Exploring Conferences: Preparing for WWDC 2024!

This week will be my third time landing at the San Francisco International Airport to be around San Jose and meet developers from around the world.

I went to WWDC back in 2019 as a scholar and attended community events last year because I did not get the golden ticket.

However, this time, I got one to attend WWDC 2024!

I love impromptu planning, but, I still want to have an idea of how to make the best out of this US trip. After a lot of thinking, it turns out this is what makes me happy:

• Hang out with old friends I made last year!
• Enjoy with friends from X (formerly Twitter) whom I am excited to meet this year IRL, and
• Meet new people!

From 50°C to 10°C, How to Adapt?

Travelling from Delhi to SFO means going from an unbearable 40°C at night to a chilly 10°C in the morning. That is a massive temperature drop. I have to prepare well as I easily get cold and got extremely sick this January in Singapore for the same reason.

Here is my plan:

• I will start my journey at the Delhi airport in a comfortable T-shirt, perfect for the hot weather. As I board my flight, I will throw on a jacket for the aeroplane AC. Once I land in SFO, I will layer up with a sweater under my jacket to brace for the chilly winds.
• Also, I plan to get more than enough sleep to allow my body to maintain a strong immune system. I skipped sleep during the Singapore flight and it made my condition worse, so I must learn from it.

8th June: Beginning with a Happy Hour

After heading to Downtown San Jose, I am excited to tweet again about San Pedro Square, and have a lovely matcha there in the morning! I will probably put a tweet if there are people around to join me to catch up before the conference.

The first event on my agenda is the happy hour hosted by Runway and Emerge Tools. It will happen across the street from Apple Park at 6:30 PM.

I plan to reach a bit early to visit the spaceship's visitor centre. I am excited to meet the teams behind Runway (my blog's sponsor for June!) and Emerge Tools, friends from around the world, and make new ones!!

If you could not get the RSVP to the Happy Hour, you can attend the Informal Pre-WWDC 2024 Gathering to chill with developers and have some late evening matcha!

https://pre-wwdc24-gathering.splashthat.com

9th June: visionOS Meetup, Core Coffee, and WWDC Welcome Reception

I will start my day by attending a casual meet-up for visionOS enthusiasts in Cupertino. I have never been to a specific visionOS event, and curious to meet other developers interested in Apple's new platform.

After the meet-up, I will head over to San Pedro Square, hoping to have Core Coffee waitlist cleared.

Then, there is In-N-Out Happy Hour post Core Coffee!

Next on the agenda is going to for WWDC Welcome Reception at Apple Infinite Loop Campus. This will mark the official start of WWDC 2024!

I assume a lot of people from the Happy Hour will join and walk to the campus. I would have already known a lot of the developers because of the past few events, and it gets comfortable to feel at home in the inclusive iOS community.

Surprisingly, Apple mentioned that we can meet this year’s Apple Design Award winners and finalists, which means that the ADA will happen earlier than the usual time like previous years.

Later in the evening, I am hoping to attend the RevenueCat Bash, but I am still on the waitlist. I loved the event last year, and have many rejection emails to collect some more socks!

There is also a Dr. Funk's Tech House @ WWDC happy hour that I plan to walk from my hotel to bet on the predictions for the Keynote announcements. Also, all developers who attend will be entered for a chance to win an Apple Vision Pro!

10th: Special Event, Pub and Stars!

The big day is here - WWDC Keynote Day! I will start the morning by registering for the special event at Apple Park. I have never seen the Apple Campus (my internship with Apple happened remotely due to COVID), so I will be delighted to see the huge glass windows! Those few hours will set the tone for the rest of my year.

Once the special event wraps up, I will go to the pub with my friends to discuss the new announcements and features from the Keynote and SOTU.

Also, I plan to sneak in and attend the Students, Swift, St★rs to cheer for the scholarship winners and meet some of these talented individuals. Their projects always flabbergast me for their age, and keep me humble to the ground, ha!

