Worldwide Developers Conference


The Worldwide Developers Conference is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS families as well as other Apple software; new hardware products are sometimes announced as well. WWDC is also an event hosted for third-party software developers that work on apps for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple devices. Attendees can participate in hands-on labs with Apple engineers and attend in-depth sessions covering a wide variety of topics.
The first WWDC was held in 1983, with the introduction of Apple Basic, but it was not until 2002 that Apple started using the conference as a major launchpad for new products. Beginning in 1987, WWDC was held in Santa Clara. After 15 years in nearby San Jose, the conference moved to San Francisco, where it eventually became Apple's primary media event of the year and regularly sold out. WWDC returned to San Jose 13 years later.
WWDC 2020 and WWDC 2021 were hosted as online-only conferences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. WWDC 2022 invited developers and the press back to Apple Park for the first time in about three years despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers and consumers watched the event via online live streams. All of these events were hosted at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. WWDC 2023 and 2024 were held both online and in-person. The most recent conference, WWDC 2025, was held both online and in-person from June 9 to June 13, 2025.

Attendance

Until 2020, a $1,599 ticket was required to enter the conference. Tickets were obtained through an online lottery. Scholarships are available for students and members of STEM organizations. Attendees must be 13 years old or older and must be a member of an Apple Developer program.
Until 2007, the number of attendees varied between 2,000 and 4,200; however, during WWDC 2007, Steve Jobs noted that there were more than 5,000 attendees. The WWDC events held from 2008 to 2015 were capped, and sold out at 5,000 attendees. WWDC 2018 had 6,000 attendees from 77 countries, including 350 scholarship recipients.

Content

WWDC is held annually from Monday to Friday on one week in June. The conference consists primarily of a keynote address, presentation sessions, one-on-one "lab" consultations, and special get-togethers and events.
The conference begins with a Monday morning keynote address by Tim Cook and other Apple executives. It is attended by both conference attendees and the media, since Apple regularly makes product announcements at the event. Hardware announced during the address is sometimes exhibited in the conference hall afterwards. The keynote address is followed in the afternoon by a Platforms State of the Union address, which highlights and demonstrates changes in Apple's software developer platforms that are detailed in sessions later in the week. The Apple Design Awards are also announced on the first day of the conference.
Several session tracks run simultaneously from Tuesday through Friday. The presentations cover programming, design, and other topics and range from introductory to advanced. Almost all regularly scheduled presentations are delivered by Apple employees. These presentations are streamed live, and recordings can be viewed on demand on the Apple Developer website in the conference's iOS and tvOS applications. Lunchtime sessions are given by a variety of guest speakers who are industry experts in technology and science; these sessions are not streamed or recorded. In the past, some sessions included question-and-answer time, and a popular Stump the Experts session featured interaction between Apple employees and attendees.
At the labs, which run throughout the week, Apple engineers are available for one-on-one consultations with developers in attendance. Experts in user interface design and accessibility are also available for consultations by appointment.
Apple organizes social get-togethers during the conference for various groups, such as women in technology or developers interested in internationalization or machine learning. The Thursday evening Bash at a nearby park features live music, food, and drinks for all attendees 21 years or older.

History

1980s

1983 – Apple Independent Software Developers Conference

In 1983, the first WWDC was held. During this time, the event was called The Apple Independent Software Developers Conference. Participants of the event had to sign an NDA, so not much is known about the event, but what is known is that people got a first look at Lisa, the world's first personal computer with a graphical interface.

1984 – Apple II Forever

In 1984, Jobs introduced the famous Macintosh, the second graphical interface personal computer, to developers. This was also the first year the conference was open to the media.

1986 – Apple World Conference

The 1986 Apple World Conference was in San Francisco, featuring over 400 exhibitors and 200 companies showcasing Apple II and Macintosh-related products. Attendees could purchase computer accessories, peripherals, hardware, and software. Apple also introduced the monochrome laser printer LaserWriter Plus at the conference. Notable industry experts, such as Stewart Alsop II, David Bunnell, Esther Dyson, Adam Green, and Guy Kawasaki led several conferences.

