It was April 4 when I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email saying:

“Congratulations! You’ve been selected to join us at the special event at Apple Park on Monday, June 9”.

After some years of trying to get selected for the WWDC special event for developers at Apple Park, I just couldn’t believe it finally happened. It’s been a professional dream and bucket list item for me to be able to attend the biggest moment of the year for Apple software and visit Apple Park. And as a macOS developer at Root3 for the Support App and App Catalog, I thought it would be a great opportunity to both enjoy the fun, learn from Apple engineers, and get to ask them questions in person. And luckily, my lovely family was kind enough to let me go from home for almost a week 😊

In this article, I share my experiences throughout the ‘Dub-Dub’ week and fun moments. I intend to also create a more technical blog about some of the announcements regarding managing Apple devices and the new Liquid Glass design and other API changes that mean for our apps.

Arrival and San Francisco

As I had a direct flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco and arrived the day before the official activities started on Sunday, June 8, I spent the remainder of the day sightseeing in San Francisco. I’ve been there before and knew my way around, but as a hobby photographer, I was hoping to take some great shots of landmarks and other places in the city. Also, I needed to fight the jet lag (9 hours difference), keep myself as active as possible, and hopefully have a good night’s sleep. I did most of my movements with Bay Wheels, the bike-sharing service available throughout the city. You can get a day pass and take a bike for 30 minutes without additional costs, or choose an electric bike and pay an additional $0.30 per minute. Some of the places I visited: Coit Tower, the Transamerica Building, the café where Jony Ive recently sat down with Sam Altman (they weren’t there, unfortunately, to join them 😂), and then a long way to the Golden Gate Bridge. I recorded this long ride, which was around 18 km (with one break), and I regretted not taking the electric bike at some point where the wind was really hard and I was already quite exhausted from climbing some of the steep hills. So after a break at a couple of viewpoints for the Golden Gate Bridge, I took the electric bike and went across the bridge, which was a lot of fun and wind!

When I was back, it was around 7-8 p.m. and I wanted to check out the sunset at Alamo Square with the beautiful view of the Painted Ladies with Downtime in the background. To get there, I just had to try the full self-driving Waymo taxi as I probably wouldn’t have another opportunity and the area of Cupertino is not supported yet. And wow, this works really, really well! The car basically pulls over and has this small LED sign on top with your initials on it to make it easily recognizable. You step into the vehicle and a voice explains everything you need to know and buckle up. It was just a crazy fun experience to see the car fluidly steering over the San Francisco hills without any hiccups or sudden actions. It just felt so natural as if a very calm and experienced driver sat next to me. When visiting San Francisco, you definitely need to do this and prices are quite similar to an Uber depending on how busy it is. Well, that’s enough now and get on with the WWDC25 activities 🙂

Welcome reception @ 1 Infinite Loop

On Sunday, the day before the Keynote, Apple invited all the attendees for the check-in and a welcoming reception at the ‘old’ Apple Campus at 1 Infinite Loop. Even though Apple Park is more beautiful and modern, I guess the Apple Campus brings a nostalgic feeling for many people and it represents so much history of what they achieved in the past decades. I arrived around 45 minutes before the check-in started at 3pm but there was already a queue of people, fortunately not very long. Apple employees were there to receive and welcome everyone, just as you would expect from Apple: with lots of excitement and high-fives. Also, they invited you to stand next to the “1 Infinite Loop” sign in front of the building, take a photo of you, and provide you with a water bottle. This immediately set the tone for a truly welcoming experience where people engage with each other in the waiting line.

I was standing with an Indian developer and talked about the projects we are working on, our hopes and expectations for the Keynote, and more. After waiting until 3:30 p.m. to get in and pass a security check, I could finally walk through the reception where even more employees were awaiting you, singing “Dub-dub DC!” and cheering like crazy. I must admit that I’m not the most extroverted person, but these guys got me super excited, and I joined them in doing the same thing. The noise was so loud that I even got a warning on my Apple Watch! 🚨 Then you were called to a desk where an employee would scan your invitation in Apple Wallet, print the attendee badge, and hand out a swag bag with some unique items such as pins and a nicely WWDC-branded water bottle.

