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360iDev – Session video bundles

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve figured out to how to bundle session videos.

It’s still a work in progress but here’s what you need to know.

As we render each session and add it to the store page, we also add it to the Bundle (By the way, the bundle is per conference, there’s an Austin Bundle and a San Jose Bundle). If you’ve already purchased the Austin bundle you’ll notice it’s a bit light, it’s growing. You should be able to click on the download link you got in email and come back to you purchase page, it should be updated with the new videos we’ve added to the bundle since you initially bought it. Don’t worry, you don’t pay again, and you’re not aced out of future additions to the bundle. You just have to come back and get the new content.

We’re working as fast as we can to get more and more session videos rendered, so keep an eye on the store page.

That’s it! Happy new year!

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360iDev – Goodbye Chris Walker

One of the downsides of organizing 360|events is that I meet and become friends with so many people. That’s not the downside actually, the downside is when bad things happen to those people. This is a few months late, because like so many connections we make at 360|iDev, many end up being primarily twitter friendships, and it’s hard sometimes to notice things.

Christopher Walker (@Yixinmke) came to 360|iDev San Jose 2010 because the welcome page had the word “shit” on it. I don’t remember the sentence, but when Chris was looking for an iOS conference to attend and read that sentence, he said he knew he’d enjoy the event because clearly it was organized by real people. That conversation really resonated with me, because that’s really a large part of why we do 360|events. Too many conferences are organized by publishers, marketing companies, etc. They’re faceless and certainly don’t take the time to get to know attendees, let alone hang out with them. I hate that.

Chris was a hoot, we hung out during the stragglers dinner on Wednesday night, that was the first time I had a real chance to talk to him. It was cool, his company did Microsoft tech, but was looking at other things too and sent him to 360|iDev. He was very nice, and he and Cory Smith (@smixx) were pretty much inseparable most of the conference.

Chris told me at dinner that one day he got to ebay and the parking lot was full, so he went to see ‘How to Train your Dragon’ and then came back, LOL. Great movie by the way. I finally saw it a while back. Good pick Chris.

After 360|iDev I didn’t talk to Chris online, beyond following his check-ins on twitter. Sadly following so many, i didn’t notice that his tweets and check-ins stopped on August 10th.

It wasn’t until months later, when Cory tweeted about his passing that I learned that Chris had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I especially feel terrible because I had wanted to reach out to Chris before Austin and make sure his company was sending him so we could hang out, and in the hubbub I totally forgot. Had I remembered I would have found out (maybe?) sooner.

I’ve put some videos at the bottom of this post, if you were at 360|iDev San Jose, I’m sure you’ll remember seeing Chris walking around, laughing. He played a mean rockband guitar too! I wish I had had a chance to get to know Chris better, to see what cool things he did with the iOS platform.

Chris in the background in the yellow shirt

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Plug and Play Tech Center event tomorrow night.

This is primarily for our local to Silicon Valley peeps and anyone attending 360|iDev, who gets into town early! ;)

Plug and Play Tech Center is hosting a cool iPhone Play: iPad event in Sunnyvale.

Details are below! If you’re in the area, you should check it out! Looks like a great time! $15 bucks is an awesome price too!

We are adding a Tech-Series to the iPhone-Play event as a segment to the iPhone-Play events. The Tech-Series subsection will explore important or compelling development issues that will be informative for business people and developers alike. The segments will highlight aspects of the magic of the iPhone, iPad and other mobile topics in a 15 – 20 min presentation.


The theme of this iPhone Play is “How to leverage development on the iPad”. Our first speaker – Micheal Hoch will start the discussion with a Tech Talk on how the iPad poses a unique opportunity for developers.


Will will also allow 5 hot iPad Application companies demo their cool products.

Here is the event logistics:

  • 5:30 – 6:00pm – Networking w/Beer and Pizza
  • 6:00 – 6:30pm – Keynote Tech Talk - Michael Hoch
  • 7:00 – 7:30pm – 5 iPad App presentations
  • 7:30 – 8:00pm – Cocktail reception, demo stations, and networking

There’s also an Expo coming up in May that looks pretty awesome! Makes me wish I lived in the Valley… Mostly.

