Gaming

360iDev 2011 – 31 days to go!

August 10, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

You know how many tickets are left? Less than 40.

Yes less than 40 tickets left for 360|iDev 2011. That means we’re closer to selling out than we’ve ever been. EVAR!

What’s that mean? Well if you haven’t bought a ticket, better get on it. Not only are tickets running low, so are hotel rooms. We’re gonna own the Crowne Plaza.

If you have bought your ticket, well you’re gonna be in some truly awesome company.

Sure there’s lots of other iOS conferences, but none are focused on the community like we are. Don’t miss out!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Networking, Parties, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, @drance, awesome, Community, Denver, Hands-On training, Hurry Up, Mike Lee, speakers

360iDev 2011 – Just 39 Days to go!

August 2, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

Are you a game developer? Want to be? Maybe just want to brush up on your dev skills with a little out of the box development.

The Game Jam is for you. And as it turns out, by you. The 360|iDev 2011 Game Jam will take place Tuesday night, sponsored by the iOS community!

The Game Jam is a great place to build your first game, or your tenth. To share what you know and learn new things.

Check out the official page, managed by our pal (and speaker) Mike Berg.

The first time Noel Llopis suggested the Game Jam to us, we loved it. Ever since then we’ve been more than happy to have one take place.

The Game Jam starts around 7pm, and goes until around 8. It’s fully hands on, bring your laptop, we’ll supply the red bull, coffee and snacks.

Then if you like, you can show off your hard work during lunch on Wednesday at the Game Jam Review.

See you there! Make sure you register before we sell out!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Hands-On, Networking, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Denver, Game Development, Game Jam, Gaming, Hands-On training, Schedule

360iDev 2011 – Just 58 days to go!

July 14, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

You know what’s in 58 days? 360|iDev 2011. The only 360|iDev this year.

Space at the hotel is almost gone, staying elsewhere is always an option, but we’ve got a good rate with the hotel might as well save some money… Don’t ya think?

This post is the beginning of a series of posts I’m gonna write counting down to the conference. Not daily or anything, but often. Each will have things you should know about the conference.

The first and most important thing you should know about 360|iDev is why we do it. We do it because back in 2009 we recognized that the iOS developer community had no central event to come together around. We launched 360|iDev to offer that. We found speakers via forums like Touch Arcade, and the Apple Dev forums. We reached out to people we knew or had heard of via twitter.

We didn’t make any money, but we didn’t expect to either. Making money is a huge plus and we wouldn’t have been upset if we had, but it wasn’t the goal. Nor was filling a conference center with 600 people.

In fact the first 360|iDev in 2009 only had 166 attendees, some 30 of which were speakers. We jumped to 222 in Denver in 2009. Our return to San Jose in 2010 brought 301 attendees. Our most recent 360|iDev in Austin TX saw a slight decline in numbers, 235.

We never wanted to be a 600+ person conference. The community can surely support that, and based on the popularity of iOS conferences this and last year, surely there’s interest in events. But what we always thought was special about 360|iDev and our other events was that we don’t want to be the biggest conference ever. We want to be the one where you can walk the halls and say hi other developers and know that those people know the pains of Cocoas2D, or Gamekit, etc.

We wanted to be the conference where rockstars in the community are eating lunch with a developer who’s just getting started, maybe he’s just decided to go indie and live his dream. The conference where the speaker from the session you were just in is sitting next you in this session, because while she’s a bad ass at OpenGL ES maybe she’s still wrapping her head around something else.

From the start we believed that providing an event that brought the community together was reward enough, we still do.

Filed Under: Community, Content, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come, speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, BMF, Community, Denver, Hurry Up, Matt Drance, Schedule

360iDev – From Game Jam to Appstore

August 31, 2010 By John 1 Comment

The Game Jam, is a great time. It’s also an awesome place to create a game that will someday be up on the appstore. Case in point Star Fighter X2 By our pal Dan at Manic Gaming. This game started out life in the Game Jam, as a prototype. Now it’s in the app store!

The Game Jam started in Denver 2009, and we’ve continued it ever since. In San Jose 2010 The Touch Arcade Game Jam saw a ton of awesome games being worked on, developers collaborating, sharing their knowledge and skills, to help each other out.

