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360iDev 2012 – Schedule V1

May 21, 2012 By John Leave a Comment

It was a busy weekend for us, but after sending out 124 emails to everyone who submitted we wanted to get the schedule out to everyone as fast as possible. We know some folks were waiting to see what the line up was before buying tickets. So without further yacking from us, head over to the schedule page and check it out.

One word of warning, there’s likely to be some tweaks to the schedule in the coming weeks. So while the names aren’t likely to change, the days and times they’re speaking could. When we make changes we’ll make sure to blog or tweet about the changes as well as update the PDF, etc.

We’re also working on the session details doc which will have full descriptions for each session. expect a link to that sometime later this week.

See you all in September!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Geeking Out, Hands-On, Reasons to Come, The Speakers Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Denver, Hurry Up, Schedule

A True iOS Developer Story

May 17, 2012 By John Leave a Comment

Thought this was pretty cool, if a smidge old. Did you hear the one about the Massachusetts State Trooper who became an iOS Developer?

Derek Langton, who had been serving as a state trooper for eighteen years, put in some mean hours to pick up and get adept at iOS application coding over the last year and a half, delving into and learning Cocoa and Objective C, all to be able to build the iOS version of Smoopa, a price check app which rewards you when you use it to comparison shop and share prices from the real, brick-and-mortar stores you patronize anyway.

How did he do it? According to the TechCrunch article, he began simply by auditing the freely available online computer science courses offered by MIT and Stanford, then continuing on with equally freely available YouTube instructional videos, such as this one which explains how to leverage the camera integration on an iPhone into apps.

Was it hard? According to Derek, the answer is, as you’d imagine, an unvarnished “yes.”. However, he also points out that though he certainly worked to get to the point where he could code with sufficient proficiency to create an iOS app, it was very attainable.

“I eat, drink and sleep iOS development. This is the kind of thing where either go or you don’t. You don’t go halfway.”

And of course, even beyond the MIT and Stanford courseware, there are other resources like 360|iDev :) and even other conferences, that not only help developers raise their game but almost more importantly establish social connections and support systems among other developers. The iOS community has really shined IMO with welcoming new people to the fold and making sure they can succeed.

Something to consider:

The current national unemployment rate is 8.1% according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics – nearly doublenthe 4-5% unemployment rate the nation experienced before the 2008 economic crisis.
One of the sole market sectors which is not experiencing this same dearth of good jobs is Silicon Valley – there is currently what TechCrunch calls a “Hiring-pocalypse,” where coding houses simply cannot find enough skilled workers.

Given this, it seems that there has never been a better time to pick up coding skills.

Being an iOS developer has been described as a “lottery;” but it’s a lottery you can cheat at by being better than many others playing the same game.

See you in September!

Filed Under: Content, Denver, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, Beer, Community, Denver

360iDev 2012 – Now with Dates!

April 25, 2012 By John Leave a Comment

Yup, it’s taken a while, but we finally locked down some dates and a hotel.

Actually the dates were less up in the air, we’ve been aiming for the week of the 9th since we started planning 360|iDev 2012, but finding a hotel we could work with, well that was a bit harder than it’s ever been before.

However we’re really happy with the hotel we’re working with. We use them for other events and everyone loves them. One of the best hotels we’ve ever dealt with.

So yeah…

September 9-12, 2012 come learn from the best of the best in the indie coder world. It’s gonna be epic.

Remember we sold out last year, and we’re already 1/3 sold out for this year… I wouldn’t dilly dally. Register now.

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

360iDev 2012 – Call For Papers is Open

March 6, 2012 By John Leave a Comment

OK it’s official. The Call For Papers is open. Now before you freak out and start asking “when does the call close, I’ve got an idea but it’s not done yet, etc, etc” you’ve got time. We should be locking down the exact dates and such this week, but likely you’ve got 7 months until 360|iDev 2012, so the call for papers isn’t likely to close until mid to late April.

Of course as with all things iOS, NDAs and announcements play a big roll, so we’ll be playing that stuff by ear, and hoping that when 360|iDev 2012 rolls around we’re not under NDA. That means feel free to submit NDA topics, and we’ll see what happens.

You can submit as many topic ideas as you like of course.

