13's Apple Developer Newsletter #252 🌏Observations on the Evolution of Apple’s Official Developer Events

Since the pandemic, WWDC has seemingly shifted entirely to an online-first format, no longer being the five consecutive days of in-person events it once was. However, Apple has also strengthened regional, ad-hoc developer activities, combining physical events with online streaming, presenting a hybrid, locally-rooted strategy.

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Now to the main topic. This year, I’ve observed that Apple is redefining “developer events.” From the annual conference format, it has evolved into a hybrid strategy distributed across time and location. Let’s start with Apple’s YouTube channel.

Changes in WWDC Videos

Starting with WWDC20, affected by the pandemic, both Keynotes and technical Sessions shifted to pre-recorded video format. Even after the pandemic when lottery-based Keynote attendance opened up—allowing people to visit the Cupertino spaceship campus—attendees would watch pre-recorded videos on the big lawn at the scheduled time.

By WWDC25 this year, Apple released all videos on the first day of the event. This was a significant shift. Developers could quickly find topics of interest and rush to experiment and book Lab sessions to ask questions.

What delighted me was that this year Apple also uploaded all WWDC videos to YouTube, no longer limiting them to the official website and Developer App. This significantly improved video distribution, searchability, and viewing experience.

For instance, since I subscribe to YouTube Premium, I don’t have to worry about ads. Moreover, I can download large numbers of videos to my phone for offline viewing. The YouTube iOS App does this much better than the Apple Developer App.

Hosting on YouTube also makes it convenient to embed in web pages, such as for educational materials.

Online Events and Live Streams

Developers who attended WWDC19 and earlier (including me) miss the old in-person conferences. Looking at this year’s strategy of releasing all videos on day one, Apple is unlikely to return to the previous format of hosting WWDC.

However, in recent years, Apple has started establishing Developer Centers around the world and hosting online and in-person seminars in different time slots. This essentially extends what used to be a week-long WWDC with concentrated resources into hosting short-term small events in various locations.

Current Developer Centers are located at Cupertino headquarters in the US, Bangalore in India, Singapore, and Shanghai. Some events are also held in hotels in major cities or local Apple offices. Future events can be found on the Meet with Apple official website.

I believe Apple’s transition isn’t just due to superficial reasons like “pre-recorded videos are controllable and can be presented perfectly.” Rather, it’s because the global developer community is massive with extreme regional differences. Establishing local touchpoints and activities to enhance developer relations will have a more far-reaching impact than the previous week-long concentrated WWDC.

While this approach diminishes the sense of WWDC as an annual grand event, I believe this “locally-rooted” strategy is moving in the right direction.

In summary, as Apple developers, we can make better use of events on Meet with Apple to enrich our technical knowledge, talk with Apple engineers, and get feedback on design or review issues. As a Taiwanese developer, I also hope Apple will host more developer events in Taiwan.

You can watch public event recordings and live streams on the Apple Developer YouTube channel.

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