WWDC

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, is an annual conference held by Apple Inc. to showcase new software techologies to a crowd of typically betweem 4.000 and 5,000 software developers. While WWDC mainly focuses on software technology, it has in recent years also been used to unveil new hardware, starting in 2002 with the Xserve. Apple's announcement of its switch from PowerPC processors to x86 Intel processors was also made at the WWDC in 2005.

The conference generally lasts a week, where developers working on Apple platforms such as Mac OS X or iOS can see demonstrations of the latest advancements through practical examples presented by Apple engineers that can aid in application development. Hands-on labs at WWDC enable application developers to work one-to-one with Apple engineers and try out new concepts.

While WWDC mainly focuses on software technology, it has in recent years also been used to unveil new hardware, starting in 2002 with the Xserve. Apple's announcement of its switch from PowerPC processors to x86 Intel processors was also made at the WWDC in 2005.

In recent years, a major part of WWDC has been updates to the iPhone line and the iPhone software. At WWDC in 2010, the new (at the time) iPhone 4 was the focus and it was announced that the iPhone operating system was to be known as iOS from then on. Applications from the iPhone App Store were also showcased at WWDC 2010.