1987 – AppleWorld Conference

The AppleWorld Conference 1987 was a two-day event held in Los Angeles on March 2–3, 1987, to celebrate Apple's tenth anniversary and introduce new products. At the keynote event, Apple introduced the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II, which was the first Macintosh to support A/UX, Apple's implementation of Unix. In addition, Apple announced its collaboration with 3Com to develop EtherTalk, an Ethernet-compatible version of the AppleTalk protocol. During the opening session, Apple COO Del Yocam, Steve Wozniak, and CEO John Sculley spoke about Apple's history, philosophy, and goals, respectively. Sculley hinted at Apple's future plans, including a commitment to higher-resolution screens.

1987 – Apple Developers Conference

The 1987 DevCon was on the first week of April.

Spring, 1988

In the last week of April, in anticipation of the System 6.0 launch, Apple announced several features that would be included in the release. These features included a notification manager that could send data to foreground applications, Macro Maker, a program designed to create keyboard macros, Quickergraf, a performance enhancement to QuickDraw, and enhancements to the system's print monitor.
For System 7.0, Apple announced additional features, including functions related to interapplication communication, and MultiFinder would become a standard, integrated part of the operating system, replacing Finder. Apple also addressed issues related to 32-bit graphics, including Color Quickdraw.
Greater multitasking was also emphasized, in the form of interprocess communications.
In addition to these updates, Bill Atkinson introduced Version 1.2 of HyperCard, which provided support for CD-ROM and other write-protected media.

Summer, 1988

In the second week of September, Apple announced AppleTalk support for VMS and DECnet.

1989

In 1989, System 7 was announced.

1990s

1991

In 1991, WWDC saw the first public demonstration of QuickTime.

1995

In 1995, WWDC'95 focused almost fully on the Copland project, which by this time was able to be demonstrated to some degree. Gil Amelio stated that the system was on-schedule to ship in beta form in later summer with an initial commercial release in the very late fall. However, very few live demos were offered, and no beta of the operating system was offered.

1996

In 1996, WWDC'96's primary emphasis was a new software component technology called OpenDoc, which allowed end users to compile an application from components offering features they desired most. The OpenDoc consortium included Adobe, Lotus, others, and Apple. Apple touted OpenDoc as the future foundation for application structure under Mac OS. As proof of concept, Apple demonstrated a new end-user product called Cyberdog, a comprehensive Internet application component suite offering users an integrated browser, email, FTP, telnet, finger and other services built fully of user-exchangeable OpenDoc components. ClarisWorks, a principal product in Apple's wholly owned subsidiary Claris Corporation, was demonstrated as an example of a pre-OpenDoc component architecture application modified to be able to contain functional OpenDoc components.

1997

In 1997, WWDC marked the return of Steve Jobs as a consultant, and his famous reaction to an insult by a developer. WWDC'97 was the first show after the purchase of NeXT, and focused on the efforts to use OPENSTEP as the foundation of the next Mac OS. The plan at that time was to introduce a new system then named Rhapsody, which would consist of a version of OPENSTEP modified with a more Mac-like look and feel, the Yellow Box, along with a Blue Box that allowed extant Mac applications to run under OS emulation. The show focused mainly on the work in progress, including a short history of development efforts since the two development teams had been merged on February 4. Several new additions to the system were also demonstrated, including tabbed and outline views, and a new object-based graphics layer.

1998

In 1998, in response to developer comments about the new operating system, the big announcement at WWDC'98 was the introduction of Carbon, effectively a version of the classic Mac OS API implemented on OpenStep. Under the original Rhapsody plans, classic applications would run in sandboxed installation of the classic Mac OS, and have no access to the new Mac OS X features. To receive new features, such as protected memory and preemptive multitasking, developers had to rewrite applications using the Yellow Box API. Developer complaints about the major porting effort to what was then a shrinking market and warnings that they might simply abandon the platform, led Apple to reconsider the original plan. Carbon addressed the problem by dramatically reducing the effort needed, while exposing some of the new functions of the underlying OS. Another major introduction at WWDC'98 was the Quartz imaging model, which replaced Display PostScript with something akin to display PDF. Although the reasons for this switch remain unclear, Quartz also included better support for the extant QuickDraw model from the classic OS, and Java2D. Supporting QuickDraw directly in the graphics model also led to a related announcement, that the Blue Box would now be invisible, integrated into the extant desktop, instead of a separate window.