WWDC 2008: My Schedule

WWDC 2008 is less than a week away! I'll leave from Hamburg this Friday morning and will be in San Francisco on Friday evening. I'll be staying with wonderful friends of mine in Milpitas and I'll be taking the Caltrain to the city every morning. That's what I did last year, too. The tickets are cheap ($7.50 one way) and you meet so many interesting people that are attending WWDC on the train. Last year I had great on-train-conversations with an Apple GCC Engineer (now that's a cool title to have on your business card) and an engineer who worked on iChat AV (no, I didn't ask him why the "background detection" doesn't work right). So I'm curious who I'll meet this year. So, what sessions will I attend? Like most people, I'm interested in iPhone development, of course. So these are the sessions I think I'll attend: Monday Morning:

• Keynote (hopefully featuring the 3G iPhone)

Monday Afternoon:

• Mac OS X State of the Union
• Developer Tools State of the Union
• Introduction to Mac and iPhone Development

Monday Evening

• WWDC Welcome Reception (free food and beer, who could turn that down?)

Tuesday Morning

• iPhone Application Development Essentials
• Either Introduction to the iPhone Development Tools...
• ...or iPhone for Mac Developers

Tuesday Afternoon

• Either Introduction to Game Development for iPhone...
• ...or Understanding iPhone View Controllers (there's a Mastering iPhone View Controllers session on Thursday afternoon which I'll attend, so I might skip this one)
• Understanding iPhone Table Views
• Cocoa Fundamentals

Wednesday Morning

• iPhone Application User Interface Design
• Controls, Views, and Animation on iPhone

Wednesday Afternoon There are 3 interesting sessions in the first time slot and I haven't decided yet:

• Either Getting Started with Instruments (I attended a similar session last year, but a refresher might be good)...
• ...or Internationalizing Your Software...
• ...or Core Animation Techniques for iPhone and Mac
• iPhone Multi-Touch Events and Gestures
• Creating Efficient Data Models with Core Data

Wednesday Evening

• Apple Design Awards
• Stump the Experts

Wednesday night I'll sleep in a hotel in the city... this year it's hopefully not in an area where I have to be afraid to get shot when I walk there in the dark... like last year. Thursday Morning

• Either Cocoa Tips and Tricks: Using Leopard Features Effectively...
• ...or Mastering Interface Builder
• Debugging and Profiling Your iPhone Application

Thursday Afternoon

• Mastering iPhone View Controllers
• Polishing Your Cocoa Application
• iPhone Device APIs: Location, Accelerometer, and Camera

Thursday Evening

• WWDC Bash at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco This is a video of last year's bash. Notice how none of us geeks are moving to the music:

Friday Morning

• Either Mastering iPhone Table Views...
• ...or Building Native Look-and-Feel Web Applications Using SproutCore

Friday Afternoon Most Friday afternoon sessions are a bit lame because some people leave early and everyone's brains are already smoking. So the best session so far seems to be

• Either Accessing Contacts and Calendars on Leopard...
• ...or Improving Responsiveness in Websites and Web Applications

So, a very interesting week is laying ahead for all of us coming to San Francisco this year. Please drop me a line if you'll be there too so we can meet up.