Dub Dub Diary 2026.

2018 was the first time I watched WWDC live. I was 11 years old. Since then, I’ve tuned into a total of 8 WWDC live streams, and plenty more Apple events. While I had always dreamed of it, I had never imagined I would actually be able to be there in person one day. But lo and behold, in April this year, I received my invite to attend WWDC in person. A dream come true.

WWDC is significantly more than what meets the eye. For most consumers watching online, it ends on Monday after the keynote. For developers tuning in online, it ends in the middle of the week after Swift labs are over. But for those in person, WWDC starts way before Monday, and it stretches up to Friday with events one after the other with no time to breathe between them.

You can really make WWDC your own, though. You can either attend every single community event and make it an exhausting week, or choose to attend a select few and make it an enjoyable week. I decided to go the first route, which in itself turned out to be enjoyable, but also VERY exhausting.

Enough chit chat. Now that I’ve been there in person, I want to take you through the entire experience right from “Day -1”. I’ll try to keep each description concise.

Saturday, June 6th

Computer History Museum

Rudrank and I met up and decided to go to the Computer History Museum on Saturday. It contains an Apple 50th exhibit and is apparently a must-visit. Because developers from all around the world are coming into the area at the same time, it’s not surprising that you run into them at places like these. We ended up meeting up with quite a few of them right here, so this was the start of our dub dub!

The exhibit itself was pretty cool. Admittedly—and unsurprisingly—I found the Apple part the most interesting. But there were some very fascinating exhibits and old devices there, in surprisingly good condition. I also personally enjoyed typing on a typewriter and getting a postcard printed out.

Quick Stop at Apple Park Visitors Center

We decided we’d quickly stop by the Visitors Center to meet some folks, but we got there at 4:20PM, and by that time, most people have already moved onto the Pre-WWDC gathering that officially starts at 5PM. Next year, we’ll keep this in mind. But this was my opportunity to grab some merch.

Pre-WWDC26 Gathering

This is an annual tradition that takes place in the San Pedro Square Market, hosted by Adam Tow. About 200-300 people showed up. This was a really cool way to start things off, and I finally met Matthew Cassinelli here. We’ve known each other online forever being part of the Shortcuts community, but finally meeting in person was fantastic. Of course, I also met a lot of other amazing folks, including engineers from Apple, and so many cool developers I had only ever seen online—it was great to finally meet them all in person, and meet some familiar faces again. A fantastic way to kick things off!

Runway Apple Park Happy Hour

There was a bit of an overlap between the Pre-WWDC gathering and the Runway Happy Hour for timing, so we decided to leave the gathering early and move over to here. This takes place at Duke of Edinburgh, a pub west of Apple Park. The only photo I have here is with the Apple Community team folks (Cat and Christa), whom I also met for the very first time here, I had only spoken to them on call before. I was here for significantly longer than I was at the other meetup, but a lot of folks eventually trickled over here. Another great place to meet a lot of great folks, although it got really packed really quickly.

Sunday, June 7th

Ctrl Alt Run

I didn’t actually plan on going to this event, and you won’t see it on my calendar. But I somehow ended up here with my Airbnb roommates. My original plan was just to sit there and wait for the next event here, but I ended up going on a walk around Apple Park. This was fun chatting with folks and also burning a few calories.

Step Into Coffee

Step Into Coffee is a visionOS meetup hosted by the folks over at Step Into Vision—a community I’m also a part of. This one was hosted at Philz Coffee, hence the name “Step into Coffee”. I was able to hang around there for a bit and meet some more visionOS devs whom I had only previously met spatially. Unfortunately, I was only there for 30 minutes and had to move onto the next event that was starting in the hotel right next to Philz Coffee.

