Introduction

Hi! This is the iOS team at AnotherBall.

From June 7 to 9, 2026, one of our iOS engineers attended WWDC26 in person in the US, flying in from Tokyo. Below is their first-hand report!

About WWDC and the Special Event

WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) is Apple’s annual developer conference. If you’re in the Apple Developer Program, you can enter a lottery, and the developers who win are invited to the Special Event on site.

Every session is streamed online, but on site you can talk directly with Apple engineers at the In-person Labs and mingle with developers from around the world. That’s value you can’t get from the stream!

By the way, at AnotherBall, attending tech conferences counts as work, so I got to go to WWDC on company time. I’m grateful to work somewhere that supports these chances to learn.

Schedule

Here’s the list of events I attended. I’ll walk through the details along this timeline.

All times are Pacific.

Sun, June 7 (Day 0)

• 4:00 PM~ Welcome Reception @ Apple Infinite Loop Campus

Mon, June 8 (Day 1)

• 10:00–11:30 AM Keynote @ Apple Park
• 1:00–2:00 PM Platforms State of the Union @ Apple Park
• 2:15–4:00 PM In-person Labs @ Apple Park
  • 2:45–3:15 PM Design Lab
  • 3:15–3:30 PM App Review Lab

Tue, June 9 (Day 2)

• 10:00–11:30 AM Developer Session @ Steve Jobs Theater
• 11:30 AM–3:00 PM Mixer @ Apple Developer Center Cupertino
• 4:00–6:00 PM What’s new in iOS 27? by Paul Hudson @ Residence Inn by Marriott San Jose Cupertino
• 8:00–10:30 PM The Mandalorian and Grogu @ Steve Jobs Theater

Day 0 ── Welcome Reception

The day before the Keynote, there was a welcome event. The venue was Apple’s old headquarters, the Apple Infinite Loop Campus.

By the time I arrived around 3:30 PM there was already a long line, and the place was buzzing. It took about 30 minutes to get in.

What personally surprised me was the “hospitality” of the Apple staff. When I scanned my badge QR code at registration and walked in, they clapped loudly, gave high-fives, and cheerfully shouted “Welcome.” In an instant I fell in love with this place. On the way out it was the same. As you can see in the video below, they gave me a grand send-off 😂.

At the Reception, Apple served food and drinks in the courtyard, and I could sit on a bench and chat with other developers at a relaxed pace. The grass felt way too good…

What stuck with me most was a conversation with one of the Swift Student Challenge winners. He’d built a video app that always records in the right orientation, even when you switch between the front and back camera on a walk or rotate the phone. He solved an everyday problem beautifully with an app — a lovely example.

There was also a world map of where attendees came from, with everyone pinning their hometown. As you’d expect, people came from all over the world. California is multicultural to begin with, with people of every background, so even visiting as a foreigner I never felt out of place.

Day 1 ── Keynote and Platforms State of the Union

Finally, Keynote day! And my first visit to Apple Park. This was the day I was most excited about.

Apple Park

I arrived at the Apple Park Visitor Center around 8:30 AM, finished registration, and entered Apple Park.

My first impression: “This is huge!” The four-story ring-shaped campus building was bigger than I imagined, and the curves were beautiful.

A short walk later, the Keynote venue came into view!

The outdoor stage felt very open, and the impression was completely different from the conference-room presentations I’m used to. It was refreshing.

Breakfast was served at Caffè Macs (the staff cafeteria), and it was delicious.

I heard Caffè Macs serves over 12,000 meals a day to employees from around the world, which gives you a direct sense of the scale.

Keynote

Before the 10:00 AM live stream, Craig Federighi and Tim Cook came out and got the crowd going. For Tim Cook in particular, this being his last WWDC before stepping down as CEO, there was huge applause and cheering.

After Tim Cook’s greeting, the video began and the whole venue watched it live.

This year’s updates focused on AI integration, and the ties with the iOS ecosystem felt stronger. Honestly, though, the reaction in the venue wasn’t great. In my opinion, it mostly brings things other AIs can already do into iOS. A solid, evolutionary step, you could say.

Lunch Break and App Icons

After breakfast, lunch was provided for free too.

After eating, I sat down in the grass area I couldn’t get to during the Keynote. When I glanced up at the screen, panels of all kinds of app icons were showing.

The icons flipped one by one, and the overall color gradually shifted to the next theme color.

Could it be… is Avvy’s icon in there? I watched closely for the moment it turned orange…

And there it was — the “Avvy” app icon appeared!

I jumped out of my chair to take a selfie at that moment 😂

This was the exact moment Avvy was seen by people around the world. I felt that Apple really recognizes each and every participant as a contributor, and I came to like Apple even more ❤️

Platforms State of the Union

The afternoon session on Day 1 was developer-facing, walking through the new features and APIs in concrete detail.

App Intents, Core AI, Swift / SwiftUI improvements, the AI-agent-driven Xcode 27 — they’ve all evolved. I especially like that Xcode 27 supports AI agents. Being able to finish work entirely inside Xcode is a huge help. I tried the beta, and with no more switching between Xcode and the CLI, the context-switching cost dropped a lot!

In-person Labs (Design Lab / App Review Lab)

In this session, Apple engineers are split up by topic, and for two hours you can ask anyone whatever you like. Personally, this lab is the highlight of WWDC. There’s nowhere else you get to talk directly with engineers you’d otherwise never connect with.

Of the various labs, the Design Lab and App Review Lab require advance booking. I managed to get reservations, so I headed over when the time came.

At the Design Lab, I had a 30-minute 1-on-1 with an Apple designer and got to talk through a specific new feature — a really valuable time. Rather than handing me advice on how to build the feature, they thought it through with me from a user-story angle: who feels the value, how to present it to the target users, and so on.

As an engineer, I tend to focus on how to build something, but I was reminded that I need to think clearly about the “Why” first.

At the App Review Lab, I asked about TestFlight External Testing and how to manage TestFlight apps, and with other Apple engineers I talked through Xcode Previews issues and Foundation Models. The Apple engineers were all easygoing and high on hospitality, which left a strong impression.

Reception in the Inner Ring

After the sessions, the grass inside Apple Park opened up, and I got to take photos with the famous Rainbow Stage.

The grass area was so wide that I lay flat on it once and felt the sheer power of that vast ground. It felt great (lol).

Day 2 ── Developer Sessions & Mingling

Day 2 had sessions even more focused on developers. You can watch the announcements live at Steve Jobs Theater, but I overslept a bit and arrived at 9:30, by which point the seats were already full, so I was guided to the theater room at the neighboring Apple Developer Center.

Developer Session @ Steve Jobs Theater

I watched the 1.5-hour live session. Here, Apple engineers presented the new features of iOS 27 in a relay format. Seeing the actual coding made the implementation much easier to picture than on Day 1.

Mixer @ Apple Developer Center Cupertino

From 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM, the Apple Developer Center was opened to WWDC attendees for free mingling. Over good food from the food trucks, I talked with developers from China and Colorado. The chances to connect never stopped coming.

There was also the Swift Group Lab watch party, the Tools Lounge, and the Reality Composer Lounge, where I could freely watch Apple engineers present on individual topics.

What’s new in iOS 27? by Paul Hudson @ Residence Inn by Marriott San Jose Cupertino

A little after 3:00 PM, I joined a community event held at a nearby hotel. This time the speaker was Paul Hudson (@twostraws) of Hacking with Swift, who live-coded the features added in Xcode 27. The fact that he’d tried all of them overnight is just incredible…

This event was actually part of one run by a group called CommunityKit, which apparently ran from June 7 to 12. A whole week of events for iOS developers is a scale unthinkable in Japan.

The Mandalorian and Grogu Screening @ Steve Jobs Theater

The night of Day 2, capping off the final event, was a movie screening at what may be one of the best theaters in the world. I finally got into the long-awaited Steve Jobs Theater that I couldn’t enter that morning!

The building was simply beautiful — stunning. I took a photo with the WWDC26 symbol here and, reluctantly, left Apple Park behind.

Closing

As someone who loves Apple, getting to visit Apple Park through WWDC26 was a real honor, and it felt like a long-held dream coming true.

Everything announced on site can be caught up on in real time through the videos. But the atmosphere, the excitement, and the kindness of the Apple staff are things I don’t think I’d have understood without being there. Talking with developers from around the world broadened my view, of course, and feeling firsthand that everyone is solving some interesting problem pushed my motivation higher than ever before!

To close, one last takeaway. On Day 2’s Developer Session, one of the presenters was an engineer I’d actually talked to the day before. The moment they stepped on stage, I felt, “They aren’t some untouchable, larger-than-life people. They’re the same individual engineers as me.” That was the moment I felt closer to Apple and came to like it even more.

We’re Hiring

AnotherBall is looking for engineers who want to take on the latest Apple technologies. We’re searching for teammates to build our product standing shoulder to shoulder with developers from around the world.

If this sounds interesting, let’s have a chat!

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