Macoun Developers Conference

The Macoun Developers Conference (pronounced as “Ma-coon” [mə'kuːn]) is a conference held annually since 2007 in Frankfurt am Main by Macoun GbR. It is Europe's biggest conference focused on Apple systems and is held in German.

Macoun Developers Conference
FrequencyAnnual
VenueHaus der Jugend
Location(s)Frankfurt
FoundedOctober 25, 2007
Most recentOctober 4-6, 2019
Participants~450
Organized byMacoun GbR
Websitewww.macoun.de

While the event is organized by a single-purpose company, most of the work is done by a community on a pro-bono basis. Chris Hauser and Thomas Biedorf, founders of Macoun GbR, started the conference to allow European developers that cannot attend Apple's WWDC to have a “small WWDC”.

The number of attendees grew from initially 200 to around 450, with a maximum of 507 in 2016. The location, a youth hostel (“Haus der Jugend”), limits the number of attendees to 500. During the first ten years, 99 speakers have held more than 200 talks at Macoun.

The conference name “Macoun” is derived from the apple of the same name.[1][2] Having “#Macoun” as official hashtag has led to confusion for American fruit-lovers on social media.

Topics

The conference, dubbed by the press as “German alternative to WWDC”[3] is a communication platform for developers on the Apple platform.

The conference values the direct exchange between developers, talks featuring latest technical topics,[4][5] problems around software development,[6] best practices,[7] and topics around quality assurance.[8]

Besides talks in up to three concurrent sessions, Macoun has workshops, exhibitions (Digital Retro Park’s Apple exhibition being the most notable),[9] panels, and a experts group similar to WWDC labs (called Werkstatt).[10]

Speakers

The conference does not have paid speakers but nonetheless the list of speakers contains some widely known names such as Andy Abgottspon,[11][12][13] Chris Eidhof,[14] Max Seelemann (Winner of Apple Design Awards 2016), Ortwin Gentz (Where To?), Thomas Tempelmann (FCopy, Tempelmon, ...), Uli Kusterer (Uli's Moose) and others.

History
Timeline of events
Dates Attendees Focus List of Talks, Material
October 25, 2008[15] 206[16] The first Macoun conference focused on developer tools and technical topics. The then newly released iPhone SDK was of general interest.
September 26, 2009[17][18] 291 iPhone OS was still a major topic but the conference widened to more general topics such as UI testing, data serialization and aspectoriented programming.
October 2–3, 2010 302 In 2010 the wider range of topics continued and with 3D-printing, the first talk about building custom hardware was given.
October 1–2, 2011[19][20] 438 In 2011 “living as a developer” got some attention with talks about being/becoming an independent developer and about being an intern at Apple.
October 27–28, 2012[21] 467 Starting 2012, Macoun had its own conference App in the iTunes App Store.
October 5–6, 2013 454[22] In 2013 the topics continued to cover a wide range from low level talks (ARM-Assembler) to high level architecture talks. Talks related to hardware development had their time as well as a retrospective on a successful app development.
September 27–28, 2014 411[23][24] WWDC 2014's Swift release made Swift one of the most important topics at Macoun 2014.
October 24–25, 2015[25] 474 Swift still was a big topic in 2015 but developing for watchOS and tvOS also received much attention.[26]
October 1–2, 2016[27] 507[28] In 2016, Apple's release of HomeKit found its reflection at Macoun.
October 7–8, 2017 438[29] For the tenth anniversary, attendees could vote for several talks that did not get accepted in previous years. These talks made about one third of the program.
September 15–16, 2018 ~250[30] Due to several problems in the organisation of the event, Macoun 2018 had to be held mid September, resulting in a noticeable drop in the number of attendees.

The talks covered new developments in Apple's frameworks (ARKit2, CoreML/CreateML) as well as third party frameworks, a view onto coding history as well as legal advices (related to GDPR)
October 4–6, 2019[31] ~250 In 2019 the Macoun was a three-day event that started the day after German Unity Day.

The focus of the technical talks was on SwiftUI, Catalyst, and enhanced Apple frameworks such as CoreNFC.

Besides mainly technical topics, the 2019 had several talks on non technical topics such as marketing on a small budget. As a new block, there were longer sessions where speakers held workshops with limited seats.
September 26–27, 2020 (announced)[32] Canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic.[33]

See also

References
  1. "Von Äpfeln und auch von Kirschen", iX, 07. Oktober 2011
  2. "Macoun 2012: GIGA auf der Entwicklerkonferenz", GIGA TV, 26. Oktober 2012
  3. "Macoun 2015: Mac- und iOS-Entwickler auf der deutschen Alternative zur WWDC", Heise Newsticker, 27. Oktober 2015
  4. Apple-Entwickler: Konferenz Macoun 2014 lockt Hunderte Besucher, Heise, 29. September 2014
  5. "Gesten auf dem Desktop," Mac & i, 9. Oktober 2013
  6. "Threads und die Tücken," Mac & i, 29. September 2014
  7. "Handschrifterkennung leicht gemacht," Mac&i, 31. Oktober 2012
  8. "Syncen ohne iCloud," Mac & i, 31. Oktober 2012
  9. "Macoun 2014: iOS 8, Yosemite und Swift - Bericht von der wichtigsten deutschen Entwicklerkonferenz", Mac & i, 29. September 2014
  10. "Macoun 2012 - Bericht von der Mac- und iOS-Entwicklerkonferenz", Mac & i, 31. Oktober 2012
  11. Video: Visuelle Gestenerkennung @ Macoun 2011
  12. Video: Grundlagen der Spieleentwicklung @ Macoun 2012
  13. That was Macoun 2013
  14. Chris Eidhof, 2013 - A year in review
  15. ,c't 19/2008, S. 52
  16. "Macoun: Entwicklerkonferenz rund um Mac OS X und iPhone", Heise Developer, 26. August 2009
  17. "Macoun: Entwicklerkonferenz rund um Mac OS X und iPhone", Heise Developer, 26. August 2009
  18. c't 20/2009, S. 50
  19. "Deutsche Entwicklerkonferenz in Frankfurt", c't, 22. Juni 2011
  20. "Macoun 2011", Mac & i, 12. Oktober 2011
  21. "Macoun 2012" in Mac & i, Heft 8, S. 174
  22. "Macoun 2013", Mac & i, 9. Oktober 2013
  23. "Apple-Entwickler: Konferenz Macoun 2014 lockt Hunderte Besucher", Heise Newsticker, 29. September 2014
  24. "Macoun 2014: iOS 8, Yosemite und Swift", Mac & i, 29. September 2014
  25. "Macoun 2015: Mac- und iOS-Entwickler auf der deutschen Alternative zur WWDC", Heise Newsticker, 27. Oktober 2015
  26. "Macoun 2015: Apple, Apps und Swift", Mac&i, 26. Oktober 2015
  27. "Macoun 2016: Entwicklerkonferenz zu Cocoa, Swift und Co", Heise Mac & i, 5. Oktober 2016
  28. Keynote Macoun 2017
  29. Keynote Macoun 2017
  30. "Macoun 2018: Entwicklerkonferenz zu Cocoa und Swift". Mac&i. 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2018-09-20.
  31. "Macoun 2019: Von SwiftUI bis NFC". Mac&i. 2019-10-07. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  32. "Macoun 2019: Von SwiftUI bis NFC". Mac&i. 2019-10-07. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  33. @MacounFFM (12 April 2020). "Die #Macoun 2020 wird aufgrund der Corona Pandemie nicht stattfinden" [Due to Corona pandemic the Macoun 2020 will not happen.] (Tweet) (in German) – via Twitter.
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