch virtually,

00:12:51 ◼   ► you totally could. And so from the information perspective, it's like going just because you

00:12:58 ◼   ► want the experience of that. And that's, I think, a good and valid reason. And the other reason,

00:13:02 ◼   ► and this is the primary reason why for me, it's still valuable, because I have many of the same

00:13:06 ◼   ► kind of things for you. I've been many years now, so it's less about the experience or the

00:13:13 ◼   ► information. For me, I go for the labs. And if anything, this year is probably a slightly,

00:13:18 ◼   ► even a stronger pull for me, because by moving it to San Jose, I wouldn't be surprised at all

00:13:25 ◼   ► if the labs offerings were even more reinforced, because it's so close to Cupertino, it's so close

00:13:31 ◼   ► to their main offices, that the number of engineers that they could reasonably transfer up and down,

00:13:38 ◼   ► or even just the types of engineers or whatever could be enhanced. And for me, that's what I do

00:13:45 ◼   ► pretty much the entire week of WODC. Monday, I'll go to the keynote, and then Tuesday through Friday,

00:13:51 ◼   ► I'm at the venue all day, but I'm going to one or two sessions a day and just spending the rest of

00:13:56 ◼   ► my time in line or at a lab talking to somebody. Because for me, and the kind of apps that I build,

00:14:03 ◼   ► that is the truly unique experience that WODC offers, where it's not so much learning what the

00:14:10 ◼   ► new APIs are, and from the session of how ostensibly I'm supposed to use them, my pattern is I take an

00:14:16 ◼   ► API that looks interesting, but it's just something that either I'm going to integrate into an app, or

00:14:21 ◼   ► as I want to do, I tend to create new apps in the few months between June and September.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And I'll sit down and I'll make a quick prototype, and I'll take it to the labs, and I'll be like,

00:14:31 ◼   ► "This is how I'm using what you built. Am I using it right?" Or I'll start asking questions, and in

00:14:37 ◼   ► some ways, I kind of feel slightly good where it seems like often I'm providing a service to Apple

00:14:42 ◼   ► as well as they're providing a service to me, because it's being able to, you know, it's like,

00:14:46 ◼   ► you get a lot of the like, "Huh, you're using this in a way that it was not intended to be used."

00:14:51 ◼   ► Or, "You're using it in a way that we never thought would be appropriate." Or, "You found

00:14:56 ◼   ► some interesting bugs." Or, "That is kind of awkward when I run into things." And so for me,

00:15:00 ◼   ► that experience is irreplaceable, because there's nowhere else really that you can get that kind of

00:15:06 ◼   ► help. I mean, sort of you can do it with filing technical support requests with a developer

00:15:10 ◼   ► programmer things, but it's definitely not the same as, you know, like meeting face to face with

00:15:15 ◼   ► the person who wrote, you know, like a lot of the WatchKit stuff, or the person who wrote the audio

00:15:20 ◼   ► stuff, or someone who wrote UIKit stuff, or Core Data stuff, whatever it is, you know, actually

00:15:24 ◼   ► dealing with the person. Or even more encouraging on the lab side of things is, you know, you ask a

00:15:29 ◼   ► question, they're like, "Huh, that's interesting." And then they call someone over, who's like, you

00:15:33 ◼   ► know, it's like, "You need to talk to Bill." And you bring over Bill. It's like, "Hi, Bill. You

00:15:36 ◼   ► know, this is Dave. He's having this problem with something." It's like, then you run into the guy

00:15:40 ◼   ► who actually wrote the thing that you're, you know, you've been hitting your head against.

00:15:44 ◼   ► And I used to have this kind of self-consciousness about like, I need to have really good questions

00:15:48 ◼   ► for the labs. What I found is, it's like, the best questions are just, you know, it's almost topical.

00:15:54 ◼   ► It's just saying like, this is the thing that I'm, how I'm using it, what do you think, and from

00:15:58 ◼   ► there, you can have a really good, rich discussion. And so for me, that is tremendously valuable and

00:16:02 ◼   ► something that, you know, I still, I still did, you know, sort of desperately want for my summer

00:16:07 ◼   ► to be prepared for. And so, you know, for me, it makes sense to put it in, but I totally see

00:16:11 ◼   ► where you're coming from, that, you know, for some, for if you don't have a ticket,

00:16:15 ◼   ► there's so many other good choices or choosing not to have a ticket even, you know, that there are so

00:16:19 ◼   ► many different choices that you could tailor to your experience. You know, like Layers is a great

00:16:23 ◼   ► example for, you know, design-focused or Alt.com for CocoaCon for great, you know, if you want to

00:16:27 ◼   ► be on the more technical side still, but go for a conference. But then, you know, rather than doing

00:16:32 ◼   ► a technical conference at a time, you know, just sort of some other week in the year, you can do

00:16:37 ◼   ► it at a time when there's going to be lots of other developers around and there's going to be

00:16:41 ◼   ► a lot of more community things that you can potentially run into. You know, you could meet

00:16:44 ◼   ► some people who you might not otherwise meet or even just, you know, it's, it creates opportunities

00:16:49 ◼   ► for things that if you went to a conference in Cleveland, as lovely as Cleveland is, it's not

00:16:54 ◼   ► the same as being, you know, at the WDC week in that place with, you know, it's the only time

00:16:59 ◼   ► where you're going to be surrounded by, you know, literally thousands and thousands of iOS developers.