Workshop: Write Faster, Smarter Swift

Like many of us in the community, my iOS journey began with watching Paul Hudson’s 100DaysOfSwiftUI course. Attending this workshop and seeing him speak in person, outside the confines of a display, was fantastic. The workshop itself was quite useful too. It was all about exploring the Swift Algorithms package to improve the code we write, and make it more efficient. I also spent some time digging into how each of these functions was implemented by the package internally, and it was quite rewarding. And I got some special swag from Paul for contributing to the WWDC community repo--more about this later! I also met Vedant here at this event, someone whom I’ve also known online for a long time and finally got to meet.

Welcome Reception at WWDC

Now, this was my first Apple-organized event for the week. The Welcome Reception is hosted at Infinite Loop, and marks the beginning of the week. Even though the event starts at 3PM, Rudrank & Ronald picked me up from the workshop and we lined up at 1:30PM so we could be early in line and could stand in the shade.

Pro tip for any event hosted at Apple offices: Avoid carrying bags unless you absolutely have to, there’s always a separate queue for those without bags, and it’s always a lot faster.

They served us water and ice cream while in line—the latter of which would come to haunt me later that week. The energy was insane there, with folks yelling dub dub all the time and everyone excited to enter the area. The line extended significantly and I was very glad that we made it there early.

Apple employees have a very cheerful welcome ready for you, and a check-in process where you get greeted with a badge and some exclusive merch. Fun fact, your badge gets printed as you check in—it’s surprisingly quick! This badge is the one that’s used for all events throughout the week.

Inside infinite loop, there’s a “drop a pin” board where you drop a pin of where you’re coming from, a photo point with the WWDC26 sign, a patio with chairs, a DJ playing music, and an area with TONS of food. A section is also opened up later where they have Apple Design Award winners present their apps to folks. This event lasts from 3PM up till 7PM, so there’s plenty of time to connect with folks here, and that’s what I did.

#WWDCScholars Meetup

From Infinite Loop, we headed to the WWDCScholars meetup. This was a great place to connect with other fellow students. There were some really inspiring folks here, including current and previous Swift Student Challenge winners. Ether Hare from Apple, as well as some other cool engineers from Apple also hung out here to chat with students. It was a fun mixer, and they had more food here—but most of us were already pretty full from the snacks over at Infinite Loop.

Monday, June 8th - The Big Day

Monday was the big day. With the official day of announcements, there was a lot to look forward to. Rudrank, Harry, Daniel, and I were in line pretty early at 6:30 with about 40 people ahead of us and a couple thousand behind. The check-in was scheduled to begin at 8. Getting here early was key to getting a good front-row seat. Fortunately, Apple once again had treats for those in line. Coffee and donuts!

Pre-WWDC at Apple Park

There are about two hours that morning before the keynote actually begins. This time is for having breakfast, meeting people, and taking pictures! Obviously, a good chunk of that time is spent admiring the beauty of Apple Park. It is truly a gorgeous place. I also met some fantastic folks here, who need no introduction. Also, that croissant for breakfast was immaculate. I couldn’t stop having them.

The Special Event at Apple Park

Moments before the event begins, Craig and Tim usually come onto the stage to greet the audience. This is exactly what happened, but this time, it was longer than usual. Craig opened up with a great, truly heartfelt, introduction for Tim. It was fantastic, and Tim Cook was greeted with a standing ovation. I somewhat expected John Ternus to make at least a small appearance, but that did not happen.

The rest of the announcements were what folks were able to see online. I have a feeling that the in-person stream is about a minute ahead of those watching online. Either way, this was a fun one, and there was quite some excitement for the consistent corner radii on macOS. The format was very different from most years, with a focus on features rather than platforms.

Lunch

Between the Keynote and PSOTU, there is time for lunch. But first, it was time to get a chance to see some of the Apple executives. Funnily enough, AJ, Vedant and I were busy looking at our phones and John Ternus walked right past us. Fortunately, he did walk out and I was able to get a photo with him. We waited a bit for Tim and Craig, but they did not stop for photos.

