Worldwide Developers Conference
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, commonly abbreviated WWDC, is a conference held annually in California by Apple Inc. The conference is primarily used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for developers, as well as offering hands-on labs and feedback sessions. The number of attendees varies between 2000 to 4200 developers. WWDC 2007 is the next conference, scheduled to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA on June 11-15 of 2007.
Description
All attendees have to sign a non-disclosure agreement covering the sessions and other material handed out at WWDC. In the past, the keynote was also covered by the NDA, but Apple in recent years has webcast the keynote address to an audience much wider than just developers. It used to be that WWDC was not a place for hardware announcements, but Apple deviated from that principle in 2002 when it announced the rack mounted server Xserve, in 2003 with the introduction of the consumer-oriented iSight and the Power Mac G5, in 2004 with the introduction of redesigned Apple Cinema Displays, in 2005, when an announcement was made that Apple Computer would start the transition of their computers from IBM's PowerPC microprocessor line to Intel's line of x86 processors, and in 2006 with the release of the Xeon-based Mac Pro and Xserve.
In 2003, WWDC was merged with another Apple trade show called QuickTime Live. The number of QuickTime sessions was increased, and the Apple Design Awards were joined by Apple Design Awards for QuickTime Content. At the same time, more enterprise-oriented content was added, focusing a lot on the Xserve and Mac OS X Server operating system.
History
The first WWDC was held in Monterey, California in 1983. Until 2002, WWDC was held in mid-May. From 2003 to 2005 it was held in June to better distribute Apple's show commitments. In 2006, WWDC was moved to August due to scheduling conflicts at the Moscone Center. Since 1998 the conference generally starts with a keynote presentation which has been delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, resulting in the event becoming known as "Stevenotes." Recent WWDC's have focused on demonstrating and distributing preview versions of upcoming Mac OS X versions.
WWDC 1996
WWDC'96 focused almost entirely on the Copland project, which by this time was able to be demonstrated to some degree. Gil Amelio stated that the system was on-schedule to ship in beta form in later summer with an initial commercial release in the very late fall. However, very few "live" demos were offered, and no beta of the operating system was offered.
WWDC 1997
WWDC'97 was the first show after the purchase of NeXT, and focused on the efforts to use OpenStep as the foundation of the next Mac OS. The plan at that time was to introduce a new system then known as Rhapsody, which would consist of a version of OpenStep modified with a more Mac-like look and feel, the Yellow Box, along with a Blue Box that allowed existing Mac applications to run under OS emulation.
The show focused primarily on the work in progress, including a short history of the development efforts since the two development teams had been merged on Feb 4.[1] Several new additions to the system were also demonstrated, including tabbed and outline views, and a new object-based graphics layer (NSBezier).
WWDC 1998
In response to developer comments about the new operating system, the "big announcement" at WWDC'98 was the introduction of the Carbon. Carbon was effectively a version of the "classic" Mac OS re-implemented on Unix. Under the original Rhapsody plans, classic applications would run in the Blue Box and have limited access to new API's. Developers had complained that a major porting effort to what was then a shrinking market might lead them to simply abandon the platform. Carbon addressed this problem by dramatically reducing the effort needed, while exposing some of the new functionality of the underlying OS.[2]
Another major introduction at WWDC'98 was the Quartz imaging model, which replaced Display PostScript with something akin to "display PDF". Although the reasons for this switch remain unclear, Quartz also included better support for the existing QuickDraw model from the classic OS, as well (as it was later learned) as Java2D. Supporting QuickDraw directly in the graphics model also led to a related announcement, that the Blue Box would now be "invisible", integrated into the existing desktop as opposed to an entirely separate window.[2]
WWDC 1999
WWDC'99 was essentially a "progress report" as the plans outlined in WWDC'98 came to fruition. Thee major announcements were the "opening" of the operating system underlying the new OS as Darwin, improvements to the Macintosh Finder, and the replacement of QuickDraw 3D with OpenGL as the primary 3D API. The system formerly known as OpenStep, and referred to during development as "Yellow Box" was formally re-named "Cocoa".[3][4] 2563 developers attended.
WWDC 2000
Much the same as WWDC'99, 2000 was another "progress report" on the way to the upcoming release of Mac OS X. Recent changes included a modified Dock and improved versions of the developer tools. "Developer Preview 4" was released at the show, with the commercial release pushed back to January 2001. Additionally, WebObjects was dropped in price to a flat fee of $699 US.[5] Approximately 3600 developers attended.
WWDC 2001
Mac OS X had only recently been released, but WWDC'01 added the first release of Mac OS X Server shipping and WebObjects 5.[6] Over 4000 developers attended. Leather jackets with a large blue "X" embroidered on the back were distributed to attendees.
WWDC 2003
WWDC'03 demonstrated the Power Mac G5, distributed a preview of OS X Panther (10.3), and the introduction of the "iApps".[7] Rendezvous (now known as Bonjour) was also announced. Additionally, OS 9 was ceremoniously given a funeral, as Jobs stressed that the future of the Mac was now entirely on OS X.[8] Attendees received an iSight web camera.
WWDC 2004
Steve noted that 3500 developers attended and that was a 17% increase from 2003. New displays were introduced in 23 and 30-inch widescreen. Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) was also previewed. All attendees received a developer preview of Tiger, a simple grey t-shirt with the Apple logo on the front and "WWDC2004" on the back, a backpack capable of holding a 17-inch PowerBook, and a copy of Apple Remote Desktop 2.0.
WWDC 2005
After a basic market update, Jobs announced that Apple would transition to Intel processors and the x86 platform. The keynote featured developers from Wolfram Research, who discussed their experience porting Mathematica to Mac OS X on the Intel platform. 3800 attendees from 45 countries attended the event. There were 110 lab sessions, 95 presentation sessions, and 500+ Apple engineers on site.
WWDC 2006
As expected, the Mac Pro was announced as a replacement to the PowerMac G5 that was previously Apple's "prosumer" desktop computer, and the last remaining PowerPC-based Mac. The Mac Pro featured a baseline of two 2.0 GHz dual core Xeon (Woodcrest) processors, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, and a 256 MB video card. An Xserve update was also announced, based as well on the dual core Xeons. Redundant power and Lights Out Management were additional product improvements to Apple's server lineup.
While certain key Mac OS X improvements were kept "close to the vest," there were 10 improvements announced for OS X in its next iteration, Leopard, including: Full 64-bit app support, Time Machine, Boot Camp, Front Row, and Photo Booth packaged with the OS, Spaces (Virtual Desktops), Spotlight enhancements, Core Animation, Universal Access enhancements, Mail enhancements, Dashboard enhancements, including Dashcode and iChat enhancements. Leopard was announced to most likely be released for sale in Spring 2007.
In addition to Leopard features that were announced, a major revision to the Mac OS X Server product was announced. Some new features in this product included: A simplified set-up process, iCal Server (based on the CalDAV standard), Teams (a set of web-based collaborative services), Spotlight Server, and Podcast Producer.
4200 developers from 48 countries attended the event, making it the largest WWDC ever. There were 140 sessions and 100 hands-on labs for developers. There were over 1000 Apple engineers present at the event.
WWDC 2007
WWDC 2007 takes place from June 11 to June 15 in Moscone West, San Fransisco with the keynote presentation hosted by Steve Jobs. Apple showed off a feature-complete beta of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, though its release date was pushed back to October. Jobs announced that Safari will now be available for Windows. Also, Jobs announced support for third-party development for the upcoming iPhone.