WWDC needs to radically change

This is my road (so far) to WWDC13. This should serve as a reminder to my future self to avoid WWDC next year.

The effort that went into getting a ticket is far more than I’m willing to admit… it’s JUST a conference, after all! Here’s a recap:

Early April

Start researching WWDC history to be well prepared (see last section). I felt this was critical to get a ticket.
Rumors and trends converge towards a June 10-14 schedule, with an April 25th announcement
Sign up to 2 different WWDC announcement notification services (for redundancy)
Book round-trip flights and accommodations early to avoid much higher costs once they skyrocket after the announcement.

9:55, start repeatedly refreshing WWDC page
10:00:05, see purchase button, enter info
10:00:55, click “complete order”
Get error, enter info again
10:01:55, click “complete order”
Get redirected to WWDC where it says “sold out”
Mope for a few minutes
Acceptance: Oh well, it’s just a conference. I’ll take this as a week-long vacation in SF. Go on with the rest of my day.
16:30, receive a phone call from Apple rep saying “We see you encountered some errors while purchasing your WWDC tickets this morning. I’d like to let you know that we have a ticket reserved for you and we’ll be sending you an email with information on how to complete your purchase in the next twelve hours [sic].”
Celebrate for a few minutes

Note to self… avoid WWDC next year, people will be resort to writing bots to buy their tickets and the conference will sell out in 0.04s.