Anyways, going to the food, there was some really good Chicken Tandoori in the Indian section, and a fantastic Tiramisu. I can’t stress enough how good the Tiramisu was. Unfortunately, while breakfast was the same menu on both sides of the foyer, the same was not true for lunch, and I missed out on Pizza and some other cool dishes that were being served on the opposite end.

Icons of apps published by invitees are also shown on screen during lunchtime. This year, I had Pencilera and snApp featured on the app wall, which was pretty cool to see. Had to go grab some photos with these, part of the reason why I ended up missing that other side of food, haha!

At this time, the outer perimeter of Apple Park’s inner ring also opens up. This is where the download stations are located for the beta to be installed. It’s a decently high-speed wired internet connection. My iPad was burning from how hot it got outside, though.

State of the Union

Then, this is the time for the Platforms State of the Union where more technical announcements are discussed. I ended up being moved to the chairs at the very end, so I had to watch this part on the screens at the back. But before the announcements, Apple highlighted the community folks hosting events around the world, presented the names of Swift Student Challenge winners, and invited the Apple Design Award winners on stage and handed them their awards. Then, the stream followed.

In Person Labs

Right after the PSOTU, there is time to meet Apple Engineers in “Group Labs.” Places around the campus are allocated to different teams at Apple, and you can go and talk to them and ask questions. I visited the App Intents team to ask a few questions, and met up with the UI Frameworks team. Honestly, my chat with the UI Frameworks folks was one of the highlights of the week for me, I truly enjoyed it. Later, I regretted not visiting the visionOS folks, I would have loved to show them PeekABoo.

At this time, they also open up the entirety of the inner ring for you to even go up close to the rainbow stage. The upper floor was also open for specific in-person labs, and I was able to get this really pretty picture of myself—thanks to Adrian Eves for taking it.

Reception at the Inner Ring

Once the in-person labs wrap up, developers and Apple engineers move to the inner ring for snacks and some DJ. Some folks dance, and most folks eat. I honestly wasn’t a big fan of the food that was served in the evening, but there was fortunately plenty more to do. I went around the ring, checked out the Apple Park pond, and hung out with some friends.

Fun fact, you can get cherries and apples that are picked right at Apple Park in the ring during the event. I wasn’t able to make it to the side where they were serving apples, but I had some of the cherries—they were pretty nice.

And that was a wrap to a rather fantastic day at Apple Park! There’s so much that happens, and it’s hard to believe that this is actually just Day 1 of the main event.

Students, Swift, St⭐️rs

Before closing the night, we headed over to “Students, Swift, Stars.” This was honestly quite an incredible event, with a very unique format that I quite liked. Unlike WWDCScholars the previous night which was more of a mixer, this was an event with panels, talks, and an app fair. A lot more people also attend this event, including community leaders and folks from Apple. I met some really impressive folks here, and got to see the apps that fellow students had made. I also met Sean Allen, Sai Kambampati, and the folks from the Enhanced Radar team.

Tuesday, June 9th

Remember that ice cream I told you about earlier? That, combined with a lot of yelling “DUB DUB,” had turned my throat sore when I woke up on Tuesday. I had to live with this for the rest of the week, but I’m glad it wasn’t Monday when this happened.

Apple Developer Session at the Steve Jobs Theatre

This time, there was a special developer event happening at the Steve Jobs Theatre. Those that could not be seated at the main event would then be moved to the Developer Center, which none of us wanted to do. We wanted to see it live. So sure enough, we were standing in line again. Once we were in, there was plenty of time to take pictures, admire the beauty of the Steve Jobs Theatre building, and eat some really delicious food.

Interestingly, this was the first time Apple had hosted a developer session inside the Steve Jobs Theatre—and the only time developers were allowed in apart from last year’s F1 screening. And this time, they hosted an event that was completely live on stage with demos that were fully real-time. An edited version of this presentation is now available on YouTube and the Apple Developer website.

Had a funny little incident happen when Michael Gorbach, a manager on the App Intents team, was talking to Siri on stage. This invoked the Siri on my iPad and played a song at full volume. That was awkward…

Either ways, another exclusive pin awaited us after the presentation was over.

