WWDC Sells Out In 2 Minutes; Ticket On eBay 45 Minutes Later 162
alphadogg writes "The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference sold out in just two minutes today, blowing away last year's record of two hours. Tickets went on sale today at 10 a.m. PDT, as was announced yesterday, when Apple said its event would be held June 10-14 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Apple WWDC runs neck-and-neck with the annual Google I/O event in the race for hottest tech show. The Google event, slated for May 15-17 at Moscone Center, sold out in 45 minutes this year. While transferring tickets for WWDC is generally not allowed, an ambitious eBay seller is attempting to get $10K for the $1,600 ticket."
hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
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When I recieved the confirmation that I had a set of tickets to this event, I literally creamed my pants. I have heard rumors that Steve Jobs faked his death and will eventually show up to announce a new product, perhaps the Dick Tracy Watch, which would be Apple's greated technological leap.
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
When I recieved the confirmation that I had a set of tickets to this event, I literally creamed my pants. I have heard rumors that Steve Jobs faked his death and will eventually show up to announce a new product, perhaps the Dick Tracy Watch, which would be Apple's greated technological leap.
Doesn't Diet Smith hold many patents on the Dick Tracy two-way wrist computer?
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+1 Old Comics Fan
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Dude!!!!
TMI!
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He will descend from the heavens, and the fanbois will put their fingers in his prostate, and they will know it is him.
They he'll be all, "I heard you dumb motherfuckers let them repo my yacht. The plans for the SuperMac were in there."
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I literally creamed my pants
What? You got a tub of cream and smeared its contents all over your pants?
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Re:hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Even a small one. $1600 is pretty standard for a conference or even a basic class about database structure or project management. It all depends on what's there. If it's a yearly sales pitch, then yea, that's expensive. But if there's a bunch of people there that are doing crazy new stuff it's worth it just to mingle. Some of the stuff I work on is so proprietary to our industry there's just no info on the net about it, so these conferences can be a goldmine.
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If $1600 is a big deal then your not a professional developer.
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If $1600 is not a big deal it's unlikely you're a professional anything, since "professional" implies you work for a living.
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It also means you have a specialized skill. I can not think of any professionals that do not spend money to keep their skills current.
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Re:hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also why Apple has stopped really announcing new products at WWDC because they want the people who work in their ecosystem to benefit, not random press bloggers who simply are there for the new stuff.
And no, it's not just major companies - Apple wants to encourage developers to attend - iOS or OS X, a good chunk of whom are tiny one-man companies but who have just a big a chance of attending and bitching/learning about changes in iOS and OS X.
In short, it's really like Google I/O without the hardware giveaways. It's held for developers to learn and do things better. It's not for Joe Average Fanboy who wants to see the latest shiny. But engaging the developer with upcoming changes means that when the upcoming shiny comes out, developers have already have stuff using the new APIs out of the gate.
Is there a real reason to go? (Score:1)
Just curious, as an iOS and an OS X dev before that, I've never really seen any reason to go to this -- even when I lived close enough I happened to walk by it on my way to the Whole Foods one year. Is there a lot of opportunity to make sales or schmooze your way into Apple employees' good graces? Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point is if you already know how to use the APIs and don't have a problem reading about upcoming changes online. I do remember them having some freebies and stuff at previous ones,
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Just curious, as an iOS and an OS X dev before that, I've never really seen any reason to go to this -- even when I lived close enough I happened to walk by it on my way to the Whole Foods one year. Is there a lot of opportunity to make sales or schmooze your way into Apple employees' good graces? Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point is if you already know how to use the APIs and don't have a problem reading about upcoming changes online. I do remember them having some freebies and stuff at previous ones, but nothing worth the ticket price.
Shhhh! You're not supposed to question the merits of anything with even half this much hype. It crushes the souls of the sheople who paid exhorbitant ticket prices and made travel arrangements and bragged to their buddies that they will be attending.
There they are now, staring saucer-eyed at the Marketing Dept. waiting for the meaning of their lives to be validated. Don't ruin it for them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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"Hallway time?"
It's called lobbying. Mostly because hallwaying sounds ridiculous.
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Lobbying would be to seek someone out specifically to get them to hear your thoughts. "Hallway Time" is more about running into interesting people and hearing what they are doing.
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That, and it's like a 1:4 ratio of Apple engineers to attendees. If you need really specialized help, it's tough to beat.
