Even though we just received a foot of fresh powder snow, conference season is already here. Are there any conferences you should/must attend as an iPhone developer? The answer will of course depend on your personal situation. I don’t like to travel much, but I really enjoy meeting fellow developers and to put faces to blog signatures and Twitter handles. So here are some upcoming conferences where you might meet me.
Mobile World Congress
This conference took place in Barcelona February 15-18. We had one of our developers speaking there, and at least one of our clients was there too. This is mainly a business conference and the focus is not on the iPhone. Apple is not one of the exhibitors. Microsoft was there in big force showing off an early build of Windows Phone 7 Series (nice name!). Global telecom companies announced a planned Super App Store where the unstated goal is to take away some of the power from Apple. (Good luck with that.)
NSConference
Traditionally a Mac developer’s conference with some of the world’s best Mac developers as speakers. This year they added a day devoted to iPhone programming. The 2010 conference has already taken place and Jeff LaMarche has a nice write-up.
CTIA Wireless – March 23-25, 2010 – Las Vegas, NV
This is the U.S. counterpart to Mobile World Congress. It takes place in Las Vegas every year. Like MWC it’s primarily a business conference, but with more focus on the U.S. market.
Don’t expect to learn any new Cocoa Touch skills here. But if you need a tax deductible reason to go to Vegas, this might fit the bill. Or if you just want to speak your mind to the AT&T executives Ralph de la Vega and Randall Stephenson, they’ll be there.
360|iDev – April 11-14, 2010 – San Jose, CA
I was a speaker at 360|iDev in Denver last summer and I really enjoyed the conference. It’s a small and intimate conference where you really get a chance to interact with both speakers and attendees. Both attendees and speakers were top-notch, and I learned a lot as well as made valuable connections.
The early bird pricing is already sold out. But the regular cost for three jam-packed days of sessions is still very reasonable.
Unfortunately I will probably not be able to attend this conference. I’ve got a few iPad projects that need to be wrapped up right around that time.
Voices That Matter – iPhone Developer’s Conference – April 24-25 – Seattle, WA
I have not been to this conference before, but the speaker lineup looks really good. The first day has a whole track devoted to UI design. This is something that I’ve been deeply involved in recently when porting iPhone apps to the iPad. (“Porting” is probably the wrong word here. “Redesigning the user experience from scratch” is more accurate.) On the second day there are several sessions that I plan to attend: Cocoa Design Patterns, Memory Management, Performance Tuning and Effective Networking. You can’t learn enough about these topics, and the opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business can’t be passed up.
Early bird pricing is available through March 12. And if you use the discount code “PHBLOGS” you’ll save an additional $100.
Full disclosure: I’ve been offered a complimentary ticket to the conference. If my schedule does not allow me to go, I will give the ticket away to a lucky reader here on the blog.