Leopard Tech Talk thoughts
So I headed north to New York yesterday to attend one of the free Leopard Tech Talks the Apple Developer Connection is running here in the US. Overall it was a blast and I’m really happy I went. A public thanks to Apple for offering this opportunity to catch up on things, especially since I wasn’t able to attend WWDC this past year.
This is the second time Apple has done the Tech Talk series. They did a tour for 10.4 about two years ago using the same format. Most notably they seem to be doing more shows, including international events.
The contents of the talk are under NDA but you can get a sense of what was discussed from Apple’s website. In addition to attending most of the morning/afternoon talks in Room A I also spent some time with a few Apple contacts discussing bugs and getting some feedback on my UI. To be honest this is potentially the biggest value of being there. You talk about a bug, and sometimes they have access to the offending code in the private Apple framework right there and can help you work around it or at worst explain how to work with them to fix it. The only real negative is that I don’t think Apple acknowledges this value. The process of getting to a contact can be tough and require a lot of waiting as they help others. A simple signup list with time blocks (to help control how much time everyone gets) would be welcome in my opinion.
The overall attendance count felt smaller than the previous 10.4 talk two years ago. The venue was full, but smaller than before. Apple clearly was in control of the venue so I can only assume they wanted a smaller crowd. The makeup of the crowd was also interesting. There seemed to be more IT/Server folks there than Cocoa developers, and those Cocoa developers in the crowd leaning on the beginner/hobbyist side of things.
I did run into a few friends and blog readers which was nice.
My final feedback is a vain request but I’d love to see a Tech Talk in or around Philly. Traveling to and from New York + the event makes for a really long day. Considering they dropped the DC venue this year, we might also get some people to come up from there. I know I saw one DC guy make it up all the way to NY but it had to have been a long trip for him. For this event, I woke up at 4:00 AM and got home around 11:00 PM.
Posted on: January 25, 2007 – 5:59 pm
2 Comments
Can you make some overview about this trip to NY? I mean Leopard Tech Talk. I couldn’t visit NY physically. Let me do it virtually
@Bob: The only public info is on their website. Everything else would be under NDA. Sorry.
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