After issuing WWDC scholarships to winning applicants earlier this week for its upcoming developers conference in June, Apple has now invited winners to a WWDC 2016 orientation on Sunday, June 12th.
Apple has just released version 3.0 of its WWDC app for iPhone and iPad ahead of the big developer conference kicking off on June 8th. Notably, the updated version includes support for the Apple Watch for viewing conference info from the new device, including a WWDC glance:
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Apple has told Re/code that it is increasing the number of scholarship places offered at this year’s WWDC from 200 to 350 as part of its work to create greater diversity amongst developers. Those selected get a free ticket to the developer’s conference.
The Cupertino technology giant said it will extend […] scholarships to students age 13 and older and members of organizations working to promote science, technology, engineering and math education for young women, blacks and Latinos. The National Society of Black Engineers, App Camp for Girls and La TechLa are among 20 organizations whose members would be eligible for a scholarship.
The company last year published its first ever diversity report, showing that the company is fairly typical of tech companies today: 70% male, 55% white. CEO Tim Cook said then that he was not satisfied with the numbers, and was doing “meaningful and inspiring” work with women’s and minority groups to bring about change.
Let me say up front: As CEO, I’m not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They’re not new to us, and we’ve been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we’re committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products
Cook said during last month’s shareholder meeting that he would work on equality “until my toes point up.”
Apple has, however, refused to make its full federal workforce diversity data public, believed to be on the basis that the job classifications are a poor match for actual roles in the tech sector. Microsoft, Twitter and Amazon also refused.
Apple has just officially announced its annual Worldwide Developers Conference for this year. The conference will take place in San Francisco as usual in early June. WWDC will officially kick off on June 8th and run through June 12th. Developers interested in attending the conference can apply for tickets starting today with applications open through Friday at 10 am PT/1 pm ET.
Like last year, available tickets will be distributed at random to a portion of applicants due to size constraints of the venue, Moscone West, although Apple says select sessions will actually be streamed live while most sessions will be available online after each day. Apple will announce ticket availability after the random selection process on Monday, April 20th, at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET.
Apple’s WWDC opening keynote serves as the unveiling stage for the next versions of iOS and OS X. Apple’s press release for the conference (below) teases the announcement of “the future of iOS and OS X” as we would expect.
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With WWDC less than two weeks away now, Apple has released WWDC 2.0 for iPhone and iPad today on the App Store. The update revamps the user interface to reflect the design changes introduced with iOS 7 at last year’s WWDC conference. The update also includes a new icon to reflect the design changes: from dark purple to bright orange. The update also includes the latest schedule for this year’s conference (or as much as it will reveal) so developers attending the conference will want to download and reference it soon.
If you didn’t get a chance to buy a WWDC ticket in the lottery last week, you might just get another chance soon. Developers who won were given until April 14 to buy a slot at the conference, but not all of them took advantage of the opportunity.
Now Apple is reportedly reaching out to developers who didn’t win the lottery and offering them a chance to buy unclaimed tickets. Some developers are starting to get phone calls from the company informing them that they have been randomly selected to buy one of the tickets that winners failed to claim before the 14th.
