WWDC: An Indie Developer’s Perspective
This is a blog post by site administrator Ray Wenderlich, an independent software developer and gamer. For an iOS developer from a small town, there’s nothing quite like walking up to a huge building surrounded by thousands of fellow devs from around the world. “Finally, I’m not the only geek in town!” :] WWDC is […] By Ray Wenderlich.
Conclusion
Attending WWDC is expensive. It’s about:
- $1.5K for the conference ticket itself
- Around $1-3K for the hotel
- $500 or so for the flight
- $250+ for food/drinks
So it could easily be $4K spent in total, plus a week of time that you could be spending on other things.
If your company is paying for this, maybe this isn’t a big deal, but as an indie developer or small development shop that’s a big chunk of cash and time that could be spent on other things. And as far as meeting other people goes, there are other opportunities for that.
Personally, I attended WWDC this year because I never had before, because I wanted to get started ASAP on the new book we’re working on (iOS 6 by Tutorials, coming soon!), and because I wanted to hang out with the iOS Tutorial Team and a bunch of my buds.
But from now on? Personally I might just do what I used to do and watch the videos/do self-study due to the cost/benefit evaluation.
Again, kudos to Apple for making such an awesome conference, and even better for making the session videos available to everyone free of cost so we have the option. This is a huge deal for making the platform accessible to everyone, and a big reason why developers are flocking to iOS.
Thoughts or comments? I’d love to hear what other attendees think – please chime in below!
This is a blog post by site administrator Ray Wenderlich, an independent software developer and gamer.