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360iDev – What to do when you arrive

We’re not GDC, or WWDC. There’s no waiting in a mile long line to get in, there’s not sea of thousands to wade through to get your badge.

What there is, is 3-4 people working the registration desk.

You can pick up your badge all day Sunday if you want to avoid the rush. If you can’t make it to Ebay Town Hall until Monday morning, we recommend getting there by 7:30 to avoid missing the keynote by David Whatley of Critical Thought Games (You know, Geo Defense Swarm…)

The registration desk will be broken down into letter groups by Last Name.

Schedules will be printed out and in your bag.

See this post for the shuttle schedule, and general how to get around San Jose information.

Our iPhone app, has a map of Ebay, the complete schedule, and your session survey app.

It’s not too late (but it almost is) to register for 360|iDev! Don’t miss out, register now!

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

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!

Register now!

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360iDev – Getting around San Jose is easy

If you booked your 360|iDev stay at the Marriott (or anywhere near it really), getting around is easy. We’ve got a shuttle that will run in the morning, and at night, Monday thru Wednesday.

All you gotta do is be downstairs when the shuttle is there and you’re all set, ride in comfort from the Marriott to Ebay Town Hall.

The shuttle schedule is below, make sure to keep it in mind!

April 11th: Sorry no shuttle on Sunday.

April 12th:

Morning 7am – 8am
Evening 7:30pm – 8:30pm

April 13th
Morning 7:30am – 8:30am
Evening 7:30pm – 8:30pm

April 14th
Morning 7:30am – 8:30am
Evening 5:00pm – 6:00pm

Sleep in? No worries. If you miss the shuttle, the VTA station right outside the Marriott will get you to Ebay Town hall in no time at all (well, actually about 20 minutes). It’s about $2 for a 1 way ticket.

And of course there’s plenty of parking at ebay, but it fills up fast so don’t mess around if you’re driving in.

register for 360|iDev now!

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360iDev – Last call for volunteers. Help out – Get in for free

We’ve already accepted most of the volunteers we need, but we need about 3 more.

This is your last chance, if the price of a ticket is keeping you from attending, trade some time for a free pass.

We need help during registration, and with the filming of sessions, not that hard. In exchange you get a free pass to the conference, easy right?

You need to be available Saturday and Sunday before the conference, to help with SWAG bags, etc.

We need submissions by Friday.

Spread the word!

All we need is your

Name

Email

Why you want to be a volunteer

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360iDev come for the sessions stay for the parties

360|iDev is more than just sessions. I mean, the sessions are awesome, 40+ from some of the best and brightest in the iPhone dev community. And don’t get me started on the panels…. (seperate blog post)

But when the sessions are over, the parties begin.

The evening receptions give everyone a chance to decompress after having 8 hours of insanely awesome technical information jammed into their skulls. Grab a beer, some food, maybe a root beer float (That’s right!) and just hang out. Watch Joe rock out on Rock Band, chat with Mike Lee over beers, talk icon design with Dave, whatever.  The evenings of 360|iDev are a great time to meet new folks, enjoy the great community that is the iPhone dev community.

And that’s not all that’s going on during the receptions :)

We’ve introduced the idea of BOF (Birds of a feather) sessions, which are more free form, discussion type sessions, that take place during the receptions. Something you want to talk about? Post it to the BOF site. Maybe there’s a topic not covered at 360|iDev, throw out a BOF idea. The BOFs are open to any attendee, there’s no requirements, no guidelines. Want to talk about something, put it up on the list.

The BOFs are community organized. Heck, maybe a Sci Fi chat over beers BOF, skies the limit.

Our evening receptions are sponsored, so make sure you show some love to the party sponsors!

Sunday’s welcome reception is sponsored by: Double Encore

Monday night’s party is sponsored by: Ansca Mobile

Tuesday night’s party, the last official party of 360|iDev, is sponsored by: appFigures. The Tuesday night party also kicks off the Touch Arcade Game Jam!

Register now for 360|iDev San jose. Get more out of 4 days than you’ll even imagine possible!

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360iDev Touch Arcade Game Jam

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 :)

Register now!

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360iDev speaker chat archives

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!

Brian Robbins

Collin Donnell

Mike Berg

Nathan Eror

Owen Goss

Rod Strougo

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 :)

Register now!