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WWDC Students + Keynote
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WWDC Students + Keynote

Anyone else slightly irked at students being banned from the Keynote this year? This will be my third consecutive year at WWDC. For the past two years, I've always lined up ridiculously early with my fellow attendees. This year, I was planning on lining up and sitting with two former students I've met in previous years. Unfortunately, their companies paid for them to come out as regular attendees. They're allowed into the Keynote -- I'm not.

I understand where Apple is coming from. Record numbers create huge logistical problems, vis-à-vie the "Campus" Bash being moved next door to Yerba Buena Gardens. Apple has always touted that students have the same privileges as their fellow attendees. In fact, students usually get the added bonus of Student Sunday -- but that didn't happen this year. Even though attendees pay upwards of $1600 for a ticket to WWDC, surely the large majority of attendees are being sent by their employers -- this isn't a personal cost to them. Although students get a "free" ticket to WWDC, they have the burden of paying thousands of dollars out of their own pocket for both travel and accommodation.

Although I'm extremely grateful to Apple for the opportunity to attend WWDC, I'm disappointed with the way students have been pushed aside this year. Apple could have communicated this decision to their future software developers earlier than the day before the Keynote. Apple's website still makes several references to the fact that students may "attend all sessions and special events during the week of WWDC." The website clearly defines the Keynote as a "special event." Apple employees at the Member Services desk couldn't even tell me how students were going to be handled tomorrow morning, when and where we would be queued, or even how many of us there are.

I still plan on waiting in line tomorrow morning with my fellow attendees beginning well before the sun rises. I just hope Apple comes to its senses in time and at least lets those of us waiting in line for countless hours into the Keynote. (That, or give all of us poor students a free iPhone ;)

Steve Kirkham
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