The Road to WWDC 2010

On June 7-11, Apple Inc. will hold its annual World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, USA. In this event, the latest model of the iPhone is expected to be unveiled. This fourth-generation iPhone is rumored to have a front-facing camera, a faster 1Ghz processor, two times more memory, a ceramic back casing, and twice the display resolution of the current iPhone. Pictures of this rumored device can be found online because an Apple engineer lost a prototype unit after a night of heavy drinking on his 27th birthday.

But there’s more to WWDC 2010 than the announcement of this next-gen iPhone. In this event, Apple holds sessions with attendee developers, to teach them how to make great apps for us the consumers, utilizing the latest technologies that Apple has created. The focus this year will be developing for the iPad, and the upcoming iPhone OS 4, which brings new features that a lot of users have been clamoring for. These include multitasking, running apps in the background, local notifications (useful for alarm apps, e.g. TV schedule app), an OFF switch for cellular data (yay!), and a lot of other new features. 

Most of these new features won’t just magically work on the apps that you use. Your TV guide app will not be able to locally alert you that the new episode of Glee is out, if the developer of the app does not use the new local notifications APIs. An API is short for Application Programming Interface. Think of these as magic words that need to be said if you want a certain feature to work on your app. For example, saying [self.locationManager startUpdating] in code causes the GPS on an iPhone to start finding the user’s location. Learning about the new magic words would usually require a developer to read books on it, maybe Google here and there, or enroll in schools that teach the subject such as Stanford University. 

In the five days of the WWDC event, Apple will hold multiple classes where they will teach developers how to use their latest tools and technologies. These sessions are covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that all attendees are required to sign with Apple. So attendees not only get first-hand instruction from Apple, they also get this information months before the things discussed there are made public by Apple. A developer who attends these sessions would be able to more quickly integrate these new features to the applications that he writes, which would ultimately benefit the end-user.

I’m happy to say that one such developer could be me.

Why is it “could”? Let me tell that story. 

To attend WWDC, I need to have three things. First is a roundtrip ticket to America. Second is a ticket to the conference.  Third, and most importantly, is a US visa. 

The first on the list is the plane ticket. My best friend Alfie is the CEO of Enjoy Philippines, one of the companies we write iPhone apps for. We have an agreement: They’’ll fly me to WWDC and in return, we’ll write an awesome Enjoy Philippines v2.0 iPhone and iPad app for them. Because of this agreement, overcoming the first roadblock on my road to WWDC, was relatively easy. Not so with the second one.

Tickets to WWDC sold out last May 7, after only eight days from its availability. Three days prior to that, my mom and I were on our way to the Supreme Court to attend my signing of the roll of attorneys. We were talking about life in general and I mentioned to her that it was my dream to attend the WWDC event as I knew I would learn a lot from this event, which I could apply in writing my planned and dreamed iPhone apps for the Philippines. Out of nowhere, she volunteered to shoulder the cost of the conference ticket (seriously, best mom ever. Love you, Mom). On the day the tickets sold out, I had not yet purchased a ticket. My WWDC dreams were shattered. 

But I did not give up. I only needed one ticket, for sure someone would have an extra one. Thankfully, my girlfriend, Laura, found one. A development company based in the US had an extra ticket because one of their developers would not be able to attend. I bought that extra ticket immediately and that took care of the second roadblock to my road to WWDC.

Which leaves us to the third and most important roadblock, the US visa. 

In 2004, while I was still in college, I first attempted to acquire a US visa. My sister, who now lives in the US, wanted me to go there on a vacation and volunteered to treat me. I did what every normal person does when preparing for the visa interview: Get your paperwork in order, produce proof to overcome the presumption that your stay in the US would not be temporary, and of course, prepare for the interview. On the day of the interview, I thought I had prepared enough to be able to answer any question that the consul might ask. Boy, was I wrong!

Consul: So why is your sister treating you to a vacation in the US?

Me: umm… (pauses for five seconds) … because she loves me?

Consul: DENIED.

It’s now 2010. Six years have passed since that fateful day. I am now a practicing lawyer in our country. I am also now an iPhone developer that focuses on writing iPhone apps for the Philippines. And just recently, I got this writing job with this local paper you’re reading. I am hoping that those things would be sufficient to convince the US consul that my stay in the US would only be temporary. I am a US visa away from fulfilling my dreams of writing amazing iPhone and iPad apps for Filipinos. 

Only one wall remains on my road to WWDC, and to this I say and plea: “Mr. Consul, tear down this wall. “ (Please!)