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The hallway time is the reason to go. Some of the sessions and labs get your in person with the leads of most of the teams and its not unheard of for app developers or companies who have issues to vent them there and see software updates in the future reflect those problems. The sessions they post online for everyone, but the hallway time and closed discussions are absolutely worth the cost of 1-2 tickets, not to mention you are not just talking about Apple here, but Google comes and pretty much every major developer is there.
Wow, that's interesting! I never thought folks would pay for permission to gather in hallways! If that's the real reason to go, then you'd think devs would pay far less for some convention space, multiple times a year. Back in my day I just went to SIGs (special interest groups) at HAL-PC (a local computer club). There were regular gatherings where everyone would get together in a huge meet-up too. Why, I remember watching demonstrations of OS/2 Warp at the George R Brown convention center, and Windo
Re:Is there a real reason to go? (Score:5, Informative)
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No workshops (Score:2)
You may be thinking of the labs, where people can go to ask Apple engineers specific questions about different technologies or just get help with problems.
Workshops to be are really more like hands-on tutorials for learning, which does not exist at WWDC (it does at other conferences).
There are some good reasons (Score:3)
I do remember them having some freebies and stuff at previous ones
They give you a track jacket and that is IT. The track jacket does not have pockets. One year the did give away a nice, if simplistic, backpack. Unlike many other conferences there are no vendors, hence no other free stuff.
Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point is if you already know how to use the APIs and don't have a problem reading about upcoming changes online.
There are a few points of value that have diminished. The first is that th
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Based on your description, it sounds like something Apple should pay people to attend instead of the gross opposite.
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I wouldn't go that far but I am astounded that the interest in attending is at such a fever. I like going because I prefer to know about new aspects of the API and tooling ASAP and can often get some good insights after talking to Apple developers in the labs who work on different frameworks. But some people in the labs (actually many) are asking questions that are way too simple, to my mind a waste of how much they are paying to be there.
If I were thinking about starting to program iOS WWDC is the last p
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You don't think there is a chance you could pick up something through hours of listening to the guys that designed and wrote the APIs? The videos are good and provide a ton of info that you can't get anywhere else. Being there is even better.
remember when this was for developers? (Score:4, Informative)
And not fanboys?
(For reference, I remember being an actual Apple Developer, and receiving the monthly CDROMs with amusing titles)
Re:remember when this was for developers? (Score:5, Funny)
(For reference, I remember being an actual Apple Developer, and receiving the monthly CDROMs with amusing titles)
And I remember ars before the op-ed ramblings on copyright and the video game reviews. You can't go back, so we just have the Old Geezer meeting on the second Saturday of every month. Newcomers are not welcome.
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And I remember ars before the op-ed ramblings on copyright and the video game reviews. You can't go back, so we just have the Old Geezer meeting on the second Saturday of every month. Newcomers are not welcome.
Then you could at least put up some wheelchair ramps and SPEAK UP SONNY!
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And I remember ars before the op-ed ramblings on copyright and the video game reviews.
Really? I joined up on ars just after it opened, and they still had copyright and video game reviews. They just have gotten worse over time.
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Re:remember when this was for developers? (Score:4, Funny)
women are from venus, men are from mars... apple fanbois are from uranus
normal people will never understand them
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(For reference, I remember being an actual Apple Developer, and receiving the monthly CDROMs with amusing titles)
I've got a whole box of them. And betas of OS 10.0 (heck, even Copeland!)
Not all that useful now. WWDC was more cozy back in the late 90s when it met in Jan Jose. It's just too large now and yet too small. Maybe they could simulcast stuff? Maybe they could patent that. :)
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MS simulcast PDC in 2010. Not that Apple still would claim to have invented it if they did.
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[...] and receiving the monthly CDROMs with amusing titles
I do remember, especially the one that had a music video on it, with seemingly topless cute girls smiling into the camera, just to show the "superior" Quicktime features.
Being an Apple developer was fun those days.
But actually developing Apple software never really was (remember MPW, MacApp and Macsbug?)
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5,000 fanboys dedicated enough to spend $1600, and travel to and stay in SF, and not even see Steve Jobs? Don't think so. Maybe some, but not all.
The first one to sell out was 2008. Hmm, what did Apple start doing in 2008 that attracted so many developers all of a sudden?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conference [wikipedia.org]
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The iphone.....
Re:remember when this was for developers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. It's all the fanboys. [pixelcity.com]
Fans of making money, that is.
WWDC Videos (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but when will they make a larger iPhone? (Score:2)
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So you want an iPad mini with cellphone capabilities?
