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| Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with the Apple II |
Some guys have all the luck.
This week I am making preparations to head to San Francisco where I'm speaking at appsworld. I was asked to chair the first day of the Developer World conference sessions. As conference chair, I give a 10 minute introduction at the start of the day to greet attendees and then introduce each speaker.
So, I went out to the appsworld web site and saw the name of the first speaker on the list.
Steve Wozniak.
To say I was shocked and excited was an understatement. I'm a huge fan of Steve Wozniak, and for a very specific reason.
When I was a kid, I grew up watching all of the science fiction TV shows such as Thunderbirds, Lost in Space, Star Trek, Space 1999, and Battlestar Galactica. I was mesmerized by the technology, especially the computers. I desperately wanted access to a computer!
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| 1970's Battlestar Galactica |
I was 16 years old when Steve Wozniak created the Apple II, and when I heard news of this, I realized that one day I might actually have a computer in my home. I came from a family with six kids, so there was no way we could afford a computer at that time, but at least I knew it would eventually happen. Steve Wozniak was my hero for creating the Apple II and Steve Jobs for marketing it. This may sound crazy to those of you who grew up with computers in your home, but at the time this was a very. big. deal.
So, fast forward 37 years, and here I am getting ready to introduce Steve Wozniak at the appsworld conference. Life is good.
For those of you who don't know, appsworld is held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on February 5-6, 2014. The good news is that the Developer World section of the conference is free, as is Gaming World, Droid World, Tech World, and Enterprise World.
If you can get yourself to appsworld to hear Steve Wozniak speak, I highly recommend it. If you are an app developer, there is plenty of free content on both days of the conference that will help you be a better app developer and produce high quality apps that surprise and amaze your users. Note that even if you only plan to attend the free sessions, you still need to register on the appsworld site.
Personally, I'm speaking on day two of appsworld on the afternoon of February 6, on the subject Avoiding the 5 Main Pitfalls of iOS App Development. I'll be talking about design, architecture, testing, and development practices. The conference boasts lots of great speakers from companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bose, IBM, StubHub, ESPN, and Pinterest. For a list of all the speakers and sessions in Developer World, check out this link. For a list of all conference speakers in all tracks, go to this link.
I hope to see you there, and please feel free to introduce yourself!