To me, today was the first day of WWDC. Although the conference doesn’t technically begin until tomorrow, today involved check-in, orientation, and a visit from Tim Cook, so it was about as real as any other day will be for the rest of the week.
The day began at a local cafe, Cafe de la Presse,where fellow scholars were met for breakfast. From here began the walk down to the Mission Bay Conference Centre for the WWDC Scholars Orientation. This was an insightful experience which involved being spoken to by Apple engineers who shared insights into what makes a successful app, how to get the most out of the conference week and much more. From here we were led outside for a group photo when Tim Cook appeared, which put most scholars into a frenzy. The proceeding half hour was filled with hundreds of selfies and signatures from Tim. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a selfie with him, however I did get fairly close (photo at the bottom of this post.)
The rest of the afternoon was spent socialising with other scholars and Apple staff, including engineers who were very happy to talk to us about almost anything. Onto surprise number two for the day… Apple gave out developer Apple TV kits to all scholars. I figure this was just left over stock, but still a nice touch to the day.
Fun fact of the day: It’s been roughly 60 hours since touching down in San Francisco, and I’ve spotted 4 Tesla Model S cars so far.
Tomorrow’s agenda: Well, it’s Keynote day! This will by far be the most busy, crazy, awesome, tiring, and exciting day of the trip. It’s 8:28pm as I type this, and it’s time to start thinking about some sleep. Only a little over 5 hours until I’ll be waking up to join what will be a growing line in front of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, inside of which the Keynote, Platforms State of the Union, and the Apple Design Awards will be watched. Then, assuming I can still keep my eyes open at this point, the plan is to quickly tour the Twitter headquarters before calling it a night. Subject to change, and will tell you more tomorrow. Bye for now!
