Worldwide Developers Conference
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, commonly abbreviated WWDC, is a conference held annually in California by Apple Computer. The conference is primarily used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for developers.
In recent years the conference has been used to demonstrate and distribute preview versions of upcoming Mac OS X versions. The number of attendees varies between 2000 to 4200 developers.
The conference starts with a keynote presentation which has been delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs since 1998, resulting in the event becoming known as "Stevenotes".
The first WWDC was held in Monterey, California in 1983. Through 2002, WWDC was held in mid-May. From 2003 to 2005 it was held in June to better distribute Apple's show commitments. In 2006, WWDC was moved to August due to scheduling conflicts at the Moscone Center.
Locations and dates of recent WWDCs:
- 1990, San Jose, May 7 – May 11
- 1991, San Jose, May 13 – May 17
- 1992, San Jose, May 11 – May 15
- 1993, San Jose, May 10 – May 14
- 1994, San Jose, May 16 – May 20
- 1995, San Jose, May 8 – May 12
- 1996, San Jose, May 13 – May 17
- 1997, San Jose, May 13 – May 16
- 1998, San Jose, May 11 – May 15
- 1999, San Jose, May 10 – May 14
- 2000, San Jose, May 15 – May 19
- 2001, San Jose, May 21 – May 25
- 2002, San Jose, May 6 – May 10
- 2003, San Francisco, June 23 – June 27
- 2004, San Francisco, June 28 – July 2
- 2005, San Francisco, June 6 – June 10
- 2006, San Francisco, August 7 – August 11
Contents |
[edit] Broadened scope
In 2003, WWDC was merged with another Apple trade show called QuickTime Live. The number of QuickTime sessions was increased, and the Apple Design Awards were joined by Apple Design Awards for QuickTime Content. At the same time, more enterprise-oriented content was added, focusing a lot on the Xserve and Mac OS X Server operating system.
All attendees have to sign a non-disclosure agreement covering the sessions and other material handed out at WWDC. In the past, the keynote was also covered by the NDA, but Apple in recent years has webcast the keynote address to an audience much wider than just developers. It used to be that WWDC was not a place for hardware announcements, but Apple deviated from that principle in 2002 when it announced the rack mounted server Xserve, in 2003 with the introduction of the consumer-oriented iSight and the Power Mac G5, in 2004 with the introduction of redesigned Apple Cinema Displays, in 2005, when an announcement was made that Apple Computer would start the transition of their computers from IBM's PowerPC microprocessor line to Intel's line of x86 processors, and in 2006 with the release of the Xeon-based Mac Pro and Xserve.
[edit] WWDC 2006
4200 developers from 48 countries attended the event, making it the largest WWDC ever. There were 140 sessions and 100 hands-on labs for developers. There were over 1000 Apple engineers present at the event.
The retail update included reports of 17 million visits to Apple Stores. Of the 1.33 million Macs sold in the previous quarter, 50% were first time Mac buyers. US$500 million of third party software was sold through Apple stores. The growth rate for Macs was reported as faster than that of the PC market, and Apple's notebook marketshare had doubled (from 6% to 12%), which was attributed to the introduction of the MacBook laptop.
As expected, the Mac Pro was announced as a replacement to the PowerMac G5 that was previously Apple's "prosumer" desktop computer, and the last remaining PowerPC-based Mac. The Mac Pro features a baseline of two 2.0 GHz dual core Xeon (Woodcrest) processors, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, and a 256 MB video card. An Xserve update was also announced, based as well on the dual core Xeons. Redundant power and Lights Out Management were additional product improvements to Apple's server lineup.
While certain key Mac OS X improvements were kept "close to the vest," there were 10 improvements announced for OS X in its next iteration, Leopard, including: Full 64-bit app support, Time Machine, Boot Camp, Front Row, and Photo Booth packaged with the OS, Spaces (Virtual Desktops), Spotlight enhancements, Core Animation, Universal Access enhancements, Mail enhancements, Dashboard enhancements, including Dashcode and iChat enhancements. Leopard was announced to most likely be released for sale in Spring 2007.
In addition to Leopard features that were announced, a major revision to the Mac OS X Server product was announced. Some new features in this product included: A simplified set-up process, iCal Server (based on the CalDAV standard), Teams (a set of web-based collaborative services), Spotlight Server, and Podcast Producer.
[edit] WWDC 2005
3800 attendees from 45 countries attended the event. There were 110 lab sessions, 95 presentation sessions, and 500+ Apple engineers on site.
For the retail update, it was announced that there were now 109 Apple retail stores, which all told, hosted 1 million visitors a week and sold $500 million of third party products sold over the previous quarter.
The iPod update announced a 76% marketshare and 16 million iPods sold. 430 million songs had been downloaded via iTunes, and there were reported to be 8000 podcasts available via iTunes as well. A demo of podcasting and iTunes integration followed these announcements.
The Mac update showcased figures that indicated Mac growth being three times the rate of PC growth. OS X Tiger was touted as the "greatest OS release ever" with almost 2 million copies being sold in 6 weeks and with developers contributing 40 Spotlight enhancements, 400 Dashboard widgets, and 550 Automator actions.
It was at this event that Apple announced its transition to Intel processors and the x86 platform. The keynote featured developers from Wolfram Research, who discussed their experience porting Mathematica to Mac OS X on the Intel platform.
[edit] WWDC 2004
Steve noted that 3500 developers attended and that was a 17% increase from 2003. New displays were introduced in 23 and 30-inch widescreen. Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) was also previewed. All attendees received a developer preview of Tiger, a simple grey t-shirt with the Apple logo on the front and "WWDC2004" on the back, a backpack capable of holding a 17-inch powerbook, and a copy of Apple Remote Desktop 2.0.
[edit] WWDC 2003
Introduction of the Power Mac G5 and preview of OS X Panther (10.3). Attendees received an iSight web camera.
[edit] WWDC 2001
Over 4000 developers attended. Leather jackets with a large blue "X" embroidered on the back were distributed to attendees.
[edit] WWDC 2000
Approximately 3600 developers attended.
[edit] WWDC 1999
2563 developers attended.
