[ghshephard]

The entire idea is to not provide any "gifts" and "devices" to people attending, so the only reason they are attending is for quality 1:1 time with the Apple engineers plus the opportunity to socialize with your fellow Apple developers. The actual sessions are available on video, so you don't need to attend for those. Viewed from this perspective, lack of giveaways is a very deliberate and desirable feature of the WWDC.

[svas]

That makes sense. I can certainly see how giving away freebies is not the way to attract serious developers, and can be distracting.