11th: Coffee, Coffee and Another Happy Hour

I will kick off the day with Coffee&Code @ WWDC24 after a (hopefully) solid keynote day.

Next, I'm hoping to attend Core Coffee - WWDC Edition pt. 2, but I'm still on the waitlist. If I get in and it is not too crowded, it will be another round of coffee!

In the evening, I will head to the Apple Developer Center to meet the different teams at Apple. As expected, I will meet the MusicKit team, and bombard them with questions in a respectful way.

To close out the day, I will attend the iOSDevHappyHour @ WWDC24 IRL. It is a fun, casual gathering of iOS developers to unwind, discuss new stuff, and make new friends while enjoying the sips!

12th: Scholars and Swift

I will start the day by attending the WWDC Scholars meetup. Meeting scholars from probably 2015 to 2014, catching up for all the past years, and learning about their work, projects and experiences. Sounds fun to me!

In parallel, there is WWDCCommunity Vision Pro Enthusiast Meetup that I wish I could attend, and I hope you all have a great time there!

In the evening, I am excited to attend the Swift Community Social. A lot of Swift enthusiasts, and maybe, maybe rant about how hard it is to do LeetCode questions related to strings!

With that event, I will close up on WWDC 2024 scheduled events, and take a good sleep to enjoy the rest of the week with my friends.

One More Thing...

Alongside WWDC, there is another exciting event taking place from June 10th to 14th: the One More Thing conference.

One More Thing has a series of talks, workshops, and WWDC-labs-inspired experiences led by community experts. I LOVED Layers back in 2019, so I am looking forward to it!

In between my scheduled events, I plan to it and I know it is going to be a social frenzy!

Watch the Sessions?

The evergreen advice I got during WWDC 2019 was to focus on attending the labs as the sessions would anyway be recorded. I did not prepare many questions to ask the Apple engineers back then but attended the lab to learn something new. I made a few friends in the queue too! Now that the labs are kind of gone, the idea remains the same.

I will most likely watch the sessions related to MusicKit because it excites me the most, and cover it on the same day it is released like I did last to last year.

For other sessions, I am sceptical about watching them during the dub-dub week and spend time meeting new people instead. I will download the interesting sessions to watch during my sixteen-hour long flight back home, but I am not going to the US again this year nor find all the amazing developers from around the world in the same place at the same time. And, the content of the session usually changes with subsequent betas and even the name of the framework. (staring at you, xrOS!)

Also, I never know if the person I am talking to ends up being someone I am working with on a project to explore the latest stuff, and then I am paid to watch the sessions!

Beta Horror

I get it. It is tempting to try those new betas the moment they drop. Exploring fresh features, experimenting with brand-new SwiftUI APIs, and getting your hands on the latest Xcode is irresistible. Trust me, I have been there multiple times!

But here is a tale from an eye-witness. An eager scholar decided to install iOS on their primary iPhone. Yes, the very same device that has all their crucial data, contacts, and everything in between.

YOLO, as they say.

And then, their phone bricked, turning the beta excitement into remorse. One misstep, that ruined their WWDC experience.

I do not know how their story ended, but that incident left me to adopt a more cautious approach to beta testing.

For my test iPhone, I will usually wait a few betas in, allowing time for first-moves to give their review. For my primary device, the AI features really have to be worth it to give it in. When it comes to macOS, I will play it even safer, anticipating the Release Candidate for my work Mac Mini and wait for the official release for my daily MacBook Pro.

But Xcode? I will embrace the first beta version of Xcode 16.0, as it can only crash itself! YOLO responsibly!

Conclusion

Another year, another dub dub. As always, it will be an overwhelming week, and I am glad I am arriving a few days earlier to combat the jet lag, unlike last year.

In the end, I want to be freaking inspired by the people I meet there to work on my ideas.

And ship them.

Yes, actually get them to the App Store. I do not want to let the momentum fade. Set better and clearer goals, create a roadmap, and hold myself accountable.

I repent not having a Day 1 visionOS app, and do not want to repeat a similar mistake.

Time for an Absolutely Incredible WWDC 2024!