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00:18:06 ◼   ► of Relay FM. So whether or not you end up deciding to put your name into the WWDC hat and whether or

00:18:13 ◼   ► not you get it, I think there's also the other side of being out there that seemed worth touching on

00:18:18 ◼   ► is some of the evening events and kind of more social aspects to going out. Because while the

00:18:24 ◼   ► conferences are very worthwhile and useful, there's going to be a variety of other things going on.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And it seemed worth pointing out at least a couple of them to get a sense of kind of what that looks

00:18:35 ◼   ► like. And the first thing that seems definitely worth pointing out is that this year they're going

00:18:39 ◼   ► to be doing a Relay meetup. So for the Relay FM network, which is the lovely home of this podcast,

00:18:46 ◼   ► I just realized that you may not realize that you actually are listening to a show that's part of

00:18:52 ◼   ► the Relay network. And if you don't listen to the end of any sponsor read when I say, "And all of

00:18:56 ◼   ► Relay FM." And all of Relay FM. Well, now you know what Relay FM is. It's a network of shows by

00:19:02 ◼   ► awesome people. And Relay is doing a meetup on Monday night at the Quilt and Textile Museum of

00:19:09 ◼   ► San Jose. Isn't that awesome? Which is awesome. And so we're both going to be there. That's

00:19:16 ◼   ► something that if you're in town, you can try and get a ticket for. I'll have a link in the

00:19:19 ◼   ► show notes to there's a kind of a signup page to get an email when tickets go on sale. It's one of

00:19:25 ◼   ► these things where there's a limited quantity of them. And so there'll be, it's a little bit

00:19:29 ◼   ► complicated to get a ticket, but if you do, Marco and I will be there. Also, especially worth noting

00:19:35 ◼   ► for the Relay meetup in particular, most events at conferences are 21 and over only because most

00:19:41 ◼   ► events are held in venues with bars. And it's easier for everyone to run everything and for

00:19:46 ◼   ► them to keep the liquor license if they just restrict to 21 and over at the door and don't

00:19:52 ◼   ► have to deal with wristbands and stuff. The Relay event is actually being held in all ages venue.

00:19:57 ◼   ► So that if you are under 21, you can go to that and you'll actually be able to get it. And that's

00:20:03 ◼   ► very, very rare for conference events, unfortunately, for people who are under 21.

00:20:07 ◼   ► So especially worth noting if you're younger, try that one.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Yeah. And I know that Mike and Steven, the founders of Relay, that was an important thing to

00:20:19 ◼   ► them to make the event as inclusive as possible. So it was pretty cool to see that they did that.

00:20:26 ◼   ► And then I think other events that are going to be happening, there's the Beard Bash put on by

00:20:31 ◼   ► Jim Dalrymple, which is also on Monday night. I think it's a bit later usually. So it's possible

00:20:36 ◼   ► that you could go to both if you wanted or if you were unable to get a ticket to the Relay event.

00:20:40 ◼   ► And then Tuesday night, there's the talk show live. So the last couple of years, John Gruber

00:20:46 ◼   ► has definitely raised the bar each year progressively in terms of who he has on his show.

00:20:53 ◼   ► So we'll have to wait and see who gets to go there. But that's always a good time.

00:20:57 ◼   ► On Wednesday night, James Dempsey and the Breakpoints, which is, if you've never heard it,

00:21:02 ◼   ► James Dempsey does comedy music about iOS development and Mac development.

00:21:11 ◼   ► Yeah. It's music by a programmer, but it's really funny and it's also pretty good music.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Yeah. And so it's always good fun. And that one is great because it's a benefit

00:21:21 ◼   ► to support AppCamp for Girls. And so it's not just like going for the concert. It's also a benefit

00:21:25 ◼   ► concert that they put on there. And then it requires a WWDC badge, but it's also on Thursday

00:21:31 ◼   ► night is usually the big WWDC bash, which is kind of a good way to cap off the week. If you were

00:21:38 ◼   ► going there for the concert experience, it actually ends with a concert. Well, there's

00:21:43 ◼   ► things on Friday, but the big capping social event is on Thursday night. And I think all of those

00:21:50 ◼   ► things are really good. They're usually good and fun. I mean, the best experiences I usually have

00:21:56 ◼   ► at WWDC socially are the more quiet sort of just hanging out with a few people over dinner or at

00:22:04 ◼   ► a bar or coffee or lunch or something like that. That tends to be where I have the experiences that

00:22:09 ◼   ► really stick with me. These kinds of experiences are great though for meeting lots of people.

