Ask HN: WWDC worth the price of admission?

[eaglej]

Is access to Apple people at WWDC worth the $1599 price of admission? I could see the possibility that we'd get multiple times that value in terms of exposure, possibility of Apple people getting excited about our app/technology, and direct access to work with Apple engineers on technical problems, but I could also see it being not so worth it. Having never been, it's really hard for me to guess. If you've attended before, what kind of value have you derived from it?

[nglevin]

Well, every year's a full house. It used to be a great event where you could meet people in IT, web developers, Objective-C developers, Mac developers and iOS developers. Now, it's pretty skewed towards iOS development, but it's still fun.

I think it's absolutely worth it to meet the Apple community. You'll get a pretty interesting sampling of people who are really enthusiastic about developing for the platform, including members of the Mac press and some folks who are just trying to learn things. And you won't find a better group anywhere else.

As for the labs, I've had a mixed experience with them. Some teams are really approachable (the Accelerate team, awesome guys), some not so much. I've heard some very funny stories from some of my friends and from people I respect regarding the labs for the App Store review team... I don't know if Apple has App Store labs anymore. Wouldn't be surprised if they went away.

Regarding food; Moscone West's lunches have always been kinda suspect. For some reason, food quality tends to go down quite a bit as the week goes on. Consider eating at the Metreon or Mel's instead for a quick burger for a protein boost. The WWDC bash more than makes up for the rest.

Not going this year, pursuing other interests at the moment.

[jjmanton]

Apple really does a good job with this conference. Food is great, sessions are great, and the people are excellent.

Is it worth it? Overwhelmingly yes. First, the labs are the most useful thing you can get out of the conference if utilized. I cant tell you how many issues have been solved and bug reports have been filed because of WWDC labs. If you do find a bug, Apple Engineers really like the challenge of finding a workaround using public API's.

The best part about the conference is the motivation-boost that you and your dev team will get after attending. It can bring so much more productivity to your team just by spending a week with thousands of people, all who challenge you on an intellectual level.