Winners of this lottery are charged $1,600, but for the opportunity to attend Apple's annual developers' conference, it is a fee many developers wish they had the chance to pay.
Because of the sheer amount of developers looking for a seat at the conference, Apple holds a lottery for many of the spaces at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Some golden ticket winners have been flaunting their proof of purchase:
A photo posted by Julie Johnston (@projectjuliedotcom) on Apr 17, 2015 at 12:55pm PDT
Got the Golden Ticket... Yiiippppeeee #WWDC2015 #WWDC pic.twitter.com/BQYBWPYPNy — Once (@oncetheapp) April 17, 2015
Others couldn't get in:
After 10,000 email refreshes it's clear... #WWDC pic.twitter.com/mh6FH2uxLm — Rebecca Slatkin (@RebeccaSlatkin) April 17, 2015
My inbox is empty? Good enough reason today to order another drink. #wwdc — Christopher P. Atlan (@catlan) April 17, 2015
Others, still, poked fun at the process:
If you invested your $1600 in $AAPL instead of buying a #wwdc ticket last year, your stock would have had a ~65% ROI, or a ~$1040 increase. — Shazron Abdullah (@shazron) April 17, 2015
I’m confused by all these OMG! I got charged for my #WWDC ticket! The one that I signed up for! And wanted to go to! tweets. — Ged Maheux (@gedeon) April 17, 2015
WWDC will kick off in San Francisco, running from June 8 to 12. Like Google's I/O, WWDC sets the tone for all things Apple for the next 12 months. There will be more than 1,000 Apple engineers attending the conference and over 100 workshops.
For the developers who didn't receive anything special from Apple by the lottery's April 17 deadline, there will be live streams of the conference available.
The top five things expected to receive attention at WWDC 2015 include Homekit and Apple TV. Apple's TV ambitions have slowly been emerging over the past few months, and Cupertino just sealed an exclusive deal with HBO. On the other hand, Homekit, announced at the previous WWDC, has the potential to make as big of a splash in the Internet of Things as the Apple Watch is making in the wearables market.
iOS 9, an OS X update, and news about the full availability of all of WatchKit's features are also expected to get a good deal of attention at the conference.
Check out the full roundup of WWDC 2015 anticipated highlights and drop us a line. Let us know what you hope Apple covers at the conference.
