WWDC vs Google I/O(nayna.org)
nayna.org
WWDC vs Google I/O
http://nayna.org/blog/?p=87
7 comments
TechEd isn't the big Microsoft event I believe its PDC so not really comparable.
Yeah, TechEd is not supposed to be an announcement conference. It really is more of an education conference.
The big announcement conferences for MS is PDC and MIX.
The big announcement conferences for MS is PDC and MIX.
Yeah, TechEd is not supposed to be an announcement conference.
Neither is WWDC. Aside from the keynote, the rest of the week is under NDA and devoted to teaching developers about the new tech in Mac/iPhone/iPad/whatever and helping them figure out how to use it, not to major product announcements.
And it is incredibly helpful if you've got a major problem that you need help with. One on one with engineers who built the frameworks! I've had multiple major problems either solved/worked around, or been put in touch with people who can solve them each time I've been at WWDC. And I'm not alone in that.
Neither is WWDC. Aside from the keynote, the rest of the week is under NDA and devoted to teaching developers about the new tech in Mac/iPhone/iPad/whatever and helping them figure out how to use it, not to major product announcements.
And it is incredibly helpful if you've got a major problem that you need help with. One on one with engineers who built the frameworks! I've had multiple major problems either solved/worked around, or been put in touch with people who can solve them each time I've been at WWDC. And I'm not alone in that.
I find this NDA thing deeply disturbing. It's like EULAs that prohibit you from publishing benchmark results. Seen a couple those. It's a policy designed to fragment the developer community in a way they have only Apple to resort to.
Not healthy, IMHO.
Not healthy, IMHO.
Sure, TechEd is not The Important Conference, but, still, no news whatsoever? Not even about the event?
Interesting comparison. I wonder how many people attended each of the respective events? Could the lines, price, "you're lucky to be here", etc. be based on supply and demand? I mean if WWDC sold out in 8 days AND they charged almost 4 times more, there has to be some issue with supply and demand.
Meh, I had some more thoughts, mostly along the non-technical line...
- Google I/O is only two days long while WWDC is five days long, which makes the price a bit more comparable.
- Apple worked with Duarte and got all their speakers to rehearse in excess to get the presentations polished as much as possible before the event - what you saw on the public keynote with Zynga's CEO babbling about Farmville was amateur hour. All the speakers may have been nervous at some point or another about speaking to so many people, but they knew their stuff and pulled it off. While a lot of conferences do similar things, occasionally when it's a more laid-back or shorter event, they skimp so much here that it hurts. Nothing spoils a presentation more than an unprepared speaker with crazy slides to me. For one extreme example (to me), I went to an Amazon event local to me after WWDC last year, and saw this atrocious presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/aws-startup-even... (slide #4 is particularly bad). I'm sure it was pretty easy to guess how far my jaw fell going from a week long professional polished-to-an-extreme event where every single presentation used the same syntax highlighting, to that, where the person couldn't even get the bullet points to match in size or shape on a single slide.
- Partnerships? To do what? Any partner that would have participated in something like that at WWDC should it exist had employees there to go to the conference that could promote their products or whatever with people they meet over the course of a week.
- While WWDC this year had a noticeable lack of Mac-specific sessions, they had plenty foundational sessions for all platforms, and a LOT of talk about Safari and then the developer tools, which are clearly not only for iOS development, so there's no excuse for combining Xcode and iOS 4 together. Not to mention that 10.7 is probably not ready to even be previewed, so what else would Apple have presented there?
- The OP totally just doesn't even mention anything about the existence of Office Hours and Labs at I/O and WWDC respectively, which to many were the most valuable part of the conferences...I know people who didn't even bother to go to more than a couple sessions throughout the entire week at WWDC, they just permanently parked themselves in the labs on the first floor. (The labs/office hours being the places/times you could go and chat one-on-one with the people behind whatever you wanted help with or just wanted to talk about.)
- Google I/O is only two days long while WWDC is five days long, which makes the price a bit more comparable.
- Apple worked with Duarte and got all their speakers to rehearse in excess to get the presentations polished as much as possible before the event - what you saw on the public keynote with Zynga's CEO babbling about Farmville was amateur hour. All the speakers may have been nervous at some point or another about speaking to so many people, but they knew their stuff and pulled it off. While a lot of conferences do similar things, occasionally when it's a more laid-back or shorter event, they skimp so much here that it hurts. Nothing spoils a presentation more than an unprepared speaker with crazy slides to me. For one extreme example (to me), I went to an Amazon event local to me after WWDC last year, and saw this atrocious presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/AmazonWebServices/aws-startup-even... (slide #4 is particularly bad). I'm sure it was pretty easy to guess how far my jaw fell going from a week long professional polished-to-an-extreme event where every single presentation used the same syntax highlighting, to that, where the person couldn't even get the bullet points to match in size or shape on a single slide.
- Partnerships? To do what? Any partner that would have participated in something like that at WWDC should it exist had employees there to go to the conference that could promote their products or whatever with people they meet over the course of a week.
