a mini WWDC attendee survival guide
There are a lot of WWDC survival guides floating around on the intarwebs, but I have a bunch of tiny suggestions floating around in my head, and I figure now is as good of a time as any to start writing them down before next year when I forget until I'm actually at the conference again.
I've started a list of other "survival" etc. guides for WWDC at the bottom of this post. A lot of them already have the no brainer suggestions I'm going to skip if I can (bringing a laptop, bringing code to the labs). I'm also hoping that my post will age nicely, but you never know. You will have to take all the "guides", tweets, blog posts and more about WWDC with a little grain of salt, some things are bound to change (like how Apple got rid of the Student Sunday event and moved the WWDC bash from the campus to Yerba Buena Gardens between 2006 and 2007).
- Bring a power strip, and if possible, the power adapter extension cable.
At WWDC 2008, they finally had a bunch of power strips scattered around the seats, which made the plug-in situation a lot easier for those of us who brought laptops. However, what happened was...this:
Basically, if any two people decided to plug in their bricks, there was no more space left for anyone else to plug in.
I know a bunch of people are not from North America or one of the countries where this type of connector is common, so the reason why they're doing this is because the travel adapters Apple sells are the kind you attach to the brick. But that's not really an excuse. Here's a couple things you can do:- If you're bringing a North American adapter, bring your extension cable and use it. It's also not a bad idea to bring a power strip in general, it'll make your life easier even in the nicest hotel rooms, especially if you're the type of person going to WWDC (namely, one bringing lots and lots of gadgets needing power).
- If you're not bringing a North American adapter, you have a few choices. You might have some friends who have the NA adapter floating around, you might have picked one up online for cheap, you might have gotten one from Apple, you might have gotten the extension cable..whatever it is, if you're using your brick, be considerate of your neighbors. Otherwise, you should bring a strip with an adapter for the strip itself, and then plug in your usual adapter into your own strip and the strip into the shared strip. That's what one of my Australian friends did :)
- Label your belongings.
I saw this tip once in another guide's comments, and it's fantastic. There's going to be thousands of other Mac users in the same space for a week, and that means thousands if not tens of thousands of similar-looking laptops, adapters, iPhones, WWDC laptop bags and more. Just do it. - Network. There are so many parties and events during the week that you really have no excuse.
Upcoming, Facebook, MacYenta, various forums, mailing lists, you name it. I have yet to find a really great sched.org like schedule for WWDC, and the sched guys said they couldn't do one for 2008 anyway. Sure it's a little work to find out about all the parties and things going on, but maybe someone can fill the void here ;)
A lot of people don't need help with this, but, I'm shy, I'm a nobody, I'm still under 21 (rules out a few parties and all of the alcohol), and I'm still a student. Last WWDC I tried to mingle a little in the facebook group for WWDC 2008 students, which sort of ended up migrating to twitter. Met some people, still talk with others, and by the end of the conference I was missing everyone I had met up with and I was wishing it would go on for another week. In comparison, my 2007 WWDC experience was total crap because all I did was mope around the city and in my hotel room since the small handful of parties I found were ones that either didn't interest me or were 21+. Don't let yours be crap. - Don't forget that there's more than just WWDC and WWDC related parties.
San Francisco and the rest of the bay area have a lot to offer, and even during the week you will be able to find time between sessions, labs and parties. If it's your first time, there's also all the tourist stuff on top of that. Excellent restaurants, unique places. One of my favorite memories from 2008 was making a trip to Apple HQ (below) and the Googleplex with a little detour to drive down a block of crazy little Lombard Street (above) with four other students in a rental car the Sunday before the conference. Another one was heading out with friends to (not safe for work) a very unique little shop we found a short distance away since we had an hour or so before ADA and Stump.
If you need help choosing whatever and you're new to the area, yelp is a nice place to start. - There is an Apple Store on Stockton and Market.
Okay, to be picky, it's like where Stockton, Market and Ellis sort of meet. Anyway, the point being, there is an Apple Store there. In 2007, I arrived at my hotel the Saturday before only to realize that my power adapter had finally kicked the bucket right then and there. Walking to the store from my hotel took longer than getting a replacement from the genius at the bar. Even if you don't have any problems and you didn't leave anything at home by accident, it's useful to know this, because there's been a CocoaHeads WWDC meetup at the Apple Store for the past two years.
If you don't like the Apple Store but you have a problem that needs fixed, there is also the PowerBook Guy about a block away. - You don't have to stump the experts to get an awesome shirt.
