Leopard beta for developers at WWDC

I like Apple as a platform and company, but as a developer I need information. In the past, Apple didn't stratify developers' access to information by how much they could pay (beyond the $500 level). You got extras (hardware, developer incidents, etc) if you could pay more, but everyone got the information and tools they needed to develop for the Mac.

This year WWDC was out of the question for me because of the time committment required; now that a working, feature complete seed is being dangled as a carrot, along with the stick of not getting a full selection of WWDC videos in iTunes. It's no more likely I'll get to go to WWDC but it's significantly more likely the company accountants will kill my request for Select membership renewal this year because I apparently can't get timely seed access or complete developer information unless I am a Premiere member who attends WWDC. Yes, it's crazy, but Apple's attempt to get me to go beyond my Select membership for things I can't use (like the WWDC ticket and extra hardware discounts) may actually endanger my company's willingness to pay for the information I need to bring their product back to the Mac.

Writing Apple's developer information is a sunk cost (since Apple's own developers have to use it). The only question is who else do they want to give access. I would hope that Apple isn't seeing developer information as a profit opportunity. Yes, paying money for perks, extra developer access, co-marketing opportunities, or one-on-one training sessions, when they are needed is useful and helpful to cover the costs of these services. But trying to stratify developers and make a profit on developer information will backfire by making it harder to get the knowledge you need to be a Mac developer.

Wheel makes sense.

I noticed they extended the early registration by two weeks, and are advertising stuff they had formerly already mentioned. I wonder if they're having trouble meeting their expected turnout rate? Seems like *that* would be something to speculate on.

Wheel:

www.livejournal.com

I hadn't heard it confirmed that it would be "feature complete". I'm looking forward to finally learning of those "top secret" features.
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This is the coming out party for Leopard.. making the pushed back release date more of a formality. In June, Mac users will get to see all the cool stuff and the bragging will start all over again. It's important to show everything, so that when MS gets their hands on the Beta, they don't rip it apart and copy. You see? By showing things publically, MS will not be able to claim it was their idea.

My only question is: Will the features shown be made *public?*

They announced that Jobs' preview of Leopard at WWDC would be a feature-complete version a couple of weeks ago.

See, in those magazine threads where people talk about how stupid magazines are in this day and age because they can't compete with the Web, what they forget is that magazines have editors who filter out the really boring or stupid stuff. But hey, I read TUAW every day anyway.

Wheel : why are you so sad ? :(

yeah ; it's a lot of work and money. so what ?

where was it ever said that Leopard was due at the last WWDC?

Someone needs a hug.

Is John Sculley running the developer program? Certainly someone with the same ideals is. The developer program shouldn't be a "profit center" for Apple. Right now it's divided into five levels: 1) Online - We'll let you see some support materials if you give us permission to sue you with this nondisclosure agreement. (2) Select - For $500 per year you get a monthly DVD with the Online support materials, ability to download a broken seed of an upcoming OS usually once every 6 weeks (if we feel like it). You also to watch a handful of the videos from last year that let you in on the secrets of just how we thought you'd use this stuff last year. (3) Premiere - For $1K per year, you get a Napster-like subscription to the most recent of the WWDC videos. It'll take us a few months to get them ready (probably by Christmas) and remember they'll disappear if you ever stop paying your tribute or when we start showing next years out of date developer videos. (4) WWDC Attendee - You pay the premiere fee (in addition to travel & hotel fees), drop your family and work life for one week of the year, and haul your backside out to the San Andreas fault. For that you get a few days to fight to the death with other developers for access to Apple's developers. You'll also surely get a seed of the (perhaps stable?) OS, and maybe a nice T-shirt.

Perhaps Gil Amelio went too far in the other direction. If you recall, Quicktime movies of WWDC were distributed for free on CD to anyone who asked (no DRM and no NDA was necessary!). Admittedly, the quality wasn't great (postage stamp size) and we are talking about dead technologies like Publish & Subscribe, OpenDoc, and AppleTalk. But I can go and pull out an old CD today if I still needed some information from back then. The information was helpful and I could (and still can) access it when I needed it.

Today, if you want the documentation to develop for Apple, you'd better like their DRM'd and NDA'd information so much that you'll be willing to pay through the nose for the privilege of renting some time with it each year.

This is, of course, the sanitized versions of the seeds and documents. Unlike back in the nineties, Apple now only shares any real seeds, documentation, or access to developers with those partners it hand selects. If Apple corporate doesn't recognize you as important, you won't get this access no matter what amount of money you're willing to pay.

I won't go into my own internal debates. Whether to pay to attend WWDC so that I might get a dribble of needed information, or whether I should stay home and attend a valued family member's fifth birthday. I won't complain about the choice I'm facing of whether to renew my Developer subscription so that I can get access to an OS that was promised at the last WWDC. No, I'll take this punishment, and pay for it, and smile for having the privilege. I won't think that it would have made a lot more financial sense to have just taken last year off from being an Apple developer and let Apple get their act together rather than paying to watch the chaos.