00:22:14 ◼   ► It's kind of that environment where it's not rude to talk to someone for five minutes and then talk

00:22:21 ◼   ► to someone else for five minutes. You can kind of move your way around and just meet a lot of people.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And so I really enjoy going to these events. And that's where I will be at. I will be at one of

00:22:30 ◼   ► those events probably every night. It's just sort of the way that I try and do it. And especially

00:22:37 ◼   ► for someone who is, I wouldn't say antisocial, but socially reluctant, perhaps like myself,

00:22:42 ◼   ► and perhaps many people who might come to WWDC, they're a good thing that I force myself to go

00:22:47 ◼   ► to for the purpose of meeting people. And I have relationships now with people who I met because I

00:22:54 ◼   ► force myself to go out and do things like this. In fact, I believe that that is where I met you.

00:22:59 ◼   ► I think it was coming out of the beard bash one year or something like that?

00:23:05 ◼   ► No. Well, yeah. We were coming out of the W right in front of that corner. Basically,

00:23:10 ◼   ► in front of the entrance to the W hotel. Yeah. And that's where I met you. And now we do a podcast

00:23:16 ◼   ► every week. And you just never know where these things are going to happen just by being available.

00:23:20 ◼   ► And these are just, you don't need an event like that. I imagine because all these events are so

00:23:24 ◼   ► close together, there's just going to be a lot of kind of just natural interaction. But also,

00:23:29 ◼   ► the events are a good venue for that. And so I would encourage anyone who's coming out to at

00:23:32 ◼   ► least think about it, even if it's not necessarily your thing usually, to at least try to go out to

00:23:38 ◼   ► one or two events just to be a bit more social and you just never know what's going to come out of it.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Yeah. I would definitely back all that up because a lot of my friends go to WBC. So there's lots

00:23:50 ◼   ► of time that I have to hang out just getting lunch or coffee or hotel bars with people

00:23:56 ◼   ► that I already know. But every year when I go to one of these bigger events, things like the

00:24:01 ◼   ► Beard Bash or the Relay Meetup or the Talk Show Live or the concerts or the WBC Bash,

00:24:09 ◼   ► every time I've gone to one of those, I see people there that I don't see anywhere else the whole

00:24:15 ◼   ► week. There's always like, unusually a good number of people at these large events where I only see

00:24:22 ◼   ► them there. And so if I didn't go to those large events, I would miss probably half or more of like

00:24:28 ◼   ► the people who I see or who I know who I want to meet every year. And so I very highly recommend,

00:24:34 ◼   ► as you said, I very highly recommend going to these auxiliary events and the big official

00:24:40 ◼   ► ones like the Apple Bash. And in fact, one of the things that I regret about not getting a ticket

00:24:46 ◼   ► this year is that I'm not going to be able to go to the Bash. And if Apple has any other kind of

00:24:51 ◼   ► events around town, that they're probably going to require a badge and I'm probably not going to be

00:24:56 ◼   ► able to go. And the Bash was always, you know, it's always a little bit hard to socialize there

00:25:00 ◼   ► because it's a lot of people crammed in. And even though it's usually at a very, very large space,

00:25:06 ◼   ► it's still a ton of people. And so it's kind of hard to get around. But even despite that,

00:25:13 ◼   ► and even when it gets loud and even when I can't even hear people that well, despite all that,

00:25:17 ◼   ► I still see people there and have conversations there that I wouldn't have, that wouldn't have

00:25:23 ◼   ► happened elsewhere. And that didn't happen elsewhere the rest of the week. So it's still

00:25:27 ◼   ► worth going to those kinds of things if you can. So highly recommended. As for specific plans,

00:25:33 ◼   ► I'll be going to, I think all of these things except for the Bash. And I am going to Layers,

00:25:41 ◼   ► as I mentioned earlier. I love Layers. It's great. I didn't go last year, but I went the year before

00:25:47 ◼   ► and absolutely loved it. And people who went last year, like our friend Casey Liss, had very,

00:25:51 ◼   ► very positive reviews of it. So I'm looking forward to that. And I might even stop by AltConf

00:25:57 ◼   ► if I have time. And we are also going to be doing something at CocoaConf.

