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360iDev 2011 – Just 58 days to go!

July 14, 2011 By 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: , , , , , , ,
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360iDev – Who attends 360idev?

March 1, 2010 By 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: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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360iDev Registration – $499, Time with Mike Lee and Matt Drance – Priceless

August 25, 2009 By 1 Comment

Many people dream of visiting the mothership, Apple HQ in Cupertino.  A relative few make it into the sacred walls to actually find work there.  To work at Apple, you have to be good great at what you do.  All the products we know and love are a testament to that fact.

If you’re in the iPhone development scene, access to those that have or are inside the sacred walls is truly priceless.  It’s the reason that WWDC sold out.  Now, we’re not claiming that chatting with these two fellas at 360|iDev beats chatting with entire teams at WWDC.  It’s close though!  LOL

Now, don’t get us wrong.  We’re making a pretty big deal about these guys, but they’re not all the show has to offer.  We have 40+ sessions led by the best of the best in indie developers, biz dev folks, etc.  They are definitely the substance of the show.  @drance and @bmf are just the lipstick and the eyeshadow (we’ll let them fight over which is wihich!)

However, even the speakers themselves realize how special it is to hang with these two.  Aside from their knowledge of iPhone dev, mac dev, objective-c, startups, etc., these two are just nice guys that you’d want to hang with and share some good times with.

We just announced yesterday that prices will steadily be going up after 8/31.  So hurry up and buy your tickets now while it’s still just $499.

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Geeking Out, Keynote, Networking, Reasons to Come, speakers Tagged With: , , ,
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360|iDev Amazing Announcment, Part 1: Matt Drance to Keynote!

August 14, 2009 By 2 Comments

Matt Drance, a former iPhone and Mac Evangelist, has agreed to kick off the show at Monday’s keynote.  Matt recently left the mothership, i.e. Apple HQ.  When asked why he did so, he had a pretty obvious response: to become part of the amazing community.

What better place to engage the iPhone community than at 360|iDev, the premiere iPhone developers conference .  Quite literally, minutes after the twitterverse got wind of Matt’s departure, we reached out to him.  John and I do these shows so the members of the iPhone community (new and old) can come together meet and learn from one another.  We knew that Matt would be the perfect candidate to get our “party” started.

It took a little while to work out the details, i.e. having Matt’s people call our people.  (Just kidding, neither sides has “people” LOL)  However, yesterday stars and planets aligned.  We finally hooked up and solidified the deal.

We and Matt are stoked to be announcing this.  Mike Lee kicked off the show last time and he, to quote our friend @chews, “was on like Donkey Kong.”  People loved his keynote as it was just oozing with goodness.  The best part was the closing, “Now, I’m off to the mothership to become a full-time employee.”  Now, it’ll be interesting to hear what Matt has to say coming from the other direction.  (Speaking of Mike Lee…the title of this post is Amazing Announcement Part 1.  Could there be a part 2? Stay tuned!)

With little more than a month left ’til Matt’s keynote begins, you’d better figure out someway to get yourself there.  First step, register for the show.  The worst thing you want is to get all excited and then have the show sell-out from under you.  Act fast as I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Filed Under: Announcements, Community, Content, Keynote, Reasons to Come, speakers Tagged With: , ,