Glossy Icon Hangover

WWDC is an odd combination of international vague coolness.  As I walk the through the conference I heard languages from rich countries like France, US, UK, Japan and Germany (or at least German speakers).  It all has a surreal techno-freaky vibe to it.  There is also a pinch of American Unix geeks through in.  You can identify these buys by their beer bellies and full beards.  There are also a lot of artists and designers thrown into this mix.

Also, there is an over abundance of glossy icons and snappy slogans everywhere at WWDC.  At WWDC you get weird associations like "Debug and Conquer" or for the App Store, "Applications Accepted Here".  That last one has Orwellian consequences to the developers hoping to get their creations on to the store.

However, I can't help but wonder if M$ is able to tap into this reptile brain in the same way as Apple.  I doubt it.  That being said, Apple's ability to engage non-engineer types into application development could be the key to their success in the future.  Technology and programming will be a fully realized technique when people who are not math majors can do it.

WWDC

On Sunday I am taking a trip to California and making the biggest investment into my business so far. I am going to the Apple Developer's Conference (WWDC) - a massive gathering/training session for people who write programs for the various Apple platforms. After all is said and done I will have spent about $3000 which is about what I expect to pay for 1 week "bootcamp" seminars.

What I plan on learning is all the basics about working on the platform (everything related to what they refer to as "UIKit"). Of course, I do have some knowledge already of Objective-C and Cocoa (the main development tools), but what I really want is to spend some focused time in the most cost/time effective way I can on learning this stuff.

Networking will also be a priority and I have printed up some business cards to that end. This perhaps will be a harder skill for me to acquire, but absolutely necessary.

By the end of this conference I expect to have the skills I need to finish developing my first product. Specially, I want this:
-More familiarity with Objective-C/Cocoa
-Understanding of delegation
-How to use Camera, Mail, and UI components