The Game Jam brings together developers of all skill levels, to collaborate and build games or learn game theory. Many developers with little experience in game development use the Game Jam as a launch pad to quickly ramp up and leave the next morning with a firm understanding of Game Dev. Touch Arcade, our awesome sponsor in San Jose did several posts about the experience.

To take part in the Game Jam you have to be an attendee, register now!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Denver, Game Development, Game Jam, Gaming, Hurry Up

360iDev it’s not what you get, but what you take away

April 1, 2010 By John Leave a Comment

We’ve talked about ‘Who attends 360|iDev‘, and I’m sure we’ve covered some of this before too. But I think it bears repeating.

360|iDev, is as much about what you take away, as what you get when you’re there. And NO I don’t mean SWAG.

When you leave 360|iDev on Wednesday you:

Leave with new friends. Friends you’ll stay in touch with online in between conferences, and reconnect with at the next 360|iDev
Leave with new projects. You met a great developer that you want to collaborate with, and a new game is born! (Just ask Keith and Natalia about teaming up with David Whatley on geoSpark)
Leave with new employees/employers. You’re hiring, or looking for work. Odds are good you’ll leave with resumes, or actual new hires/new employers.
Leave inspired. You’ll get home, jazzed about new techniques you learned, new concepts you picked up. New ideas you talked about over beers. With a keynote by David Whatley, a Wednesday General Session by Mike Lee, it’ll be heard to walk out uninspired!
Leave 6 months ahead of the curve. You’ll get home and start working on things that others won’t be thinking about for months. New libraries that haven’t hit the mainstream yet, new ways of writing code, new frameworks, etc. You’ll be ahead of the pack when they finally catch on to what’s going on.
Leave with new apps that just need to be cleaned up and submitted. The Game Jam (Sponsored by Touch Arcade!) is the birthplace of games like Hippo High Dive, Gravity Sling and more. Whether you’re a game developer already or not, attend the game jam. It’s Tuesday night thru Wednesday morning, and you won’t regret it. You’ll leave with more than you came in with Tuesday night, we promise.

As an iDeveloper (You know what I mean.) you have a lot of choices; iPadDevCamp the weekend after, Voices that matter in Seattle, etc. All things being equal, compare what you get from each and see what makes sense for you to attend. If you don’t agree it’s 360|iDev… Let us know. You won’t get as much technical content, community, and fun from any other event, really.

CHeck out the schedule, description of sessions, and of course, the awesome speakers list!

Filed Under: Community, Drinks, Gaming, Geeking Out, Parties, Pricing, Reasons to Come, San Jose, speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Game Development, Game Jam, Hands-On training, San Jose, Schedule, speakers

360iDev Touch Arcade Game Jam

March 25, 2010 By John 2 Comments

Have a game idea you’ve been saving for when you have the time? Maybe you need to learn cocos2d first to do the game you want. Maybe you have too many other things going on, but the moment you have a few hours, it’s on.

Well, the Touch Arcade Game Jam, is for you :)

Starting Tuesday night, after the evening reception, we’ll be locking (Not really) anyone who wants to into a room at Ebay to crank out code all night long, 12 straight hours, through the night.

Touch Arcade is sponsoring, and will keep you hydrated, fed, and loaded up on Toblerone and Red bull.

When everyone else comes back to Ebay Town hall for the Wednesday General Session (Mike Lee, ya’ll) the Game jammers will be done, and ready to show off their creations.

Whether you’re a game developer right now or not, the game jam is the best place for you to try it out.

3 days to write an app? p-shaw! In Denver we saw something like 15 games demoed. Some made it to the app store shortly after, some are still being worked on for future (soon) release.

Come learn from experienced game developers first hand, in person.
The Game Jam is open to any 360|iDev attendee. Make sure you have a power cord :)

Filed Under: Community, Gaming, Geeking Out, Parties, Reasons to Come, San Jose Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Game Development, Game Jam, Gaming, Hands-On training, Hurry Up, Mike Lee, San Jose, speakers

360iDev speaker chat archives

March 24, 2010 By John 2 Comments

If you haven’t been joining us on the weekly speaker chats, well you should be ashamed :) BUT you’re not out of luck. We record them.

Just click the names below to listen in on the great chats we’ve had leading up to 360|iDev San Jose.

These chats have been incredible! The speakers freely sharing what they’ve learned, and more. It’s great!