Mixer at Developer Center Cupertino

Following the previous presentation, Apple hosted a mixer outside their developer center in the parking area. Tables were set up with labels for WWDC topics, so you can chat with engineers from Apple about announcements, or talk to other developers excited about the same. The choice of table for me was obvious—App Intents. I met some cool folks here too, developers as well as Apple engineers. They had food trucks with a variety of cuisines and this was also some fantastic food.

Also, the hot chocolate from the machine at the Developer Center is incredible. I just couldn’t stop having it. Those around me can attest to how much I loved it.

Apple Intelligence Automators Meetup

Vedant and I took a ride to the Residence Inn for the Apple Intelligence meetup. This one was being hosted by Matthew Cassinelli, and it was an event I was really excited for. This was all about integrating the new technologies to make your app more integrated with the new Siri system, but it was great to meet other fellow Siri Shortcuts enthusiasts and automators here, as well as to spend more time geeking out with Matthew.

iOS Dev Happy Hour IRL

Then, I took an Uber to Fuego Sports Bar with Adam Tow and Jia Chen for the iOS Dev Happy Hour. While the event itself went on for much longer, we spent about an hour and half at the happy hour. Met some more developers and Apple engineers, and had some more cool food with dub dub videos playing in the background.

Mandalorian and The Grogu - Movie Screening at Steve Jobs Theatre

Vedant, Daniel, and I then headed back to the Steve Jobs Theatre for the screening of the Mandalorian and the Grogu. Since last year people loved watching the F1 movie in the SJ theatre, they brought it back this year. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an exclusive screening this time, but it was still fun, and they had a special guest. Once again, they had some more food here. I was quite tired by now, but the movie was pretty good. The screen at the Steve Jobs Theatre is amazing, but the fact that the EXIT sign lights remain brightly lit does light up the room a bit even when it’s “fully dark.”

Post the screening, we had to stop to take some pictures. The spaceship looks stunning at night.

Wednesday, June 10th

Community Breakfast and Trivia

Day 3 of WWDC opened up with the WWDC Trivia hosted by Kai and Malin, the hosts of Core Coffee. Now, this was a fun one. I teamed up with Riley Testut, Danijela Vrzan, Mustafa Yusuf, Pritesh Sankhe, and Jayce. Our team name was “Creamy Cream Sweet Sugar,” this came from the label of the drink that Riley got from Philz Coffee—and we all love sugar. There was a twist with the trivia, though. The vibe coded trivia platform ended up backfiring and consumed hundreds of dollars in AWS credit, so we moved to pen and paper in the end. We ended up in 2nd place, right behind “Sofia and friends,” who were only 80 points ahead of us—for context, we were both over 2000 points. Either ways, this was a fun one, we were pleasantly surprised we made it that high—all thanks to our teamwork, and Mustafa’s last-moment vetos!

Launched Live

Now, Launched Live was a little behind schedule because of the issues with the WWDC26 Trivia setup. Charlie hosted this edition with Sofia and César from Ambi Studio, and it was really cool to hear more about their journey and how they got together to build apps. Towards the end, they also gave away a few launched live T-shirts, and I was wearing one when I wrote the earlier half of this blog post, haha.

Meet try! Swift Tokyo

This was another great little event hosted by the try! Swift Tokyo folks. They hosted a few talks from Mohammad Azam and another really cool developer from Japan whose name I don’t quite remember. It was super cool meeting Mohammad Azam and chatting with him, I forgot to take a photo, though! Met some more cool folks here since there was time for a mixer towards the end.

Indie App Fair

I hosted a stall at the Indie App Fair to promote our new app, LookBack! It was a cool experience, and I was able to show the app off to so many folks and pitch it to whoever stopped by. This was a great place to get new users, as well as to get a lot of feedback from real users—since the app was particularly relevant for the audience. It lets you see a history of the contacts you added, sorted by date added, and adds insights for where you met them! And yes, I was wearing a custom LookBack shirt!