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nah he wants this...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelsp/4651465122/ [flickr.com]
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No, this [youtube.com].
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I've never actually seen an iPad mini except in photos, so I can't say... I get the impression, however, that the iPad mini may be slightly too large to hold securely in one hand while trying to use like a phone, if such capabilities were added to it. The S3 however, I have held, and I've found to be a very comfortable size.
So why don't I get an S3? Because iOS devices are more relevant to what I do for a living than Android, and I don't want to be bothered owning paying for two cell phones.
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Fortunately there is a phone being produced that meets your needs [samsung.com]
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Having hands that one of my kids once told me resembled bear paws... oversized and clumsy, something about the same size as the Galaxy S3 would be ideal for my purposes, because I've always found the iPhone display to be unusably tiny for anything involving complex interactivity (such as texting, for instance).
I think thats already available... Have you looked at the Galaxy S3, it sounds like that does what you want?
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he doesn't want a galaxy s3, he only wants something about the same size as a galaxy s3
*buys galaxy s3 off ebay for $450, paints an apple logo on the back of it, sells to foolish bear man for $10k*
Re:Yeah, but when will they make a larger iPhone? (Score:5, Funny)
Having hands that one of my kids once told me resembled bear paws... oversized and clumsy, something about the same size as the Galaxy S3 would be ideal for my purposes, because I've always found the iPhone display to be unusably tiny for anything involving complex interactivity (such as texting, for instance).
Puny human iPhone make Hulk sad.
Why? (Score:2)
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Aren't they going to stream all the sessions live on the web to anyone with an Apple Dev ID? I'm not sure what that $1600 buys you. There are probably some hardware and software handouts, but aren't those available by other means as well?
You get access to Apple engineers, a free concert and a company paid trip to California.
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You get access to Apple engineers, a free concert
I do not think that means what you think it means.
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It just says that they're posting videos during the conference, not that it will be live.
IMO, the biggest thing the $1,600 buys you is near-real-time help from Apple engineers to get you past any problems you run into while testing whatever new APIs, new technologies, etc. that they're showing off that year. Bear in mind that a single DTS incident costs $195 (last I checked), and if you get help eight times, you've paid for the cost of your ticket.
Also, you get the opportunity to kvetch at real, live Apple
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If you mean the developer forums, those really aren't support forums. If Quinn or somebody else from Apple happens to know the answer and can explain it quickly, you might get an answer, but it isn't guaranteed. The more complex the question, the less likely you are to get an adequate answer. This is triply true if the problem is specific to your code and isn't easily reproduced with a simple, reduced test case.
At the show, the Apple person can actually look at your app's source code and help you figure
How pathetic... (Score:1)
How utterly pathetic.
Amateurs (Score:2)
I'll be impressed when they can match ComicCon San Diego, who have a hard time finding a ticket sales service that can stand up to more than a few seconds before it collapses under the load [deadline.com]. The only reason it took 93 minutes to sell out completely was the slow server response times. Not many wet sites can handle 140,000+ people trying to log in at the same time.
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Not many wet sites can handle 140,000+ people trying to log in at the same time.
Well that is your problem right there, your servers are drunk. Next time give the beer to your webmaster, rather than your webserver, instead.
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Quite the opposite, really. WWDC sold probably five or six thousand tickets in a little over sixty seconds. That's about a hundred tickets per se
Ambitious indeed (Score:2, Funny)
While transferring tickets for WWDC is generally not allowed, an ambitious eBay seller is attempting to get $10K for the $1,600 ticket."
Trying to sell something to Apple users at 6 times the value instead of the usual 3 is ambitious indeed.
Comparison to Google IO Relevant? (Score:2)
It seems to me without knowing how many tickets of both were sold its pointless to compare how long they took to sell out.
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It seems to me without knowing how many tickets of both were sold its pointless to compare how long they took to sell out.
The other question is WHY did Google take longer.
If it was anything like buying a Nexus phone, chances are that they'd have sold out in 30 seconds if their website didn't die under the load. Most likely if you tried to buy a ticket in the first two minutes for Google IO you'd just get an error message, and then you'd keep hitting refresh until you got the message an hour later that they're all sold out.
Or, if it was like the Nexus 4 you'd get the sold-out message after 20 minutes, and then find out that so
Both are realistically sub-second (Score:2)
chances are that they'd have sold out in 30 seconds if their website didn't die under the load.
