09:01

Fixing the WWDC

25 April 2012

Well, I’m not going; are you? This year’s Apple World-Wide Developer’s Conference was sold out by 8am Pacific Time, having gone on sale around 6am. (I missed the boat in 2011 and 2010, too.) I can’t imagine anyone except perhaps Apple thinks that the mad scramble to the keyboard that we’ve experienced in the last few years is a rational way to allocate tickets.

It’s time for Apple to admit that the traditional model of a singular WWDC either requires a venue that can handle the crowd, or split it into multiple, regional events. It would lose the “gathering of the tribe” aspect that has always been one of the best parts of WWDC, but that’s lost now, anyway; the “tribe” is not defined on who was by their keyboards for 90 minutes at 6am on a Wednesday.

If Apple views the WWDC as a way to pack people into seats to create excitement for their announcements early in the week, then I suppose the current system is as good as anything. From any other perspective, it’s time to find another way of doing this.

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