WWDC 2010 - Day 2

This conference is packed. I would estimate of the 5200 official attendees over half are here for the first time and are new developers. In a session the speaker asked how many were doing iPhone development but had never shipped an app and it was the majority of the attendees (including me). I started out day 2 going to a session on game design. They were showing a really cool Diablo like game for the iPhone/iPad that was awesome. The pointed out the graphics power of these devices and it was evident from the demos. They also used the standard UI Kit for many of the controls that you would use in the game (menus etc) and skinned the controls to fit the theme. They made the point over and over again that games had to be responsive and run at 30 fps. The next session was my first experience with the passion and expertise of user interface design. I came away from this session having a much greater appreciation for the work that has to go into an app to really make it special from a UI perspective. I also am still wondering if that is ever really possible with information system UIs? Apple also pointed out that they iterate a lot on their products and they keep iterating until noone can find any shortcomings or issues. There are lessons to be learned there, however, being able to do this for a commercial product is much different (I think) than for a contract information system. Next session was about ScrollView which they started out by saying that last year they covered the basics so this year was going to be the advanced session. I've noticed a real inconsistency in the sessions with the numbering and descriptions. SOme 100 level sessions are way advanced and some 500 level sessions are way too general. I'd like to see a beginner track given the amount of people here that are beginners. The session in the afternoon was on managing mobile devices which showed that in iOS4 they will be allowing web based (intranet) deployment of applications. This is able to be done now through either the app store or by USB directly connecting the device. All of these options are still going to require the Apple developer provisioning. A key take away from this session were thoughts about secure IT issues that many companies may not be considering - the iPhone is a very powerful computer with a lot of data on it and should be treated as such. I went to an iPad development session which again was an advanced deep dive into some of the new iOS4 features.

Great conference - my head was hurting last night from all the information, which is a good thing. They need a bigger venue next year - there are long lines for everything!