Predicting WWDC dates and the June 11 rumor
WWDC is widely rumored to be the week of June 11 this year, based solely on a “Corporate Meeting” entry on the Moscone Center calendar that has been there since last year’s WWDC.
I bet that’s wrong.
Granted, WWDC is usually labeled “Corporate Meeting” on the Moscone calendar a few months ahead of time. But this was booked almost a year ago, uncharacteristically far in advance. More importantly, have you checked hotel prices for that week? They’re insanely high, and are almost all sold out already. It looks more like something else is going on in town that week, and attendees for whatever is occupying the Moscone Center have already booked the hotels.
UPDATE: Thanks to Brian Stucki for telling me that the U.S. Open is that week, which filled up the hotels.
I’ve also seen a few people suggest that WWDC will be held in the fall, since that’s when the next iPhone will probably be released. That’s possible, although I don’t think it’s likely: Apple successfully severed WWDC from the new-iPhone launch in 2011, and I don’t see why it can’t continue to be a software-only event.
Moreover, looking at the Moscone calendar, availability in the fall is pretty tight. Here’s availability for Moscone West for every week from May through Thanksgiving, as of today:
- Week of 5/1: unavailable
- Week of 5/8: unavailable
- Week of 5/15: unavailable
- Week of 5/22: unavailable
- Week of 5/28: unavailable
- Week of 6/4: Moscone West available
- Week of 6/11: “Corporate Meeting” at Moscone West
- Week of 6/18: unavailable
- Week of 6/25: unavailable
- Week of 7/2: Moscone West available, but it’s a holiday week
- Week of 7/9: unavailable
- Week of 7/16: Moscone West available
- Week of 7/23: Moscone West available
- Week of 7/30: unavailable from Saturday, so unlikely
- Week of 8/6: unavailable
- Week of 8/13: unavailable
- Week of 8/20: Moscone West available
- Week of 8/27: unavailable
- Week of 9/3: Moscone West available
- Week of 9/10: unavailable
- Week of 9/17: unavailable
- Week of 9/24: Moscone West available
- Week of 10/1: unavailable
- Week of 10/8: unavailable
- Week of 10/15: unavailable
- Week of 10/22: unavailable
- Week of 10/29: unavailable
- Week of 11/5: unavailable
- Week of 11/12: unavailable
What if Apple finally convinced Moscone not to put a publicly visible entry on their calendar for the WWDC booking?1
Given the hotel issues and unusual advance booking for the week of June 11, I bet that’s not WWDC.
The more likely weeks are June 4, July 16, July 23, or August 20. But July and August are so far into the summer that they’re more likely to interfere with people’s vacations, both for attendees and Apple’s staff. June is a much better month for this.
So I’m guessing that WWDC 2012 will be the week of June 4. And I hope we don’t need to wait much longer to find out.
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A few people have also suggested that maybe Apple would move WWDC to a different venue. Apple’s stated reason for using Moscone West so much recently was because it was the biggest suitable venue in the area. I don’t know the region well enough to know if that has changed, but I’ll assume that WWDC will still be held at Moscone West this year.
It’s also possible that something else could be different this year. Maybe Apple booked the hotel rooms for us and is including them in the price (very unlikely). Maybe check-in won’t be on a Sunday with the sessions from Monday through Friday. Maybe there won’t even be a WWDC. But as fun as it is to wildly speculate on major changes, it’s usually a pretty safe bet that Apple will continue to conduct their events the way they’ve been conducting them. ↩︎