April 28, 2010, 8:47 PM — Today, Apple announced the dates for the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference, June 7-11 2010. My experience in the Mac universe tells me that no matter what Apple announced in the way of content, there would be a large amount of worrying and hand-wringing about it. That same experience told me very little of said worry would be based in logic. I was not wrong.
There are very few sessions that are not iPad/ iPhone/iPod Touch - focused. The Apple Design Awards are, for the first time, limited to only iPhone OS-based applications in the App Store. I looked at both of these facts, and thought: "Meh. Makes sense as version 4 of the iPhone OS will be released within a couple months of the WWDC, whereas the next version of the Mac OS is easily over a year from release." The limitations on the ADA awards bugged me, but more because it excluded anyone who'd written any private applications for their company, and while I understand Apple not including those, (enterprise developers are only restricted by distribution. They can break every App Store rule with impunity, because they don't use the App Store. So they don't have to play by the same rules), I disagree with it. Even if it was just a single category within the ADAs, excluding enterprise devs kind of stinks.
I didn't think that this was some sign that Apple is killing the Mac or the Mac OS. Not anytime soon. They make a lot of money off the Mac, and it's hardly stagnant. It's not new, but that's not the same as stagnant.
Evidently I was wrong to apply logic. It appears the retired Kremlinologists are now all running about predicting the end of the world. Well, the Mac at least.
Do I really have to list out the reasons why this is a silly conclusion beyond the release timeline I touched on just now? No? Good, I didn't think so.
Another change from the last few years is the lack of an IT Track. This too is annoying, but hardly surprising. The 2009 WWDC was, to be kind, a madhouse. There were far too many needs for the space available. In the face of Apple's release schedule, the exclusion of the IT Track is disappointing, but understandable. Honestly, I can't even get that annoyed by it. I know some of the folks that deal with planning the WWDC, and I was on the planning committee for the IT track at this year's Macworld Conference & Expo. Planning a show like that is insanely difficult, and you always, always cut content that a lot of people want, but isn't part of your prime focus.
It may be kind of heinous, but when you have a definite amount of space, a definite amount of time, and (effectively), an infinite amount of good content, someone has to lose. However, it's not like there's nothing there of value for IT. Keeping in mind that I do include a certain amount of development needs, even in 'traditional' syadmin roles, (I've written FAR more code as a sysadmin than I ever did as a programmer), we have:
- Managing Mobile Devices
Devices running iPhone OS are as easy to configure and manage as they are to use. Learn about the new Mobile Device Management architecture and discover how to use new Over-The-Air (OTA) capabilities to erase or lock a device and query for important device information. OTA also lets you remotely deploy configuration profiles, install in-house applications, and make managed iPhone deployments even more manageable.
iPhone OS and Mac OS X offer a rich set of networking APIs that provide advanced features while maintaining compatibility with open standards. You can use Apple's networking APIs to develop software that perform a wide range of networking tasks, from providing access to web services within your application to writing a device driver for a network hardware device. Hear about new technologies, the latest developments in the networking frameworks and best practices.
Secure coding helps protect a user's data from theft or corruption and prevents the compromise of secrets, loss of service, or damage to your users' systems. Gain insight into emerging security threats and learn powerful techniques to securely code, review, and install your software. Learn about hot topics in security such as the use of SSL, privacy, URL handlers, WebKit views, and privilege separation with Service Management.
First of a two-part series to present the latest techniques for building reliable, secure, high-performance network apps for iPhone OS. Gain a solid understanding of network architecture, bandwidth and latency, asymmetric connectivity, service discovery, reachability, and other networking concepts. Equip yourself with the skills necessary to build reliable and secure networking product
Concludes a two-part series to present the latest techniques for building reliable, secure, high-performance network applications, with a focus on iPhone OS applications. Part 2 covers the interface lifecycle, NSOperation and runloop-based asynchronous APIs, performance considerations, debugging, logging, packet tracing, and failure simulation. Find out from the experts how to improve and enhance your networking products to perform as reliably and securely in real-world implementations as in your test lab.