Swift Contributor Social

Now, this was a fun one! I wasn’t aware, but turns out, the Swift Contributor Social is essentially mostly Apple Engineers and folks on the Swift team. It was really cool to meet and talk to folks who actually worked on the week’s announcements, as well as many who presented at the PSOTU and in WWDC videos—I had some nice conversations there! Also, remember the contributions I made to Paul Hudson’s wwdc-community repo? Joe and Paris from the Swift open-source team noticed and gave me this Swift swag as a thank you, this was really sweet of them and I was pleasantly surprised. There was food, and it was hosted at a bowling alley, so of course—there was bowling.

Apple Developer Community Meetup

Now, this was Apple’s last official event for the week. And this one was separate from the WWDC lottery, so folks who weren’t invited to the main event also got a chance to come here. This was a really special event. It started off at the Big Sur theatre in the developer center. Esther Hare and Susan Prescott kicked it off and highlighted folks from the community around the world. Then, there were some great talks from Robin, Joseph, Paolo, and Daiki. All about the importance of community, and it was a great reminder of why events like these are so special. Then, in a huge surprise, they invited James Dempsey and the Breakpoints for a show AT the developer center. Now, this was fantastic. I had assumed the “James Dempsey and the Breakpoints” show was just a regular mini “concert” that happens every year around WWDC, but man was I wrong. I learnt about where it all started, and turns out, these songs are all about Swift and Apple Platform technologies, which made it so much fun. They put on a fantastic show, and for the first time on an Apple stage in many years.

This was followed by a community mixer, and a lot of food. This was another fantastic time to meet folks, and I got to meet Serenity Caldwell! I also met Marina Lee, a friend of mine from USC, at this event. I chatted with a lot more folks, and of course—grabbed some more Hot Chocolate. I also had to say bye to Daniel and Vince, who were fantastic Airbnb roommates!

Thursday, June 11th

Now, by the end of Wednesday, I was already pretty tired. The sore throat was taking its toll on me, and this only got worse on Thursday—I was barely able to speak. To make things worse, that morning, my phone and watch both died, so I ended up waking up at 10AM instead of the planned 8AM. I missed out on “Swift Small Talks,” which I heard was actually a rather great event. Next year it is!

Core Coffee WWDC Edition

I was however, able to make it in time for Core Coffee! Now, this is hosted at the roof of the Apple Park Visitors Center, but it was so hot outside that most people were just hanging out in the Cafe Macs area, and that’s what I also did. I ended up meeting some cool folks here, including Stephen Robles who is another Siri Shortcuts enthusiast—unfortunately, he was about to leave so our conversation was cut short.

Code Crawl… more like Code Stall

Code Crawl is a fun event where people spend a couple of hours cafe-hopping around Apple Park, usually on Thursdays. This starts with the Visitors Center, followed by Philz Coffee. And while usually, it is supposed to go on to more cafes, we ended up stalling at Philz Coffee because of the scorching heat. I sat down with Morris and Vedant, and this was a fun time.

AiOS Meetup

For the later half of the Thursday, Rudrank was hosting the AiOS meetup. Now there was some really delicious food here, and the event itself was also just as amazing. Peter Friese gave a talk on integrating Gemini with Apple’s Foundation Models framework, and Awni Hannun who spearheaded MLX at Apple gave an open-ended talk on that entire journey. Both of these were really insightful. There was a panel after the talks, but I had to move onto my next event on my calendar—Bitrig Bash!

Bitrig Bash

Bitrig was hosting an event of their own at El Jardín, and a lot of folks from the community were here. Many jumped over from AiOS, just like we did. Here, I said goodbye to Vedant as he left for the airport, met a friend of mine from USC (Carlton), and got a chance to sit down with Jimmy and Mike from Step Into Vision and finally catch up with them. I also made some new friends here, which was pretty sweet too.