One way to get prizes is to identify the several songs that play before Stump begins. Of course, if you were there in 2008, you know that there was a guy who identified all but one song and ended up winning Adobe CS3, making the jaws of everyone in that room drop in surprise. The half good news is that Shazam (app store) is the iPhone incarnation of what the guy used to ID the songs, and it works (for me it has only failed to ID one song out of over a hundred!). The bad news is that you're no fun if you plan on using something like Shazam to do what this guy did next year. - Bring comfy shoes to wear.
Or, don't be silly like me wearing platform shoes the day of the keynote only to trip while trying to wave to Rob Marini, who then made fun of me. You are going to be walking in San Francisco. I mean you could be all unfun and take a car, but even if you bring a car or take bart/muni everywhere you're still going to end up walking a bit. And well, since I'm a Los Angeles girl that drives everywhere, this is a huge change to me. Comfortable shoes MATTER. Also, a bike map or something similar that shows street grades can come in handy. Some of the hills in San Francisco are insane to walk up. Google Maps now has a walking option to calculate directions, and you can always use the iPhone.
The next best thing to comfortable shoes is Bandaid Blister Block, which is this tube of pure awesomeness that's worth every penny. Or you can use something close to it. I've only had blisters whenever I forgot to use it. That's it. Even with my strappy high heels. Zero. Nada. Zilch. I like to follow up on sore and tired feet with Lush Running to the Embassy body butter, but maybe it's not the kind of thing for you. If it is, Lush is located on Powell near Geary. - Food is a tossup...
I note that a lot of people are saying the box lunches are total crap. Well, it's a tossup to me. Yes, some days it will be total crap, but other days I'll have something that was actually half decent (like the above, a thai beef salad I was about to eat..). The menu will also be fairly repetitive. If you're a vegetarian or some variant thereof, you'll be bored. But honestly, I've had way worse box lunches, and these aren't so bad.
Besides, if you plan on attending the lunchtime sessions, you don't have time to really do more than just pick up a box lunch, head to the session and start eating. The only way you'd be able to do otherwise is if you got someone else to bring you lunch..or you miss out on either a session/lab before lunch or the lunchtime session to grab something to eat outside of Moscone West.
Now, the coffee in the morning is generally godawful. You may have better luck at the bar where they make your drink individually. Better yet, skip the coffee and grab a few bottles of Odwalla instead, or pick up some coffee before you head out to the conference, you're bound to pass a Starbucks or a smaller mom and pop coffee shop on your way. There's also plenty of water to go around including in every room, so bring an empty bottle and refill as you go or just use the disposable cups.
Snacks are different from lunch. Lots of fruit and rice crispies and brownies and chocolate and more to go around. Unfortunately they don't do this between every session. - Think about backups and don't be stupid about security.
It's pretty useful to bring a spare backup of a working install of OS X with all the apps you need already installed on something like a hard drive or a CCC image. If you plan on installing any developer previews, even more so. You never know when this will become insanely useful to you for whatever reason.
Okay, so some of the leftover Defcon wariness may be responsible for the security part, but it's REALLY important. WWDC is nowhere near as hostile as Defcon is, but I suppose it's really up to you: it's a wireless network, be aware. I'm of the "I don't really care" type that only starts caring during Defcon so I don't end up on the Wall of Sheep, but I don't do anything insanely important on the WWDC network (e.g. banking...) if I can help it. Unfortunately there are always people who do. Don't be one of those people. - Don't forget that videos will be available on ADC on iTunes.
So in 2008, some of the attendees, myself included, were on an IRC channel discussing random things when someone noted that the person they were sitting near was taking photos of the NDA'd presentation. Do not be as stupid as that guy.
You will have a hard time choosing sessions to attend if you're interested in Mac and/or iPhone development. There will be overlap between sessions you want to attend and labs you're interested in and everything. Don't worry, even if you're attending on a student scholarship. Maybe you may miss out on Q&A but you will get videos and PDFs of the slides a month or two later at http://developer.apple.com/adconitunes. You don't have to take copious notes like it's the only time you're ever going to hear that information, you don't need to take pictures like the aforementioned idiot. The only downside is that you have to wait for the videos to show up. - Be flexible.
Sessions and labs change as the week goes on, and Apple does mention all of this in emails you get every night/morning of the conference. Use the schedule, use the emails, use the iPhone site, don't forget that on every floor they have shiny cinema displays showing all of the sessions and labs going on. - Have fun.
Self explanatory.
Lots of other people compiled their own guides to WWDC. Here are some of my favorites: