iPhoneDevCampers produce 48 new apps in 48 hours
380+ engineers planned and attended iPhoneDevCamp, making it up as they went along. No Apple sponsorship, just Adobe sharing some space at their San Francisco office and a few other companies covering meals.
Three threads.
The first was iPhone dissection: inferring iPhone's user experience elements and application/service design conventions and peeking under the covers for how things worked. Christopher Allen shared baseline knowledge of iPhone specs, protocols, design and code constraints in his keynote.
The second was a hack-a-thon: building something alone or in small teams by 1pm Sunday. See iPhone Applications developed at the camp. KentBye twitted: The "DevCamp model of connecting teams of IA/Designers, coders & UI testers to create project is a lot more productive than BarCamp-style demos." We know creativity is a team sport. Hmm, is this a workplace design pattern?
Community is iPhoneDevCamp's byproduct. Some blend of Community of Practice, iPhone fan club, and professional network. Folks seem highly motivated to continue this conversation. Again, outside Apple's mandates or restrictions. See the new iPhoneWebDev.com and the iPhoneWebDev Google Group.
Despite Skype having tens-of-times as many users as the iPhone, I don't think Skype has ever had a developer gathering of this size, energy or commitment. Why not? What's missing?
skype
Comments
This strong and motivated developer support for a product that didn't even need the initiative or support of the company that created is really amazing. It also shows the fact that what usually apple delivers are products that goes beyond the mere "stuff as many features as you want" thinking. Apple creates products that incites passion from its users, and this is why its having a very successful (and phenomenal) second renaissance. This is perhaps what's missing on the skype scenario. It's no doubt that what they delivered with the iPhone is really revolutionary not just from a technical point of view.It is the whole rethinking of how a mobile device should work that's revolutionary.
Posted by: Dave | July 11, 2007 11:47 AM