WWDC24 – Apple event at Apple

The Apple event is definitely the main event of the WWDC week. If you were lucky enough to win the Golden ticket for 2024, then you could spend some time at the Fruit Co. establishment from Sunday to Tuesday. 

Apple Design Award reception and badge-up

After I won the ticket lottery, I started to receive emails from Apple about the schedule of the event. In the first email, where they confirmed that I am in, they already mentioned a reception in the Infinity Loop Campus one day before the Keynote… Which means that I could visit both the old and the new campus! 

It was a roughly 4 hours long meetup, and I guess the primary reason was to make smoother the logistics for the big day. We spent some time in the queue, but finally (after the security check) we all received our badges (after the ID check) and the goodies bag from Apple. The other reason was definitely the socializing. Hence, the second, optional ID check and the wristband for the alcohol-eligible attendees. The socializing was working well: I met a lot of interesting people and with some of them I was hanging out later during the week. I was also surprised by the weight of the Apple Design Award, I am not so jealous to the one who needs to travel with one in their bag…

Since my accommodation was really close to the Apple Park (Woodcrest Hotel), I took a walk after the event. I was surprised to see that I am not the only one walking in the suburbs. We stayed in Princeton a few years back with my wife and  we got strange looks from the cars, when we are walking to the shop, when we recognized, that we are the only pedestrians on the streets.

Apple Park

On the day of the Keynote we were allowed to enter the Apple Park, which is usually closed for visitors. The gates were open from 8:00 AM, but I arrived a half an hour later. Fortunately, there was no queue, so I could approach to the event venue quickly.

One part of the curved building was open, and the stage was outside of the longer arc, under a huge canopy. There were plenty of spaces inside the building, and extra screens provided a great view for the videos during the event. 

In the inner circle there were the download stations, where you can connect via USB-C to a gigabit network. It was absolutely life-saving later. Although the wifi was working well, it was really slow, so those cable connections triumphed when needed to download the new Xcode, or the language model for the Predictive Code Completion.

Food was served, and drinks were on the shelves to pick from them free during the whole day.

Keynote

10 minutes before the Keynote started Tim Cook greeted us from the stage, and also gave an opportunity to Craig Federighi to ensure everyone that there won’t be mocks and funny skits during this WWDC, and the the show started… With a funny skit, of course ;).

I think everyone has seen the Keynote, which for me was a bit fast. I was texting updates on of the Slack group, and it turned out that the streaming in Apple Park was roughly 30-60 seconds ahead of what was available online. So I had all the fame, to be the first one reporting in the Slack group. In terms of speed, I think they also rushed through to get to the Apple Intelligence point, which was almost the half of the show.

Platform State of the Union

I am not sure if you have ever heard about it, but after the Keynote, there is a separate presentation, called Platform State of the Union. Historically the Keynote is more marketing focused, and the State of the Union is more tech focused. This time I felt that they squeezed everything that couldn’t fit into the Keynote, they just moved to the Platform State of the Union. The Platform State of the Union is also available online, I believe it is still worth to watch it.

In person labs

Based on the other attendees this was a new thing. I spotted earlier some Apple employees in the crowd (it was easy given their special t-shits). Their presence clarified after the State of the Union: they were there to give all developers in-person support. I think it was also a huge benefit of this event, when you got stuck on something, you can just sit down one of the Apple engineers, and discuss your issues with them. There were theme/framework based groups to help you out. I believe this part gave the most value of this event.

New gadgets to play with

I was already bringing a machine and an iPhone with me to the Apple Event with the intention of installing the beta software on it. I saw guys, who were also ran out to the Apple Visitor Center, and quickly bought a MacBook Air, just to have a separate beta machine. On the other spectrum I have seen guys with MacBook Pro’s, one of them labelled with  a large “BETABOOK” sticker… 

I quickly managed to upgrade the machine with me via the Software Update to macOS Sequoia, and download the Xcode 16 Beta at the Download Stations. As I mentioned above the Predictive Code Completion language model (1.89GB :O) could be downloaded separately, same way as you get the iOS SDKs since Xcode 15.

At the end of the event there was an opportunity to look around in the Apple Park, so I was heading to the inner circle to explore. It was a long day, but one of my best experience.