Then even more cheering when you walk out of the reception onto the central patio/garden. At that point, you are already blown away by all the impressions and know that this is a very special occasion to never forget. Immediately outside, they asked me to put a pin where I come from on a giant Apple Maps-like map, take a picture of you doing it and highlight how many nationalities are visiting the event.

In the middle of the patio was a big 3D WWDC sign with also a photo opportunity. Of course I couldn’t resist and went to the next queue. Not a problem because you start talking to other people and hear their story or ask questions like “Is this your first WWDC?” and “What projects are you working on?” After the photo, it was time for some drinks and food. Organized by Caffe Macs, there was plenty of choice, very well organized, and you could take whatever you wanted. I got some local Californian IPA beer and talked to a bunch of people. Surprisingly, I met many visionOS developers working on games or other experiences, which is a big contrast with what I do, but still interesting to hear their story and they about mine (hopefully). I did not meet a lot of macOS developers except for 🚀 Antoine van der Lee from SwiftLee (avanderlee.com) and also Dutch. I never met him before but I follow his blog on LinkedIn which is a very valuable Swift resource and he’s quite famous in the Apple developer community for his work and app RocketSim.

After getting some food, I spotted Jeremy Butcher, Director of Product Marketing for Apple Developer Programs and Enterprise & Education Software. I recognized him from JNUC last year on the main stage, and we briefly talked about a bunch of topics. Very thankful to him for taking the time!

As the event came to a close, I was also in contact with Mike Lynn, Enterprise Workflows engineer at Apple, to meet up near Main Street in Cupertino. Together with his colleague Christos Drosos, we sat down for about an hour and enjoyed a delicious ice cream from an, apparently, popular chain called “SomiSomi”. Time to get some sleep as the next day I had to stay up quite early!

Special event @ Apple Park

The day we’ve all been waiting for, usually sitting in front of the television, iPad, or Mac and watching the Keynote. Not this time! I walked through the peaceful neighborhoods of Cupertino, heading towards the Apple Park Visitor Center, where a queue was already lined up. Again, excellent service by Caffè Macs, which served coffee and pastries. They literally brought it to you in the queue and even collected all the trash so you wouldn’t have to leave.

The Keynote would start at 10 a.m., but Apple Park opened at 8 a.m. The same Apple Retail employees from the reception were there to help and again create a great atmosphere to get everybody excited for whatever the day would bring. At 8 a.m., people could enter Apple Park in batches. That’s the moment where you actually walk towards this unique piece of architecture hidden behind many trees. The sun is shining and reflects on all the giant glass components of Apple Park. You know what it looks like from pictures but still, being there and seeing it for the first time is different. As you walk around the building, it’s very enjoyable to look through the glass, the minimalistic design and on the other side the peaceful nature, and the two blend perfectly together.

The walk from the entrance to the main area at Caffè Macs is around a quarter of the building. During the walk, lots of people are taking pictures as probably most of them also see it for the first time. Actually, the most people I talked to were attending for the first time, but surely there were some lucky regulars out there. But also just Apple employees biking to work! Then you reach the Caffè Macs area with the giant open-air theater and huge doors of Apple Park full open, while employees welcome you again.

My goal was to secure a seat beneath the temporary sun shade close to the stage where Apple executives would probably appear to open the Keynote. Fortunately, it was still early, and I was one of the first groups to arrive, so there were plenty of seats available. The front rows were primarily reserved for the Swift Student Challenge winners, but I got a seat in a row somewhere between row 15 and 20 with a pretty good view 😎. No fighting for chairs at all, and employees allowed you to put your back on a seat and have some coffee and breakfast in the meantime. I got a picture of me standing in front of the Keynote stage and freely walked around the area and could also enter the ring and inner garden to see the rainbow arches, which were just replaced earlier this year as the previous ones were never intended to stay.

Time for breakfast! You could take whatever you want from the buffet and grab a nice seat in or outside. I chose to sit outside close to the stage, enjoying some pastries and fruit. Then I noticed Phil Schiller standing in the public and Greg “Joz” Joswiak casually entering Caffè Macs. Phil didn’t seem to attract too much attention, but a few people asked him to take a picture. He was wearing sunglasses but kindly put those off for every single photo. When I finished my breakfast, he was still there, so I might as well take the opportunity and ask him!

