Anyone planning to attend Apple’s annual developer conference will want to pay extra special attention to the location page this year.
That’s because the tech giant is moving its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) from San Francisco’s Moscone West conference hall to San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center about an hour south.
In Thursday’s announcement, Apple noted that the San Jose site is “just minutes” from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, where the company is expected to finally open its long-awaited Apple Campus 2—informally known as the “Spaceship” campus thanks to its Star Trek-esque, circular design.
See New Photos Of Apple’s ‘Spaceship’ Campus
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WWDC has been held at Moscone West for years, but it has not expanded to the much wider Moscone Center convention center, which also encompasses two much larger venues (Moscone North and Moscone South)—all three of which together span approximately 700,000 square feet of exhibit space. For reference, shows like Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce (CRM) and Oracle OpenWorld (ORCL) usually take up all of these venues and spill over to nearby hotels.
By contrast, the San Jose location would not only offer Apple with a closer venue to home, but possibly a bit more space than Moscone West yet at a better rate than renting out the massive three-block convention center in notoriously-expensive downtown San Francisco.
Nevertheless, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller told Apple news blog The Loop that location was the primary decision factor here, and that the show still host roughly the same number of guests as recent years: approximately 5,000 developers and 1,000 engineers. Apple noted in its official announcement that the new site will also offer attendees the chance to work with more than 1,000 Apple engineers throughout the conference.
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Running from June 5-9, developers can expect sessions and tools (and possibly news) about creating apps and services for both Apple’s hardware (iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac) and software and related APIs (HomeKit, HealthKit, CarPlay, SiriKit, and the Swift programming language).
Apple (AAPL) said only in the announcement that registration will open this spring, but according to The Loop, Schiller said registration will begin on March 27. Hopeful attendees will want to act fast as tickets typically sell out within minutes.
Much like Apple’s invite-only unveilings for new iPhones and iPads at other times of the year, the conference will be live-streamed to Apple devices, except viewers will need to go through either the Apple Developer website or the WWDC app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