These chats, are simply amazing. You’re not gonna get this level of access to these speakers anywhere else but 360|iDev, unless you kidnap them, which we don’t condone :)

Filed Under: Community, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come, speakers, The Speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Hurry Up, San Jose, speakers

360iDev speaker chat – @nattylux

March 22, 2010 By John 1 Comment

Join us this wednesday for this week’s 360|iDev speaker chat with Natalia Luckyanova of Imangi studios.

Natalia has a ton of great info and wisdom to share on surviving the app store (the topic of her session at 360|iDev by the way), so you won’t want to miss this chat.

Bookmark this link.

We’ll be chatting Friday the 26th, at 12pm Mountain time!

If you haven’t registered for 360|iDev, there’s still time and space left, but I wouldn’t wait around! Register now!

Filed Under: Community, Content, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come, San Jose, speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Game Development, Game Jam, Hurry Up, San Jose, speakers

360iDev – Who attends 360idev?

March 1, 2010 By John 2 Comments

360|iDev, since it’s beginning has attracted an awesome mix of people.

The first conference in 2009, had several sessions, including a sunday Hands-On about Jailbreaking, and what you can do in the jailbroken environment. We also had tons of people who had just put 1 or 2 apps in the store, we had a few folks who had already gone full time, whether as indie developers for hire, or running their own agency, building iPhone apps for companies big and small. We had authors and more in attendance. Mike Lee talked about the Apple community, and why it’s so awesome. We had sessions on how to market your app, what you need to watch out for legally and more.

Then in Denver, we noticed a shift, seeing more indie game developers in attendance. Keith and Natalia keynoted, David Whatley, an awesome late addition talked about being successful in the iPhone game space. Matt Drance formerly of Apple kicked off the conference, with an incredible keynote. We had developers talking about game design and development, being successful in the app store, making a living. We had developers talking about integrating push, getting crazy with OpenGL ES, Core Data, Core Animation, and more. We also saw the first Game Jam take place, developers spent the night churning out games. Presenting them on Wednesday. Several are in the app store now.

Were seeing the same thing as we plan for San Jose 2010 (You should register). We’re seeing tons more successful developers talking about how to succeed, how to rock the app store, even how to rock the app store with out being a “Smash hit”. We’ve got sessions that are sure to blow your mind, and be worth more than the price of admission, just for those 80 minutes. The Game Jam is back, sponsored by Touch Arcade, Aurora Feint is holding a Game Bar, to highlight games using Open Feint and talk about the added coolness of using OF in your games. We’ve got sessions, on marketing, running your business, advertising, and more.

360|iDev has proven to be an incredible mix of technical sessions, unlike any you’ll see at other events, and business and design sessions that will inform and inspire.

So to answer the question, who attends 360|iDev? Everyone.

Developers who want to be a success in the App Store.
Developers who want to hear about what the rest of the world will be talking about in 6 months
Developers who want to level up their skillset
Developers who want to meet other developers, and share experiences, and a beer.
People looking for work (3 people who’ve spoken at 360|iDev, have been hired by Apple, coincidence? Probably, but who knows), indies looking for projects, people looking to hire developers, etc.
People who are already a success, making their living from apps in the App Store
Authors of THE books you’re reading to learn iPhone Development
- From Manning, O’Reilly, and Apress
People with new projects and products to announce!
- Where better to announce iPhone specific things than to a very targeted group of people.
People who want to connect with the iPhone developer community. Not the hobbyist community, not the authors for x publisher community, THE iphone developer community. The people doing it daily, making and selling apps. The people who eat, sleep and breath iPhone development.

The short answer is, the people who attend 360|iDev…

Want to make a nice living in the App Store. (Originally it was “Want to get rich on the App Store”, but I toned it down)

Want to get hired by Apple.

Do yourself and your career a favor, be in San Jose April 11-14th for 360|iDev! Register now!

Filed Under: Community, Content, Drinks, Gaming, Geeking Out, Hands-On, Keynote, Networking, Parties, Reasons to Come, San Jose, speakers, Sponsors Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, BMF, Community, Hands-On training, Hurry Up, Matt Drance, Mike Lee, Party, Push, San Jose, speakers, Sponsors

360iDev – The Speakers – Robert Strojan

January 18, 2010 By John Leave a Comment

It’s amazing who you run into in the most random places. As an example I bumped into Robert Strojan the other day, in of all places, the DMV. I know! Who’d have guessed two people suffering the same fate at the same time.