- While WWDC this year had a noticeable lack of Mac-specific sessions, they had plenty foundational sessions for all platforms, and a LOT of talk about Safari and then the developer tools, which are clearly not only for iOS development, so there's no excuse for combining Xcode and iOS 4 together. Not to mention that 10.7 is probably not ready to even be previewed, so what else would Apple have presented there?
- The OP totally just doesn't even mention anything about the existence of Office Hours and Labs at I/O and WWDC respectively, which to many were the most valuable part of the conferences...I know people who didn't even bother to go to more than a couple sessions throughout the entire week at WWDC, they just permanently parked themselves in the labs on the first floor. (The labs/office hours being the places/times you could go and chat one-on-one with the people behind whatever you wanted help with or just wanted to talk about.)
Everybody knew Apple would announce a new iPhone at WWDC, maybe more stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if a very significant part of the attendance were there not for the technical sessions, but to cover product launches.
The press were invited to the keynote; they didn't take up any of the conference slots. I doubt that many people come just to be there, though I did see Gruber around last year and not this year.
Sorry. There is press and there is press. I was counting the zillion part-time bloggers who paid for the tickets and went to the conference as a bonus.
Even when I get invited as press (I used to contribute to magazines more or less regularly) I am never stopped from watching the talks. The worst that happens is that the organization doesn't give me the same bag they give everyone else.
But I had lunch with James Gosling once.
Even when I get invited as press (I used to contribute to magazines more or less regularly) I am never stopped from watching the talks. The worst that happens is that the organization doesn't give me the same bag they give everyone else.
But I had lunch with James Gosling once.
If that's really the case, they should start selling tickets for the keynote separately from WWDC itself.
This would not benefit Apple. The ones who went there for the keynote (and, perhaps, one specific talk) will pay the same and use less infrastructure.
That's true if you see WWDC as a profit center. As a developer outreach tool, turning away N developers (due to selling out quickly) so that one developer can go to one session sounds pretty suboptimal.
Keynote attendance already went into overflow.
I think both events were ~5000 attendees (likely Moscone's capacity has something to do with this). WWDC has been going on for 15 years, whereas this Google IO was the third. Having been going on for 15 years, there may be more depth of community and, subsequently, more networking value.
I wish this were true. While the networking value of WWDC can't be ignored, I heard something like 60%+ of WWDC attendees this year were first timers, probably because the balance between iPhone and Mac in previous years shifted drastically over to iOS this year, and it's a hot and newer platform than Mac OS X is.
Or, how a lot of these new developers were coming over from other platforms, and the value of networking with them is not as high as networking with veterans, many that didn't bother to show up this year because it was so iOS heavy. Assuming, of course, that a large part of "value" is the person's depth of knowledge, interests, and involvement in the community.
Or, how a lot of these new developers were coming over from other platforms, and the value of networking with them is not as high as networking with veterans, many that didn't bother to show up this year because it was so iOS heavy. Assuming, of course, that a large part of "value" is the person's depth of knowledge, interests, and involvement in the community.
These events have been overrun by non-developers, so it really doesn't say anything about developers: WWDC is a million crappy tech bloggers live blogging about the latest unveiling.
Android simply doesn't have that. The devices are released frequently and uneventfully.
Though note that Google I/O sold out very early (well in the early bird period). And here's the best part: No one who signed up knew they were getting ANY free phone, much less two.
So when someone says "See they had to bribe you to be here", it doesn't really wash given that the bribe wasn't known until you were already there.
Google wants developers developing and testing on the top devices, so they give them out.
Android simply doesn't have that. The devices are released frequently and uneventfully.
Though note that Google I/O sold out very early (well in the early bird period). And here's the best part: No one who signed up knew they were getting ANY free phone, much less two.
So when someone says "See they had to bribe you to be here", it doesn't really wash given that the bribe wasn't known until you were already there.
Google wants developers developing and testing on the top devices, so they give them out.
Clearly, your only experience with WWDC was the keynote. If you had bothered to look into anything else about the conference, you would know that the entire rest of the week is filled with tech talks about relevant technologies (both newly announced and pre-existing) and labs staffed by every breed of Apple engineer.
What I'm trying to say is that WWDC has not been overrun by "non-developers." The keynote is the only part of the event open to the press, and they exploit it as much as they can, but the rest of the conference really is devoted to working with useful, relevant technology.
This is not to say that WWDC is better or worse than I/O, just that bloggers have not hijacked the event from real developers.
What I'm trying to say is that WWDC has not been overrun by "non-developers." The keynote is the only part of the event open to the press, and they exploit it as much as they can, but the rest of the conference really is devoted to working with useful, relevant technology.
This is not to say that WWDC is better or worse than I/O, just that bloggers have not hijacked the event from real developers.
>The keynote is the only part of the event open to the press
What's with the WWDC defensiveness? Seriously, relax.