Apple's servers also died under the load, just more gracefully (sort of) - the process worked for some people, for others like myself we just saw authentication errors the whole time. In reality I saw the "sold out" page way closer to 20 seconds after I saw the buy button than two minutes. The two minute figure is more like how long it took the stragglers to complete an order that was started in the first two se
I don't like wrestling (Score:2)
Especially when it's FAKE.
They deserve the "stolen prototype" treatment (Score:2)
Apple went above and beyond the normal process, including law enforcment involvement, for recovering one of their prototypes. Why not just do the same to smite the practice and make an example out of those involved?
That, and if they're good at it, bind the ticket to a nontransferable item that has some worth to it(e.g. a non prepaid credit card that was used to purchase it) as well as whatever ID is already required to enter(such as government issue). $1600 admission definitely can demand such protection
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Or let people scalp. I mean, they made their money, and if scalpers sell out selling them for 10g, then raise the ticket price.
Entrance exam (Score:4, Interesting)
They should have a small coding test you have to get through in order to get to the sign up page.
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The thing is, it's a weird conference anyway. It's called a Developer conference, but they do major product announcements there too. So the press wants to get a seat, and that's only logical. I don't have a solution, but it's Apple's own doing as well.
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I expect to see... (Score:3)
Waiting...
(Detailed take-apart here.) [macgasm.net]
Do you get anything for free? (Score:2)
No seriously?
At the prices Apple is asking, let alone the ebay sellers?
I know some of these conferences will give you free technology - many intel ones hand out CPU's in the past or motherboards and CPU's, HP ones have handed out some decent hardware.
Are these people likely to get an ipad 5 or iphone 6 or even something current gen? The prices are madness. I think Google have given out a free Nexus before too.
Re:Saw plastic iPhones in person. (Score:5, Funny)
I already have a plastic iPhone. It's called a 3GS.
Re:Saw plastic iPhones in person. (Score:4, Funny)
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While transferring tickets for WWDC is generally not allowed, an ambitious eBay seller is attempting to get $10K for the $1,600 ticket.
And if the result was that he lost his $1600 then scalpers would stop doing this and ticket sales would go back to reflecting the actual demand for the event.
It's just like spam. Stop rewarding them and they go away. This is even easier than spam because there is a real cost of doing business, not nearly free e-mails.
Course that would require something rather unAmerican like acting on principle. Well maybe I shouldn't pick on America. Just about all of Western civilization has forgotten what this
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then scalpers would stop doing this and ticket sales would go back to reflecting the actual demand for the event.
Ticket sales shouldn't reflect actual demand. Use an auction system so the price reflects real demand. Scalping is a sign your price is too low, cancelling due to lack of sales is a sign your price is too high. But using an auction system solves both problems, and ensures both that the price reflects the actual demand and that the house is always full.
That way, you don't have to introduce retarded and unnecessary restrictions on ticket buyers, such as preventing resale or creating laws against scalpers. It
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I agree completely. And Dutch auctions would be perfect for this. Keeps the price consistent across the board, so early purchases don't get cheap tickets while late comers (10 minutes later) pay through the nose.
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I, for one, look forward to next years's "richest developers in America" convention,
Actually I would prefer that, not because I am rich but because it would really be the developers who were serious about Apple's development platforms and could justify a high cost of attending.
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Please don't practice pedantry publicly until you've reviewed and corrected your sig. If it was intended to be ironic, you may wish to call it out as such in some way. Have a good day.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes [answers.com]'
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We could merge the two and have Howard Stern MC the whole bloody affair. OOOOh! iPod to the head. I CAN'T BELIEVE THE REF DIDN'T SEE THAT!
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OOOOh! iPod to the head. I CAN'T BELIEVE THE REF DIDN'T SEE THAT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njos57IJf-0 [youtube.com]
skip to 0:35
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apk has been doing all the stuff that the 'luser' is being accused of for years, so if the person who wrote this is actually apk, pull your head in... if you can't take it don't (continue even now to) dish it out
if it's someone impersonating apk, get a life dude... at least impersonate someone noteworthy like steve jobs, linus torvalds, or even barack obama...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Lmcq7Qe6Y [youtube.com]
feeding trolls is fun :)
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it's a geek site
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this was reposted on another topic... wtf?
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Just another troll. Someone saw the success that APK has had and decided to get into the annoyance game.
FTFY :P
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omg do you really come to slashdot looking for stuff that matters? hahahaha.... fool
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Have you ever seen a WWDC session? A two hour talk about how to use Grand Central Dispatch or the OpenCL framework could hardly be classified as non-technical.
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You have neve sold anything in the App store...