As the Keynote was still 45 minutes away, I decided to take my seat and talk to a few people around me. Time went by quickly just by watching what was happening around me and enjoying the warm-up music. Then, 5 minutes before showtime, Tim Cook appeared on the stage with a very familiar “Good morning, good morning!”. He briefly talked about the event, thanking people for being there and saying that there were people from almost 60 countries attending WWDC. After that, it was no surprise that he introduced the man with the most talked-about haircut of the Apple executive team: Craig Federighi! With lots of energy, he basically ran onto the stage, just like we know him. He called out how special and important WWDC is for Apple engineers, to come together as a community and that they were dedicating their work to creating the best platforms for users and developers.

The Keynote starts with a wonderful intro where Craig is in the fictional APXGP F1 car driving on top of Apple Park and Tim supporting him from the pit wall (his office). Very funny moments such as when Tim is coaching Craig saying he is “You’re losing time on turn 6” and Craig responds like “It’s kind of all turns, Tim” 😂. After the introduction, it’s just enjoying all the announcements, which I’m sure you’re fully aware of.

Once the Keynote came to an end, lunch was served and download stations in the inner ring opened to quickly fetch all the new beta seeds. As it was very busy everywhere, I basically waited a few moments and stood in a more quiet area which was close to a reserved space for the Swift Student Challenge winners. I then saw Tim Cook was paying them a visit and talking to the winners individually, and his PR team was taking pictures. I decided to wait a couple of moments and see if he would come out, say hello, and take a quick picture with him. And I did! He took a few minutes’ time for almost everyone waiting in the area, exchanged a few words, and took selfies. What did I say? Well, I said hello and congratulated him for his great work on the pitwall 🏎️ He was definitely very nice and patient with everyone, but eventually, his team said it was time to go.

I spent the early afternoon watching the Platforms State of the Union, where the Apple Design Award winners were called to the stage with their award and congratulated. Watching the Platforms State of the Union was perhaps more exciting for the audience and me as well, as this is intended for a deeper understanding of all the new (technical) stuff and to learn about new APIs. You could definitely hear the crowd getting very excited about announcements such as Xcode 26 enhancements with support for 3rd-party AI models and the new Foundation Models framework. As developers might have shifted to other developer tools such as VS Code, Cursor, etc., for AI integrations, I think Xcode will again be the one to beat for the best Apple developer experience. And Apple now allows you to directly tap into the secure and private on-device LLM with a very well-crafted API for type safety and guaranteed structured Swift output, including many options to define your prompt. Very cool and unlimited requests!

Now it was time to finally go to the download stations outside and grab that macOS 26 installer. Apple had some nice tables installed in the inner ring with sunshades and (more importantly!) Ethernet-to-USB with an almost 1 gigabit connection. I already prepared a dual-boot setup for my MacBook Air so I could basically upgrade the second OS to the new beta, get a taste of the new design, and check out how the Support App and App Catalog look after recompiling using Xcode 26. There will definitely be some work to do for the Support App as it’s inspired by Control Center and as you might know, this got a complete overhaul with a lot of glass! Even though it’s SwiftUI, there are many custom views as Apple hadn’t exposed the Control Center buttons for developers. On the other hand, App Catalog uses a lot of native SwiftUI components and aside from a few adjustments, the app should be in the right place pretty quickly.

After the break at the download station, I stopped by the “Privacy & Security” and “Business & Education” in-person labs and asked a couple of questions we had collected for our apps and future improvements while learning about some new available APIs. All my questions were answered by knowledgeable engineers, and even though not everything we wanted was possible (file feedback 🙂), overall the answers were pretty satisfying and definitely gave us inspiration to move forward. For developers, this is probably the most important moment of the day and one of the few chances to talk to Apple engineers in person.

At 4pm all the sessions and labs were ended, and the reception in the inner circle started. As I hadn’t done the guided tour around Apple Park, I saw one group walking towards the pond and joined them. But not before noticing the APXGP F1 car just standing there! It appeared to be the very last tour of the day, so I was glad to still have been able to hear some stories about Apple Park and see the pond. Very impressive as they’ve actually installed some system in there that, as you walk by, it sounds just like ocean noises. Very realistic, and I think you can’t tell the difference. Also, the guide was telling about the trees, automatic irrigation, and animals visiting the park regularly. Obviously, in the inner ring, they only observe birds and owls 🦉

When the tour ended, we got to take some pictures with the iconic rainbow. We had to do it quickly as Apple Security was already closing down some areas and they didn’t want any people wandering around the rainbow, pond, and other areas. The final activity of the day was the closing reception with lots of drinks, food, a DJ, and happy retail employees. Then quite randomly, they were handing out a new Finder pin, which was a very nice addition to the collection. I talked to a couple of Dutch people I met earlier when we were called by the retail employees as they wanted to do group photos and share the joy of the reception. Hard to pass and a very funny moment; they just kept being enthusiastic all day!