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Denver, Schedule, speakers

360iDev 2012 – Signs and Portents

March 5, 2012 By John Leave a Comment

So last friday we opened up ticket sales. As we always do before we have the full event locked in we put our “Faithful” ticket on sale. For those that might be new to the conference the faithful ficket is basically an inexpensive ticket that you buy before we announce the exact dates or hotel. Usually it’s on sale for a week or two and limited to a small number of tickets.

Well we’re about a week from locking the in the hotel and the dates, and so we turned on the ticket sales page, and sold out of faithful tickets in 6 hours. Now while I’d love for this to be a WWDC-esque story of 5,000 tickets moving in the blink of an eye, it’s actually less than 100. So just under 1/3 of our total capacity. But still, that’s never happened before. Normally the faithful tickets are turned off with a few left.

We sold out last year, I’m pretty sure we’re well on our way to selling out this year, and we’re still at least 7 months from the conference. I’m really excited by everyone’s excitement around 360|iDev 2012.

Register now while there’s still some early bird tickets left. They went on sale after the Faithful ticket sold out and are moving fast.

Oh by the way, the Call For Papers is open too :)

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, awesome, Community, Denver, Hurry Up, WWDC

360iDev – You do Mac apps?

December 13, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

Have you ported your app/game to the Mac Appstore? Thought about it?

The current video on the 360|MacDev home page is Dave Wiskus and Kyle Richter talking about building an iOS app that lead to building a Mac App.

360|MacDev 2010 was pre Mac Appstore and the dialogue was great. Tons of talk about what the future would look like post App store.

Guess what, it’s the future!!! Come talk to Mac app successes, and learn from the best and brightest! Check out the rock star line up and schedule.

Don’t miss out! Register now!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Denver, Geeking Out, Networking, Reasons to Come, speakers Tagged With: awesome, BMF, Community, Hurry Up, location, Mike Lee, Schedule

360idev – 42 session recordings for 2011

December 2, 2011 By John 2 Comments

Not bad.

The 360|iDev 2011 session recordings bundle has 42 70 minute sessions in it. I think that’s the most sessions we’ve captured and been able to produce to date.

Next year the plan is to try something different as Flip cams just aren’t designed for capturing conference sessions, and really with the exception of Mike, seeing the presenter isn’t that important to the presentation. :)

We’re going to focus on getting better at capturing the screen only. Our speakers show a lot of code, and that’s the important part. We want you to be able to watch the video and clearly see the code. Where ever possible we did that this year if a screen recording existed, but many didn’t. We’re also working out the best rendering methods (video production isn’t something we’re trained in, LOL) to make sure the videos aren’t crazy huge, but are still viewable.

If you haven’t already taken a peak at the videos go check ‘em out. They’re pretty damn cheap and even the bundle isn’t a bank breaker.

If you attended 360|iDev 2011 you received an email with a code in it. that code is good for the bundle, use it as you need to get the videos.

Of course the videos are all DRM free mp4 files. Watch ‘em on as many devices as you want. Show your coworkers or business partners.

See you in 2012!

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, @drance, BMF, Community, location, Mike Lee, speakers, Sponsors

360iDev 2011 – Survey results

November 7, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

For those who attending 360|iDev 2011, thank you for doing the post conference survey. It’s now closed, so if you didn’t, shame on you! That survey is really important to us in planning the event, and getting sponsorship!

Before announcing the winners and their prize i wanted to post some details of the survey. First, we had 355 tickets sell for 360|iDev 2011. We planned on having 300, but let in an additional 55 people. On the other hand the post conference survey only had 113 responses. About 1/3 of our attendees answered the survey. Hopefully that ratio gets better next year. This survey helps us when sponsors ask how many people are X skill set. How many are designers vs. developers (5% are designers of those who responded). If you attended but didn’t do the survey, well you missed out on helping us, but more importantly, missed out on a chance to win a $500 prize.

Years of Experience with iOS

I mentioned this in the keynote too but it’s clear that 360|iDev is NOT a hobbyist conference. In Fact it’s clear that the best and brightest who’ve been around the block since there was a block are attending 360|iDev.

