WWDC is also an event hosted for third-party software developers that work on apps for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple devices.

[2] Attendees can participate in hands-on labs with Apple engineers and attend in-depth sessions covering a wide variety of topics.

The conference consists primarily of a keynote address, presentation sessions, one-on-one "lab" consultations, and special get-togethers and events.

These presentations are streamed live, and recordings can be viewed on demand on the Apple Developer website in the conference's iOS and tvOS applications.

[14] Apple organizes social get-togethers during the conference for various groups, such as women in technology or developers interested in internationalization or machine learning.

[26] Notable industry experts, such as Stewart Alsop II, David Bunnell, Esther Dyson, Adam Green, and Guy Kawasaki led several conferences.

[18] The AppleWorld Conference 1987 was a two-day event held in Los Angeles on March 2–3, 1987, to celebrate Apple's tenth anniversary and introduce new products.

[29][30] In addition to these updates, Bill Atkinson introduced Version 1.2 of HyperCard, which provided support for CD-ROM and other write-protected media.

Gil Amelio stated that the system was on-schedule to ship in beta form in later summer with an initial commercial release in the very late fall.

[citation needed] In 1998, in response to developer comments about the new operating system, the big announcement at WWDC'98 was the introduction of Carbon, effectively a version of the classic Mac OS API implemented on OpenStep.

Developer complaints about the major porting effort to what was then a shrinking market and warnings that they might simply abandon the platform, led Apple to reconsider the original plan.

Although the reasons for this switch remain unclear, Quartz also included better support for the extant QuickDraw model from the classic OS, and (as later learned) Java2D.

Supporting QuickDraw directly in the graphics model also led to a related announcement, that the Blue Box would now be invisible, integrated into the extant desktop, instead of a separate window.

Three major announcements were the opening of the operating system underlying the new OS as Darwin, improvements to the Macintosh Finder, and the replacement of QuickDraw 3D with OpenGL as the primary 3D API.

The band Jimmy Eat World played at the Apple campus after attendees were taken there by bus from Moscone Center West.

The keynote featured developers from Wolfram Research, who discussed their experience porting Mathematica to Mac OS X on the Intel platform.

In 2006, Jobs once again delivered the keynote presentation at the WWDC, which was held from August 7 to 11 in Moscone Center West, San Francisco.

Apple presented a feature-complete beta of Mac OS X Leopard, even though its release date was pushed back to October.

Jobs announced that a version of Safari, Apple's proprietary web browser, had been created for Windows, and that a beta release was being made available online that same day.

Apple also announced support for third-party development of the then-upcoming iPhone via online web applications running in Safari on the handset.

In 2009, WWDC 2009 took place from June 8 to 12 in Moscone Center West, and Apple reported that the 2009 conference sold out in late April.

Attendees received a black track jacket similar to that of the prior year, but with a smaller "WWDC" across the front and the number "11" stitched on the back.

[57] Apple also announced that it would award 150 free WWDC 2013 Student Scholarship tickets for young attendees to benefit from the conference's many workshops.

[64] WWDC 2016 was held from June 13 to 17, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

[citation needed] WWDC 2023, with the tagline "Code new worlds"[81] was held from June 5 to 9 in an online format with an in-person experience at Apple Park on the first day of the show.

[82] Similarly to the previous years, Apple held the Swift Student Challenge, launched in 2020 for the first time, with applications through April 19 and results on May 9.

Prizes included WWDC outerwear, AirPods Pro, a customized pin set, and a one-year membership in the Apple Developer Program.

"[96] The task is to create an interactive scene, shorter than 3 minutes, inside Swift Playgrounds,[97][92] an Apple app that teaches introductory programming.

[99] The challenge is only open to students 13 or older in the United States, or the minimum age in their jurisdiction (for example, 16 in the European Union[100]) who are currently enrolled in an accredited school or have recently graduated,[92] and who are not working full-time as developers.

Prominent podcasters Jim Dalrymple and John Gruber hold events nearby, and former Apple evangelist James Dempsey performs a benefit concert.