Robert was already inside when I got there, but there was a seat next to him. I grabbed my number, which I’m pretty sure is the same number Beetlejuice had at the end of the movie.

I sit down between Robert, and … well I think he’s human, but could easily pass for either vegetable or mineral.

Me: Hey Robert how are ya?

Robert: Great John, you? Stuck renewing your license too I see.

(I nod)

Me: Yeah. Hope you’re excited about 360|iDev, I know I am, I can’t wait for April.

(They call number 365, a large black woman gets up. I’m not entirely sure, but I think they might be covertly filming a “Martin Lawrence dressed like a black woman” movie at this DMV. I keep an on eye on “her”)

Robert: Yeah I can’t wait. this is my first 360|iDev. I spent the early part of my career working as a hardware engineer so I’m really looking forward to Michael Gile’s session about the External Accessory Framework and finding out more about how to get the iPhone to communicate with custom hardware via the 30 pin connector.

Me: Yeah the hardware stuff has some promise. I can’t wait to see what products start surfacing for the iPhone, hopefully we get more than 30 different universal remotes. What do you think people who attend your session will be most surprised by/about?

The maybe-it’s-martin-lawrence-woman is throwing some kind of fit and flailing her arms. It’s looking more and more likely that Robert and I are now movie extras. Robert notices too and tried to not pay attention.

Robert: There’s something for everyone. If you’re a novice or intermediate developer you’ll appreciate the points on AVAudioPlayer and the intro to OpenAL. If you’re an iPhone guru you’re going to love the precision audio control you get after we unravel the mysteries behind Audio Units.

(Now a tiny white guy is crawling around on the most-likely-martin-Lawrence-woman. She’s swatting at him, takes out the DMV lady behind the desk, the ‘security’ guard is keeping a safe distance as this unfolds. Most-likely-Martin-Lawrence-woman gets a hold of tiny white guy (Rob Schneider?) and tosses him into another DMV customer.)

(Robert and I stand up and move to the side as the scene(?) unfolds)

Me: What are you most looking forward to at 360|iDev San Jose?

Robert: Meeting other iPhone devs, presenting my session, and learning. (He has to duck as what looks like a bowling ball flies past. Who brings a bowling ball to the DMV??)

(Looking-more-and-more-like-it’s-Martin-Lawrence-woman is swinging a broom handle at Has-to-be-Rob-Schneider. For some reason I guess he’s trying to tackle ‘her’ he’s dressed like a carrot, did I mention that?)

(The other tellers are trying to work, god bless them, they call 381.)

Me: What would you tell someone that was on the fence about attending 360|iDev to convince them to come?

Robert: (He thinks a bit, again dodging something airborne) Four days jam-packed with powerful info you can’t get anywhere else; surrounded by some of sharpest minds in iPhone development. Why haven’t you signed up?

(the action up frontis getting a little frenetic, Rob-Schneider-dressed-like-a-carrot is getting thrown around by There’s-no-one-else-it-could-be-but-Martin-Lawrence-woman. She’s really mad, not sure what he did, but she does not like it.)

(Finally the security personnel get the upper hand and manage to escort There’s-no-one-else-it-could-be-but-Martin-Lawrence-woman and I-thought-Rob-Schneider-was-dead-guy outside. I’m sure after that one of them died, or the director yelled cut. In any event the finally called Robert’s number)

Me: (as Robert gets up to go to the window) Dude, who do you think would win, Lion Voltron or Vehicle Voltron?

Robert: (As he approaches the wind0w) Lion Voltron by KO in the third round.

Robert finished his business and I sat back down. I was surrounded by people, I’d be more comfortable with not driving, as I waited for them to get to the 600′s. Robert waved as he left.

Don’t miss 360|iDev San Jose. We’ve got great things planned. I’m not even talking about the 40+ sessions that you won’t see elsewhere, at a level you won’t get elsewhere. I’m talking about the Touch Arcade Game Jam, The awesome panels. The Appfigures party, and more! Register now! Don’t miss the best iPhone Developer conference ever! :)

Filed Under: Drinks, Gaming, Geeking Out, Reasons to Come, The Speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Hurry Up, speakers