Zoetrope

I'll be leaving for San Francisco tomorrow, and am looking forward to do some hacking at WWDC 08. I'm running solo, so if you're attending the sold-out and landmark event event and want to have a chat drop me an email at nicky AT speakermouth D0_T com. There does not seem to be a lot of Belgian Cocoa developers out there, so I'm eager to see how many I can spot over there.

I've been pining to go to San Francisco and WWDC for quite some years now, but a pricey five-day conference is not something my non-geek friends would attend 'just for the heck of it'. It's also easier for me since this will be a business expense, something I guess almost all attendees will have in common. Going solo is going to be quite the adventure, but with the strong Euro and the arrival of the iPhone SDK I felt this would be the one not to miss.

I've been enamored with my iPod touch and the beta SDK's for some months now and I feel that Apple is going to push the boundaries of mobile development and at the same time jumpstart Mac OS X development. Building iPhone tailored web application is a hoot using Dashcode and the native iPhone API is looking great. Let's hope they won't go all evil on our ass with the iPhone App Store.

If I look back at how NeXT was ahead of its time with its UNIX workstations and the NeXTSTEP operating system and their developer applications such as Interface Builder, I'm hoping the same people and vision are pushing the iPhone and mobile development in a similar direction. If you've ever handled a Apple Newton you know how being ahead of your time doesn't always mean being successful, but looking at the success of the iPhone this won't be a problem for Apple this time.

I'll be posting posts (alliteration, yeah baby!) and photos during my stay, since Apple is providing network-access all across the conference center and I'm not leaving my Macbook in Belgium this time. They really know how to speak to the inner-geek: Apple provides a special conference website with full schedule for iCal, Moscone West floor plans, and even provide reading material and source-code beforehand for each session so I'll be coming prepared.

My inner-geek is getting excited already ;-)