They keynote sees a lot of press, many of whom got press passes. Yet it also sees a lot of less credible press (e.g. Gizmodo) who buy standard event tickets, clogging a spot, to be there. The same thing happened at I/O.
And I've met enough non-developers who were sent there for whatever reason to realize that it isn't the core of developers.
What's with the WWDC defensiveness? Seriously, relax.
They keynote sees a lot of press, many of whom got press passes. Yet it also sees a lot of less credible press (e.g. Gizmodo) who buy standard event tickets, clogging a spot, to be there. The same thing happened at I/O.
And I've met enough non-developers who were sent there for whatever reason to realize that it isn't the core of developers.
There was at least a little precedent in that Google gave phones to I/O attendees last year and established that it was not out of the realm of possibilities they might do it again.
That said I did not buy my ticket to I/O this year under the assumption that I would get a phone, and I intend to go next year -- the value I got from the talks is still more than the price of admission and I couldn't care less if I got a phone out of it.
That said I did not buy my ticket to I/O this year under the assumption that I would get a phone, and I intend to go next year -- the value I got from the talks is still more than the price of admission and I couldn't care less if I got a phone out of it.
No one who signed up knew they were getting ANY free phone, much less two.
Google gave away phones at I/O last year as well as several other Android developer events, so it's not hard to predict that they'll keep doing it until they are satisfied with Android developer mindshare.
Google gave away phones at I/O last year as well as several other Android developer events, so it's not hard to predict that they'll keep doing it until they are satisfied with Android developer mindshare.
>Google gave away phones at I/O last year
Knowing and hoping are different things. This year I/O sold out very quickly. I got around to signing up, during the early bird period, and my dreams and hopes were dashed by a registration full notice.
Knowing and hoping are different things. This year I/O sold out very quickly. I got around to signing up, during the early bird period, and my dreams and hopes were dashed by a registration full notice.
I found this line funny from the article, in reference to WWDC:
"I can’t remember a single incident where things did not go exactly to plan"
Really? You think Jobs planned having the iPhone browser not work and having to plead with the audience to turn off WiFi?
Really? You think Jobs planned having the iPhone browser not work and having to plead with the audience to turn off WiFi?
He was referring to the technical sessions.
I'm sure he was, but the comedy is not lost on the fact that the most high profile presentation is the one with the biggest hiccup.
Very good list, it's amazing how these events provide a clear picture of the various strengths and weaknesses of these two companies.
I liked this part:
"All the women at I/O were interviewed, as were all the women at WWDC. Both the ladies attending I/O and all three attending WWDC said they liked the sessions."
I liked this part:
"All the women at I/O were interviewed, as were all the women at WWDC. Both the ladies attending I/O and all three attending WWDC said they liked the sessions."
I have no idea what the OP was talking about in that respect. I was one of the many women at WWDC this year, and what? What interview?
A whole bunch of us ladies had lunch together one day, and an Apple photographer was very excited to take too many photos of us, but that was it.
edit: Oh, the original author wasn't specific about who was being interviewed, I presume he/she meant interviewing three specific women. And for what it was worth, the security/non-Apple engineer staff at Moscone West were sort of dismissive about trying to help us organize a lunch area and to let other women know about what we were planning for lunch. Only fellow attendees, engineers, and the photographers were excited to see so many women in the same place.
A whole bunch of us ladies had lunch together one day, and an Apple photographer was very excited to take too many photos of us, but that was it.
edit: Oh, the original author wasn't specific about who was being interviewed, I presume he/she meant interviewing three specific women. And for what it was worth, the security/non-Apple engineer staff at Moscone West were sort of dismissive about trying to help us organize a lunch area and to let other women know about what we were planning for lunch. Only fellow attendees, engineers, and the photographers were excited to see so many women in the same place.
It's sarcasm. "I interviewed all three women who attended" as in: there were hardly any there.
Hah, it was so poorly written and in bad taste it just went whoosh over my head.
It's also irritating to read, as there were a lot more women devs this year at WWDC compared to the past three I attended, and Apple employs a lot of very talented female engineers that showed up for sessions and labs. Not sure what prompted this increase (the iPhone? :P ), but it was really nice to see.
It's also irritating to read, as there were a lot more women devs this year at WWDC compared to the past three I attended, and Apple employs a lot of very talented female engineers that showed up for sessions and labs. Not sure what prompted this increase (the iPhone? :P ), but it was really nice to see.
Not only that, but Sophiestication won an Apple Design Award.
My estimate of the percentage of women at WWDC is 5%.
My estimate of the percentage of women at WWDC is 5%.
yeah, he shudda pudda :-) there
I assumed that being nerdy was part of the Google brand, just as being hip was part of the Apple brand, and that explained the difference in presentations.
let me guess. apple fanboy.
Rather than guess, you could have read the article, which is just about as far away from 'fanboy' in either direction as you can get. Not a perfect article, but not unreasonable either.
Not that I support the use of the term fanboy, but this did seem fairly pro-apple.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/techednorthamerica/
I haven't heard from it. No news. No announcements. No nothing.