Bonjour, also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks. A wide range of Apple's products, from iMacs and MacBooks to AirPort Base Stations and Time Capsules, Apple TVs to iPhones, iPod touches and iPads use Bonjour for streamlined and reliable networking. Learn how to use Bonjour to make it easy for your applications to publish, discover, and resolve network services.
Efficient memory management is essential to making an app great. Inefficient memory usage wastes scarce resources, can degrade system performance, and can even cause your app to crash. At this must-attend session for Mac and iPhone developers, learn advanced techniques for tracking memory usage in your app. Come to a better understanding of the object life cycle, and discover how to improve your app's memory performance.
Great Mac and iPhone applications delight users with fast execution and responsive UI. Join the Instruments team as you dive deeply into the latest techniques to improve your application's performance.
Discover how the latest advancements in Instruments help you to pinpoint and eliminate performance problems in your iPhone OS and Mac OS X apps. At this highly-recommended session for all developers, you'll gain a new understanding of your memory usage, learn to perform fine-grained CPU analysis, and acquire other new performance-enhancing skills.
HTTP Live Streaming lets you deliver video using HTTP from a standard Web server. Gain a practical understanding of the details behind deployment of live and on-demand streams. Learn how to design for mobility and the best practices for delivering video into your application or on the web.
You can use standard web technologies to create rich informational graphics that display flawlessly in Safari and other web browsers. Learn how to use SVG and the HTML5 canvas element to create and display graphs, tables, charts, and data visualizations in your web pages. Discover the best practices for optimal drawing performance, and for integrating remote, dynamic data into your web graphics
HTML5 is the best way to deliver audio and video in web pages in Safari. Discover basic techniques for delivering media with HTML5 and master the JavaScript APIs necessary to design and implement your own custom media controls to match the look and feel of your website. Learn platform-specific details and best practices for delivering a seamless media experience in Safari on iPhone OS, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Learn to integrate HTML5 video with CSS3 2D and 3D transforms and animations to deliver rich media experiences for Safari on iPhone OS, Mac OS X, and Windows. See how to add advanced features such as closed captions, and understand how to modify your code so that your video can be embedded in other websites in a way that is compatible with multiple platforms and web browsers.
Safari contains an extraordinary set of integrated developer tools. See how to use these tools to debug JavaScript, profile performance, inspect and edit CSS, view locally stored data, and test pieces of code on the fly. Discover new features that streamline your development, and learn techniques for optimizing page load time on mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad.
I've had a few people come back and say "well only one of those is really focused on IT." To me, that's an artificial barrier and one that is silly, perhaps even stupid. I haven't been a programmer in over a decade, but I learned long ago that if I understood what was going on in the applications and APIs that affect things like networking and security, my ability to run things well went straight up. Knowing how to use tools like Instruments makes troubleshooting weedy interaction issues far easier. Knowing more about HTML 5, streaming, et al means that when I get calls about problems with web sites and servers, having deep knowledge of what those servers are doing makes my ability to manage those problems far greater.
It also means that when I'm reporting bugs to engineers, aka "programmers" or troubleshooting application problems, I'm better able to understand what they're trying to tell me. 90, if not 95% of IT is knowing how stuff works. It's reading manuals, and howtos and the like. As a good friend of mine, Chuck Goolsbee once said:
" In reality we are not super-uber-geeks by some natural ability... no, we just are the ones who took the time to understand the tools and technologies we use. Sometimes we are just the *only* ones who actually read the manual. N + 1 = Expert."
The WWDC is a huge part of reading the "manual" on the OS. As well, my company, like a lot of others, is having to deal with iPhones and the iPhone OS. Unlike many, we also have to look at what we may have to do in terms of developing applications for the platform. If you think of part of IT's job as being to identify and proactively try to handle new ways of doing business, (and I do), then it would be hideously...dumb of me to throw away such a golden chance to do just that, because I didn't have my own special track name.
None of this includes the value of non-trackable, unmonitored time with Apple and other companies' engineers.
The WWDC is always, always a bit of a crapshoot with regard to content. Some years, I'm stupidly glad I went, and some years, I've thought I was perhaps stupid for going. But thus far, nothing I've seen has made me change my mind with regard to going.