00:26:01 ◼   ► >>COREY Yeah, we're going to this year, they've approached us and asked if we'd like to record

00:26:07 ◼   ► our week's episode during the conference there. And so we're going to be doing that. So if you're

00:26:11 ◼   ► attending CocoaConf and want to listen to what recording a podcast in 30 minutes or less is like,

00:26:18 ◼   ► it's a big party. It's like if you want to enjoy that stress along with us trying to squeeze the

00:26:23 ◼   ► entire WDC announcement into 30 minutes, we'll be doing it live at that CocoaConf, which should be a

00:26:29 ◼   ► good time to, you know, it's something we've never, I've never done. I've never recorded a podcast

00:26:33 ◼   ► live that I can remember. So it'll be a little bit exciting for me. And, you know, just should

00:26:38 ◼   ► be interesting and fun and another opportunity to, you know, run into people who, you know,

00:26:43 ◼   ► who listen to listen to the show or interested in, you know, saying hi. >>JEAN-PAUL It is quite

00:26:48 ◼   ► an experience. I'll tell you that I've only done it a couple times, but it's quite an experience

00:26:52 ◼   ► and highly recommended. You're probably going to hate it, but the audience will love it.

00:26:57 ◼   ► >>COREY That's fair. >>JEAN-PAUL Yeah. >>COREY Yeah, but I think in otherwise,

00:27:03 ◼   ► just the closing thoughts about WDC week, I think is the general thought of, I would encourage

00:27:08 ◼   ► anybody who's on the fence about coming out to San Jose that week to really try to. It's a funny thing

00:27:17 ◼   ► to, you know, it's like, I don't know, obviously there's lots of reasons why you might, it might

00:27:20 ◼   ► not work to come out or it might not make sense to come out. But I always have learned something

00:27:26 ◼   ► when I go out. And I've always met people, many of, you know, many of my best friends now I met

00:27:32 ◼   ► by going out to WDC. And there's just something, I don't know, it's like, there's something exciting

00:27:37 ◼   ► and fun about going to a place with lots and lots of people who all care about the same things that

00:27:42 ◼   ► you care about. That you end up waiting in line to go into something and you can talk to almost

00:27:50 ◼   ► everyone there about the things that you care about. That usually if you're waiting in line at

00:27:55 ◼   ► the grocery store, if you turn around and ask somebody, "Hey, what do you think about that cool

00:27:58 ◼   ► stuff they're doing in iOS 11?" >>JEAN-PAUL I don't think you're from space.

00:28:01 ◼   ► >>COREY It's not going to go so well. But it's kind of exciting that anybody there almost,

00:28:05 ◼   ► you can talk. >>JEAN-PAUL Yeah, exactly. It's a great community.

00:28:09 ◼   ► It's a great scene. There are a lot of unknowns this year with the new location and some of these

00:28:14 ◼   ► new things. But I think it's gonna turn out pretty great. And I guess we'll find out.

00:28:17 ◼   ► >>COREY Yeah, and we will both be there. And, you know, as always, I always try and have the

00:28:21 ◼   ► disclaimer whenever I do these shows of saying, "If you see either of us, I am about, I'm speaking

00:28:26 ◼   ► for you, but if you see me and recognize me, come over and say hi. I would love to say hi."

00:28:33 ◼   ► It always frustrates me when I hear from people who say, "Oh, I saw you with such and such,

00:28:38 ◼   ► but I didn't want to interrupt. I didn't want to say it's hi." It's like, "Well, come over and say

00:28:42 ◼   ► hi." Maybe I can't talk for a long time if I'm on my way to something or I'm in the middle of

00:28:45 ◼   ► something, but I always love to say hi. It's really cool to hear from people who listen to

00:28:50 ◼   ► the show and actually put faces and names to just a download number. So it's always kind of fun. So

00:28:58 ◼   ► I always want to just throw that in there, that, you know, "Come over and say hi." It's always fun

00:29:03 ◼   ► to meet new folks. >>HANIF And, yep, agreed. This is the one time of year where, you know,

00:29:07 ◼   ► where people like us have a chance of, like, getting recognized randomly on the street.

00:29:11 ◼   ► And that's really cool because the rest of the time it does not happen. It basically allows us

00:29:16 ◼   ► to, like, be microcelebrities in a very small space for a very short amount of time and then

00:29:21 ◼   ► return to regular life and have none of the drawbacks of actual celebrity where, like,

00:29:25 ◼   ► you don't have to worry too much about, like, being recognized in the grocery store all the

00:29:28 ◼   ► time here. >>CURTIS It's never happened to me. >>HANIF It's never happened to me.

00:29:32 ◼   ► But, yeah, please come up and say hi if you see us that week, which we might remind you of as it

00:29:38 ◼   ► gets closer. But anyway, we are out of time this week. We hope if you want to go, we hope you're

00:29:43 ◼   ► able to find a way to go. And we'll talk to you next week. >>CURTIS Bye.