I think a chart like this is really healthy for an event. If it was too heavy on the less than a year of experience side, there’d be too little hands-on knowledge to share.

If there was too much “I’ve been doing this forever”, there wouldn’t be enough people to learn. Part of what makes the iOS community so awesome and healthy is the sharing of knowledge and welcoming of new blood.

This type of distribution to me is healthy and what we aim for with 360|Events. It’s a community, not an exclusive club where only the anointed can hang out, and it’s not a intro to community class where no one knows what they’re doing.

I love that the iOS community comes from so many places. Many think it’s people who were doing Mac Desktop stuff, etc. but in fact as you can see, it’s people who were doing Flash stuff, other mobile technologies, even Java… :)

Background

It’s great to see that there’s no real well spring of iOS developers. Anyone can do it. Anyone can be successful.

How many 360|iDev events have you attended

There’s a ton of data in the survey, but I think I’ll end with a really promising bit of information. As you can see, we had a ton of new people show up to 360|iDev 2011. Not only was it the first 360|iDev to sell out, but it had a huge turn out in new blood for the community. Maybe they just haven’t been doing the conference thing, or as we saw above are new to the platform. In either cas that’s awesome. Very very awesome!! We’re very happy to have so many people finding 360|iDev and enjoying it.

It’s good to know what we do is being enjoyed by so many! It helps re-enforce why we do it :)

Oh yeah and the winners. Did you know when we do these post conference surveys we give away two $500 prizes.

Chris Patterson & Nick Bhardwaj are the lucky winners. They’ve got an email waiting for each of them with their prize options.

Thank you again to everyone who took the survey, and to those who came to 360|iDev 2011. You’re a part of something awesome, and we’re truly honored to be a part of it, and look forward to even bigger and better things in 2012!!

John

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Denver, Geeking Out, Networking, Reasons to Come Tagged With: 360|iDev pricing, @drance, awesome, BMF, Community, Game Development, location, speakers, Worldwide Sales

360iDev 2011 – Party like it’s 1999, except it’s 2011 and Prince isn’t here

September 1, 2011 By John Leave a Comment

Though you never know, Prince could show up… Ok probably not, but still.

So you know there’s parties during 360|iDev but what are they?

Well they start Sunday and go thru Wednesday!

Sunday night we have a welcome reception in the hotel from about 6-8pm. It’s a nice and mellow way to start the conference. Meet new people and re-connect with folks you know from twitter and the internet or only see at conferences.

There’s a Speaker Sponsor dinner from 5-6 to show our awesome speakers and sponsors how much we love them (don’t worry attendees we love you too and you get lots of parties).

There’s also a Night of Meat forming. More here.

Click for larger map

Monday Night Push.io is hosting a party at 1-Up. If drinking a 40 of King Cobra while playing Dig-Dug is your idea of fun, 1-Up is for you. Actually even if that’s NOT your idea of fun, 1-Up is a blast :) It’s a classic Arcade game bar. The entire space is arcade games and pinball machines. It’s a blast from the past for those of us old enough and a damn fun time for everyone!

Tuesday Night On3 is sponsoring a party at Mellow Mushroom, just a few blocks from the hotel on the 16th St Mall. The entire restaurant is ours, including the awesome patio. There’s TVs all over so don’t think we won’t be doing some Rock Band or youtube roulette or something else fun. The bar is open (beer only, sorry wine people) and the food will be flowing. Not only will there be an awesome buffet set up but the entire menu is open to us so if there’s something you want they’ll whip it up for you. How awesome is that!

The Parties start at 7pm. That gives you time to drop of bags and such in your room and make your way out of the hotel. Groups will form in the lobby to head out together and our awesome volunteers will be stationed along the route to make sure you know you’re almost there :)

The map right over there on the left has points for Mellow Mushroom (B) and 1Up (C). The easiest way to get to both places is the 16th St Mall Shuttle. It runs up and down 16th st all day. You can get on at Glenarm and get off right in front of Mellow Mushroom, and get off at Market St. Station for 1Up. It’s the easiest easy to get there. Depending on the weather it’ll be a nice walk too. 16th St. Mall is a great walk with lots of people watching and is a great slice of Denver (yes, that means hobos and tourists as well as locals)