It's 7:55 am and I'm on the Caltrain heading towards San Francisco. It's a beautiful morning, blue skies and the warm Californian sun is making sure that I don't forget which state I'm in.
Yesterday was the second day of this year's exciting WWDC. In the morning I attended "iPhone Application Development Fundamentals" which was just that: fundamentals. The next morning session was "iPhone for Mac Developers". Now that was a very in-depth session which didn't start from zero but built on top of your existing Mac development skills: a highlight.
During the lunch break I started coding my first own iPhone app and I got pretty far already. I won't say what it is yet, but I'm planning on finishing and polishing it in the next couple of weeks and eventually releasing it. I just have to actually get an iPhone first so I can try it out on the real deal!
In the afternoon I went to "Understanding iPhone View Controllers" presented by the two Apple engineers who built them. It was another highlight for me. Very well presented, in-depth information and lots of demos. Good stuff. I stay in the "Mission" room (the rooms in the Moscone Center have names like "Presidio", "Soma", "Marina", or "Mission") for the next session on "Understanding iPhone Table Views". That was a good choice because the concepts were explained in great detail and the demos showed how to put them to use. I love demos.
For the last session I picked "Cocoa Fundamentals"... I was busy coding during most of the session though, but could brush up on some of my Cocoa skills which is always good.
In summary: A very good day. I also hooked up with a NASA employee that I met last year already which was very nice and I met a couple of developers from my neighbor in the north: Denmark. That is one thing I love about these conferences: meeting so many interesting people and exchanging ideas. Especially meeting fellow freelancers is great because you can tap into their knowledge and their tips and tricks and what works well for them in dealing with their projects and customers.
So let's see what the 3rd day will be like. I'm staying in the city tonight because the Apple Design Awards and Stump The Experts are on tonight. Let's see if the crazy Swiss dude will be there again, too.
