Note: you can follow my tweets during the conference here.
Attended 360|iDev on a gut feeling…
I found out about 360|iDev only four days ago, and booked the flight+hotel without really knowing what to expect. This is the first conference I’ve paid money out of my own pocket to attend, since I used to speak regularly at Flash conferences. The organizers, speakers, attendees, and facilities (EBay) are making this event an invaluable opportunity for exchanging information. 360|iDev is worth much more than the $350 registration fee, but the organizers said they wanted to make the conference accessible given the current economic climate.
The vibe…
The conference has a pragmatic, down-to-earth, we’re-in-this-together kind of vibe. The last thirty minutes of each 80-minute presentation tends to slide into barcamp-like free-wheeling exchanges among attendees, with the speaker as a mediator. Audience members haven’t felt timid about raising questions and volunteering their own hard-won lessons. A lot of times, we’d end up listening to a vigorous (but civil) debate/brainstorm among a few audience members experiences in some specific aspect of this new mobile software era. I even met a very cool Cocoa veteran from Montreal who shared lots of great tips and resource links from the pre-iPhone era (I just haven’t had time to blog about any of this stuff yet!).
Technical and business insights…
Since we’re in the early days of iPhone development, the technical presentations unsurprisingly lean towards introductory levels. However, I’ve enjoyed much deeper technical discussions with speakers like Kenji Hollis, who showed me some Objective-fu beyond his official slides, and the small crowd of people who attended Collin Donnel’s Address Book session, which evolved into interesting discussions on table view optimization and Core Foundation practices.
More challenging and rewarding were the business sessions, which I gravitated towards after the first day. Apple’s enigmatic silence about App Store policies means that these participatory sessions are rare real-time opportunities for comparing notes and sharing ideas. Before the business sessions, I hadn’t realized how much Apple has changed the game for mobile software business. Criticisms about Apple’s dictatorial management of the App Store process were frequently countered by mobile ISV veterans with telecom/handset bureaucracy horror stories that span multiple continents. Their perspective makes the App Store business model seem like an ISV heaven in comparison, though far from perfect.
Converting raw notes into blog posts…
I want to do something productive with the copious raw notes I’ve been taking. Organizing the notes into a legible form will take many days and many blog posts though. The first set of notes I’ll post will come from the two opening keynotes by Ebay and Mike Lee. Hopefully, I’ll have those notes cleaned up in time for another blog post when I return to Seattle tomorrow.
Man, there’s still one more day of 360|iDev and already so much to blog about. Analytics, Unity3D, Quartz vs OpenGL, user feedback mechanics, business models, marketing insights, demographics, design patterns, architectures, debugging tools, etc. Crap, not enough time in the day to recap everything. Stay tuned…
I love your first two paragraphs. I think you completely capture what makes our events so special. It’s not just the speakers, but the conversations that take place inside and outside that make the show so valuable. John and I really strive to make sure the show is driven by the community of attendees vs us.
In addition to the low ticket prices, you’ll notice that we brought in food from outside vendors. Part of the logic behind that was to share some of the budget love (ala funds) with local vendors. Everyone is hurting in this economy, so we’re just trying to do our part to help.
Thanks again for the thoughtful write up and taking a chance on our newest show. I’m glad we exceeded your expectations.