Thinking Different is Sometimes just Dumbness
Mar 24th, 2009
Every other conference in the world announces its date and location at least a year in advance, but year after year, Mac developers wait around to hear when Apple’s World-Wide Developer Conference will be held. WWDC is usually held in the summer, and the date for this year has still not been announced. So I have an announcement:
I will be at the beach Jun 6 – 13. If Apple decides to hold WWDC that week, I will not be there.
We reserved a big beach house for that week with another family six months ago. I would have worked around WWDC if I known when it was to be held, but it is too late to change my plans now.
My advice: If you ever plan a conference for thousands of people, I suggest you announce the date and location a year or more in advance.
Aaron,
I feel your pain. I’ve missed the last two because of vacation conflicts…I mean that’s two free drinks you could have bought me
I suspect that the keynote is the problem. Usually something is announced, OS, hardware or whatever, that will have some sensitive release timing. This will probably have a soft target date, that will change if there are delays (technical or Steve related), and so they put off announcing a date until the last minute. I guess they would have to have the conference center hold several dates for them to allow the contingency.
I do wonder if I’ll get to go this year, just my luck if you won’t be there to buy me a drink!
p.s. enjoy the blog..looking forward to seeing the new site in the future.
Paul
Looks like you will spend the WWDC at the beach: There is a mysterious “Corporate Meeting” scheduled at Moscone West, 06/06/09 – 06/12/09 (http://www.moscone.com/site/do/event/list?nav.type=0&nav.filter=0905&nav.base=0903), which looks like a good candidate for being the WWDC.
Nevertheless, enjoy your vacation!
I absolutely love your priorities!
Family first; rest of your life second…
Gets my vote.
Have a wonderful vacation.
SteveJ
And, I have found another great restaurant for when
you do show up again down the San Francisco peninsula.
Apple has never been that good at letting people know in advance. Occasionally they will give less than a weeks notice to the media when they are holding a press event, that just doesn’t work.
It is a shame, Apple is a great company that does great things but announcing things a head of time isn’t one of them.
> I like uncertainty. I can imagine nothing worse than
> a life where I knew exactly what was going to happen.
They knew that
Maybe since many Apple devs have to be there to answer questions, they have to schedule around many employees’ vacations. I’m not saying this is right, but maybe they put their own developers first – as they should.
- Nick -
Since WWDC sold out last year with what was a similar short notice, I’d suggest that while it’s annoying for the rest of us it does work for them.
The rest of us thank you for freeing a WWDC slot though.
That’s assuming it is in June, and not the even crazier alternate May date which is closer still. Even Apple would not announce something so close, now would they?
Perhaps the delay is internal debate over hiring the Barenaked Ladies, or Vanity Project…
Apple announcements are made “when it’s ready”; they announce dates only when they are reasonably sure the content/product will be ready on that date. This doesn’t seem hidden or mysterious.
“I like uncertainty. I can imagine nothing worse than a life where I knew exactly what was going to happen.” ;->
The old (pre SJ return) Apple had them at a regular annual time. Unfortunately this often left them less than must-attend, and we learned to treat new technology announcements as aspirational, not factual.
If the June date at Moscone is indeed reserved for Apple, my guess is that they haven’t announced because are not yet internally committed to it (in fact they may have already nixed it–something they’ll never admit.) They may prefer to have their engineers working back in Cupertino this June.
Have a great vacation!
Welp, I’ll look forward to seeing you next year. It was just announced as 6/8-6/12.
It looks like you’re going to miss another year of WWDC fun. It’s scheduled for June 8-12; hopefully you’ll be having fun at the beach and not thinking about what your missing at the Moscone Center.
Apple must have waited for you to publish vacation plans and then set the date just then. I wonder what are the odds of exactly this happening…
Aaron, if you want, I’ll wear your hat the whole week and a big name tag that says “SORRY, AARON’S AT THE BEACH”.
Or, you could make shirts that say it…
I will absolutely join in! We only booked till the 8th, so I will fly out from the beach to SF, but this 2,5 month notice is freaking ridiculous. It makes me mad.
So, let’s make shirts saying “AARON’S AT THE BEACH!”
Alex
Well, Apple did remove the NDA on the iPhone SDK the very next day after he met with them to discuss that very issue. Never underestimate his ability to affect Apple policies and schedules!
But, we’ll miss having you here this year, Aaron. Enjoy the time with your family. We all need you recharged and happy to keep doin’ what you do so well.
Scott
You should at least send scott.
Bummer I was really looking forward to finding ‘tall guy in cowboy hat’. LOL Have a great time at the beach!
Sorry not to see you there! I’ll miss our exchanging “Nice hat!” comments in passing again.
What was interesting is that due to Apple’s weird scheduling and even weirder Sharkfest 2009 scheduling, I’ll be attending both back-to-back and saving on one return airfare out of NYC! Yay! That aside, by having us keep an eye on Moscone’s schedule instead, it’s one way that Apple forces us to “Think Different”… 