WWDC is taking place on June 13 -17th 2016 in San Francisco.
There is a sliding scale of options for “attending” WWDC week:
- Get a ticket, go to SF, attend sessions
- Go to SF, watch sessions
- Stay home, watch sessions
WWDC Attendance Cost
Registration is open until April 22nd 2016 closed for 2016. Registering entered you into the lottery for tickets. Successful applicants were notified on April 25th 2016.
Registration cost $1599 which is charged on successful selection during the lottery process. You then have travel and hotels costs. Typical estimates of attendance cost are $4000. This is also a week out of the office so typically you have reduced income for a week.
Remote Attendance
If you’re not planning to attend, there are plenty of ways you can join in during WWDC week.
The two key sessions are the Keynote and the Platforms State of the Union. The Keynote is the business update which typically includes new product announcements. The Platforms State of the Union goes deeper in iOS and OSX features and updates.
Apple has announced that many of the sessions will be live streamed.
The Apple WWDC app gives a sneak preview of sessions. Not yet updated for 2016. Expect the schedule to be updated by the end of May.
There are many other events happening in San Francisco during WWDC. Some are satellite events for WWDC and some are alternative events for without a WWDC ticket but are still in the city. Both Layers and AltConf have confirmed 2016 events but have not yet published details. For a taste of the great talks from last year, view the 2015 AltConf videos.
Watching WWDC Videos
The release of WWDC videos by Apple has improved year on year. The time to release has reduced every year, with some sessions now being streamed live. Recently they have added searchable transcripts and subtitles. The searchable transcripts provide links to the point in the video. This is very powerful for quickly navigating a video. Subtitles make it easier to absorb the content.
For a full UI to access the videos, you should use WWDC. This Mac app allows you to track videos you’ve watched, save favourites and gives access to all videos and transcripts from previous WWDC’s.