Another WWDC just wrapped up last week. This is the 12th in San Francisco. WWDC is popular enough that tickets are given out via lottery. This can make it tough to get tickets, which is where AltConf comes in.
As in some previous years, those of us who did not get WWDC tickets attended AltConf, the free alternative conference for the Apple enthusiasts and developers alike, as well as Layers, the now two year old conference for the design minded.
One of the great after-conference activities this year was RelayCon thrown by Relay FM. Congrats to the team for a great live show, which consisted of several mini episodes of your favorite podcasts.
Having some of the Smile team in town, as well as many #FriendsOfSmile, is a great excuse to have a party. Not only that, but TextExpander turns 10 this year, as does 1Password by AgileBits.
It was at the Smile / Agile party that someone asked, what exactly goes on at a design conference? How is it different than a tech conference?
That’s a great question. And for those who don’t go to tech conferences either, let’s take a look at both.
Layers: the conference for designers (and snack enjoyment)
This conference is a space for designers and those interested in being inspired about design.
Design notables come and talk about not just what they do for work, but what inspires them in life. Talks ranged from a hands on demo on the finer points of drawing emoji, to learning to logic your way into dancing (again with hands on demo), to listening to the likes of Dr. Wave and John Hodgman talk about life at Pixar and frequent flier miles, respectively.
AltConf: The alternative Apple developer conference
This free and growing conference offers talks ranging from coding demos of how to apply SpriteKit to make your game more… spritely, to how we can all work together to get more diversity in the tech community, to how an indie can start some of the marketing they need to get noticed (hint: have some marketing). The talks are appropriately wide ranging. This is a conference to support the Mac dev community, and community building has many facets, technological and social.
With the various WWDC week conferences done, we will head back to the office and work on turning inspiration and big ideas into concrete realities.
