I realized after flying back home that this was likely my 20th trip out to San Jose and San Francisco for WWDC. I certainly loved the early years, as well as the height of WWDC in San Francisco as the community was growing, but I’ve found the no-stress compromise of the last few years without a conference ticket to be some of the most enjoyable and productive.
This year I arrived Saturday before lunch. Jean MacDonald and I used this extra day for Micro.blog planning, and to walk around the conference area looking for a good spot for the meetup. In the evening, a bunch of us met up at Santa Clara Valley Brewing.
Sunday morning I was up early, got some coffee and breakfast while working at Voltaire Coffee House, then drove up to San Francisco. I had rented a car for what has become a pre-WWDC tradition for me the last several years: having lunch out at the Presidio in San Francisco and catching the latest exhibit at the Walt Disney Family Museum. I picked up Jon Hays at SFO along the way, and we also stopped for the view from Twin Peaks on the way back.
It was great to catch up with people at sjMacIndie on Sunday night. Jon and I left a little early to watch the second half of game 2 of the NBA finals from a bar around the corner. I wore my Tim Duncan t-shirt.
Monday morning was keynote watching at AltConf. While I was initially underwhelmed by the keynote, the announcements have been growing on me throughout the week. Apple’s strategy with Siri still isn’t what I’d like to see, but it’s significant progress. We go into this more on the latest Core Intuition. Overall a pretty good conference. I’ll be watching the Mac App Store improvements too.
Hopefully by next year I’ll remember that finding a place downtown for dinner late at night requires a little planning. Nevertheless, had a great time talking with friends and meeting new folks over dinner or drinks for the nights I was in San Jose. This year even featured a random trip to In-N-Out for burgers.
I really enjoyed both the live recordings I went to: Accidental Tech Podcast and The Talk Show. Unfortunately I had to leave Wednesday so missed the Relay show. I have a bunch of podcasts to catch up on.
The highlight of my week was the 2nd annual Micro.blog WWDC meetup. It means a lot to see the support from the community. Micro.blog continues to get better every day, and I’m looking forward to meeting even more users next year. Thanks again to everyone joined us at the meetup, and to Jeff Watkins for the group photo!