James Dempsey and the Breakpoints

I originally wasn’t planning on being here, because like I said, I thought that this was just another music concert. But since I had just found out what this really was about the previous night, I decided to add another event on top of my already Tiring Thursday. I also got to take my first ever Tesla Robotaxi here, which was a nice experience—it’s able to go much faster than a Waymo, presumably because there’s a person at the driver’s seat.

Either ways, this was a great way to close the day off. I was there for a bit of time, and there were some fantastic songs and the people there were really enjoying it—including myself!

Friday, June 12th

Friday is usually pretty chill. Most of the people leave by now, but a good amount still stick around. There were only two events on Friday, and they were pretty light. But first, we had to check out of our Airbnb, so Rudrank, Harry and I took this photo as we were about to leave. You can see in our eyes how tired we were.

Feedback Friday

This was a fairly laid back event. Folks gathered at the Apple Park Visitors Center and the goal was to file feedback for bugs and suggestions that we had, so that Apple can spend the coming months to provide updates and improvements. The thesis is really just the fact that the first week is when the feedback means the most, because things start to get dialled in after that point. So that’s what we did this morning: file feedback.

Make Something, Ship Nothing

Now, it was time for the very last event of the week. As the name suggests, this was all about “making something, shipping nothing.” “What does that mean?,” you might ask? It’s just a fun little gathering for folks to reflect on their week, and make a postcard with notes to yourself or a little diary of your week. No computers, no programming. This was a great way to put an end to a truly remarkable week.

Epilogue

And that’s WWDC… Far more than what meets the eye when you watch it online. A truly remarkable experience I never wish to forget. What I’ve realised is how tightly knit the Apple Developer Community is—it’s the people that make this week so special. You’ll be rather surprised at how approachable people are at these events. Even the biggest names in the world of app development—or executives at Apple—will be more than happy to take a few minutes and talk to you about your journey or your app. There are few communities that come close to how special the Apple Platforms Community is.

A huge part of that is thanks to community leaders like Adrian Eves who host CommunityKit, which is what made most of the aforementioned community-driven events possible. And Apple’s Community team has also done an equally fantastic job of highlighting the importance of community this year, and has hosted some great events for the community.

Also, Apple Park is one of the few places in the world that looks exactly like the photos. It’s truly stunning. I truly hope to be back next year.

My WWDC 2026 swag collection!

What now?

The WWDC hype doesn’t fully die down after the big week is over. In fact, there are so many events hosted by the community all over the world. In fact, I’ve continued contributing to the WWDC repo and have included a new “Post WWDC” section for the first time. If you’re interested in finding out about events happening online, or in your region—I can’t recommend it enough, regardless of whether you were able to make it to WWDC in person. Check it out now!

github.com

GitHub - twostraws/wwdc: WWDC Community: Learning and sharing together

WWDC Community: Learning and sharing together. Contribute to twostraws/wwdc development by creating an account on GitHub.

Things I’d do if I had to do this all over again.

Fortunately, thanks to this thread from Mustafa, and WWDC-veteran roommates like Rudrank, I was able to avoid a lot of the first-time mistakes and have a really good experience at WWDC. But there’s always room to make improvements. I’d start out by writing this blog post as I experience the week; so instead of me having to recall what happened two weeks later, I’ll be doing it as it happens. The visionOS community also really shined this year, but all of those events clashed with other ones I ended up prioritising—so I’d love to be there for more visionOS meetups next time. For the in-person labs and opportunities for talking to Apple engineers, I’d love to come in with a better list of questions and come prepared with the teams I want to talk to—it’s truly a great resource. And lastly, I’ll make sure I do not eat ice cream no matter how tempting it is, and drink more developer center hot chocolate instead. 🙃

If you made it this far, thank you! I appreciate you sticking around till the end and reading through my Dub Dub Diary. I hope you were able to learn more about what the true WWDC experience truly is like. Now, my next stop is Bangalore for the annual WWDC recap event. See you soon.