Apparently, at some point, there was an announcement that developers would receive an email at that very moment with the unique opportunity to see an early screen of F1 The Movie in the Steve Jobs Theater on Tuesday. I think I was walking around the pond at that moment, which means I was too late to register, and the event reached capacity. It also conflicted with The Talk Show Live hosted by John Gruber, so I wasn’t too disappointed.

It was time to leave Apple Park around 6:30 p.m. and go to the Visitor Center, get some exclusive merchandise, and process the day.

Apple Developer Center

Last full day in Cupertino! I had registered for “Developer activities” in the Apple Developer Center, which is across the street from Apple Park and the Visitor Center. Unclear what it would bring, no doubt I wanted to attend. The biggest room, the Big Sur Theater, unfortunately was full and I was registered for “Overflow seating” in the El Capitan room where the session was live streamed from the theater. The session was all about Liquid Glass, the new design, core principles, examples, how to implement with new APIs and new icons. I think in total 5 to 6 Apple engineers and designers got a part to present including live demos. They showed off how a couple of macOS app icons were designed with Liquid Glass using the new Icon Composer such as Photos and Garageband. The session lasted about 1,5 hours after which lunch was served and you could again mingle and chat with Apple engineers. They had badges with their area of expertise (mostly UI frameworks) so you could easily find the right person. I had one more SwiftUI-related question and asked Taylor Kelly (also featured in the Platforms State of the Union) but also spoke to members of the AppKit team which was pretty informative and fun.

Hacking with Swift @ CommunityKit

During WWDC, there are many other events hosted by community members around Cupertino and San Jose. Developers even come to the bay area for these events without getting in to Apple Park! One session which I wanted to attend was Hacking with Swift from Paul Hudson at the CommunityKit conference, a 30 minute walk from Apple Park. His website and courses Hacking with Swift are very popular, easy to understand and was a huge inspiration for me to learn Swift and SwiftUI. If you want to learn writing code for Apple platforms, I highly recommend watching his website and YouTube channel.

His session was about the new goodies for SwiftUI, such as WebKit support, Foundation Models Framework, and more. His ability to write code on the fly is just so impressive, and this was all about new APIs introduced just 24 hours earlier. As I had to go to The Talk Show Live in San Jose, I couldn’t stay until the end, which was unfortunate because I wanted to thank him in person for all his work. If you read this, thanks Paul! Perhaps until another time 🙂

Screening of F1 The Movie @ Steve Jobs Theater

Did I misspell the title? I was going to The Talk Show Live, right? That was initially the plan, but the idea of missing out on the Steve Jobs Theater and F1 The Movie became stronger with the second. So I thought, perhaps there was some overflow or standby line in front of the reception. There was, and I joined around 20-25 people already standing there. Apple employees weren’t making any promises, and it was unclear how long we would have to wait. At a certain point, I had to make the decision to either stay in the queue or leave and make it in time for The Talk Show Live. I took the risk, and as you might have guessed, I got in! Actually, all people (around 35, I think) were getting in, and they were all so excited 🤩 I got to see the Steve Jobs Theater and F1 The Movie! Truly magical to all of a sudden walk into this theater, which is both iconic and very, very beautiful. It kind of lays on a hill where you have an awesome view onto Apple Park. Before the movie, there was a Q&A with the producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, hosted by Eddy Cue. The movie was also very enjoyable (we were only allowed to talk about it since today after the world premiere), not just for race/F1 fans, and the audio in the theater was really phenomenal. Below are lots of photos because it was just so beautiful out there from many angles, especially at night!

That was an unbelievable ending to my trip to WWDC25! Hopefully you liked reading my story. If I ever get lucky enough to be invited again, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. Thanks, Apple, for this amazing event!

import WWDC25

print("Written by Jordy Witteman, proofread by Apple Intelligence")