First, let me admit that I may not be the right person to cover the trade show floor at Apple events. It becomes difficult to cover the news, when one so frequently is the news.
I am quite intimidating. The WWDC attendees both hate me and love me at the same time. For my coding skills are beyond reproach and I have the biceps of an Adonis, which are continually oiled by representatives of the University of California Santa Cruz women’s beach volleyball team. My intellect is cunning, my wardrobe impeccable. I cut a mighty swath through the Moscone Center, scattering spindly developers like so many high-trousered ten-pins. My bodyguard of nightmarish cyborg chimps does little to put those I would interview at ease. Several squealing coders must be violently dragged by the ankles back to me so I can ask them questions.
Questions that seem to demand answers.
Where were you the night Armin Djerjian was killed?
What have you done with the plans for the robot attack craft?
Where is the assassin code-named “Daedalus” who killed the Austrian Foreign Minister with a Batman Pez dispenser?
But, ultimately, these are questions that have no answers. Indeed, the point of these questions is simply to break the person being interviewed, to let them know that I can make them tell me anything. Anything.
Only then do we begin.
What do you think of Apple’s switch to Intel processors?
Do you already use Xcode or will you be switching?
What have you done with the plans for the robot attack craft?
I always come back to that one just to make sure they’re paying attention. Plus, the chimps love it for some reason. It makes them cackle maniacally.
So, while the sheer force of my personality hinders my skills as an interviewer, it is also what drives the interview forward. Relentlessly, like a vast continent propelled by tectonic forces beyond imagining, inexorably tearing up all in its path.
This week’s WWDC saw an announcement of tremendous magnitude for Apple. Many developers I spoke with were shaking like little bunnies, fearful of what the future will bring them. Let’s take a looks at some transcripts.
SAMSON: What’s your view about the level of reprogramming required to switch from the big-endian PowerPC to the little-endian X86?
NETNEWSWIRE DEVELOPER BRENT SIMMONS: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!! MY LIFE’S WORK, SHOT TO HELL!!! WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
SAMSON: Do you have any concerns about Apple dropping support for Classic on Intel-based Macs?
ROGUE AMOEBA DEVELOPER PAUL KAFASIS: Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know! I’m so confused! I don’t know who to trust anymore! H-hold me!
SAMSON: No.
Clearly Apple has developers on a roller-coaster of emotion and the ride is just ratcheting up the first incline.
I’m Thor Samson.