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The Top Conferences for Mac and iOS Professionals in 2019

There’s no shortage of Apple-focused conferences for professionals to gather with their peers. We have once again collected details—or at least dates—for all the Apple-related conferences we can find; if we’ve missed any, let us know in the comments so we can add them. We’ve sorted them by date so you can scroll through and see which might fit into your schedule.

In terms of our attendance, Adam Engst will be at the ACEs Conference in May and is likely to go to MacTech Conference in October. If regular TidBITS contributors are asked to speak at any other conferences, we’ll be sure to mention that in a future article.

MacTech Pro: February–September 2019

A regional event series from the folks behind MacTech Conference, MacTech Pro is designed for professional Apple techs and consultants. Events are single-track, hotel-based seminars, and the all-day schedule includes lunch. The MacTech Pro events take place in 10 cities throughout the United States:

  • February 13 in Los Angeles
  • March 13 in Seattle
  • April 3 in Boston
  • April 24 in Denver
  • May 22 in San Francisco
  • June 26 in Washington, DC
  • July 17 in Chicago
  • July 31 in Atlanta
  • August 28 in Houston
  • September 18 in New York

Appdevcon: March 12–15, 2019

Formerly known as Mdevcon, Appdevcon is held in Amsterdam for mobile app developers, with sessions for both iOS and Android developers.

iOSCon: March 21–22, 2019

Returning for its sixth year, iOSCon takes place at the CodeNode venue in London for two days. The program features a number of sessions on building apps with Swift.

try! Swift Tokyo: March 21–23, 2019

try! Swift is an international community gathering in Tokyo to learn about the latest advances in Apple’s Swift programming language.

Mac Admin & Developer Conference UK: March 26–27, 2019

The Mac Admin & Developer Conference is, as they say in the UK, just what it says on the tin. Now in its third year, the two-day conference offers sessions on the Terminal, automation, security, device management, and other topics of interest to Mac IT professionals. It’s held near Borough Market in London.

NSNorth: April 26–28, 2019

The Canadian conference NSNorth is returning after a three-year hiatus. Held in the St. James Theater in Old Montreal, the conference offers a broad range of topics of interest to developers and designers.

App Builders Switzerland: April 29–30, 2019

Another conference for mobile app developers, App Builders Switzerland will take place in Lugano. It offers two tracks: one for iOS developers and another for Android developers.

Xojo Developer Conference: May 1–3, 2019

The Xojo Developer Conference will take place at the Marriott Biscayne Bay in sunny Miami. Originally called REALbasic, Xojo is an object-oriented cross-platform development tool that can create native macOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi, and Web apps. Look forward to 30+ educational sessions, networking, and two evening social events.

Command-iT: May 15–16, 2019

If you work in Apple IT and speak French, check out the two-day Command-iT event at the Grand Rex movie theater in Paris, France. The first day provides eight sessions with dedicated French speakers about the challenges, hurdles, and guilty pleasures of Apple product administration, security, and deployment. On the second day, four workshops give attendees the opportunity to put the lessons learned the previous day into practice.

LiveCode Conference: May 20–22, 2019

As a TidBITS reader put it, the LiveCode development environment is the spiritual successor to all things HyperCard, and it can create apps that run under macOS and iOS, not to mention Windows, Android, Linux, and HTML5. The LiveCode Conference takes place in San Jose shortly before WWDC.

UIKonf: May 26–29, 2019

Billed as “Berlin’s independent conference for serious iOS developers,” UIKonf focuses on cutting-edge topics in iOS development, mobile design, and business.

ACEs Conference: June 4–6, 2019

Organized by Apple consultant Justin Esgar, the ACEs Conference moves to Kansas City, Missouri for its fifth year and promises to be “the place for inspiration, ideas, business networking, and instantly applicable knowledge.” Focusing on ways that Apple consultants can grow their IT businesses, past topics have included the pros and cons of managed services, content marketing (from Adam Engst), and business productivity (by Jeff Porten). TidBITS readers can save 10% on tickets.

WWDC: June 3–7, 2019

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference will once again take place at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose from June 3rd through 7th. Tickets, which cost $1599, are once again being distributed by lottery to registered developers who wish to attend. Apple also offers student scholarships that including lodging.

AltConf: June 3–6, 2019

AltConf is a free, community-driven event that takes place at the San Jose Marriott alongside WWDC, offering additional talks and events for those who weren’t lucky enough to get into WWDC or who want a break from Apple’s Reality Distortion Field. Tickets are free, but donating $360 guarantees a seat if the space fills up. New this year is a keynote-themed escape room.

If you can’t make it to San Jose, there are now four one-day AltConf events across Europe, all on 3 June 2019. Viewing the keynote is free, but admission to the rest of the sessions costs £60 or €60, which includes lunch.

Layers: June 3–5, 2019

A conference for designers, Layers is “about design, technology, and all the tasks that lie between.” This three-day conference takes place at the Montgomery Theater, across from WWDC. The conference pass costs $850, though you can take $150 off with the coupon code REPRESENT if you “identify with a group that is underrepresented in this community.” Speakers include Khan Academy Principal Designer Raphael Arar, Lyft Product Designer Linzi Berry, and Sketch founder Pieter Omvlee.

try! Swift San Jose: June 7, 2018

Yet another event that’s taking place in parallel with WWDC, try! Swift San Jose offers free presentations from Swift open-source contributors at the Hilton attached to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. It’s free, but if you donate any amount you’re guaranteed entry.

MacDeployment: June 10–11, 2019

The biennial MacDeployment conference returns this year at the University of Calgary. This year’s focus will be on Mobile Device Management and how to deploy Macs equipped with the T2 chip. The registration fee for the two-day conference is $299, and lunch, coffee, and snacks are included both days.

MacDevOps:YVR: June 12–14, 2019

MacDevOps:YVR is held in Vancouver, Canada on the campus of Simon Fraser University. If you code as part of managing Apple devices, check out this conference. Tickets provide over 20 educational sessions; 10 hours of networking; an evening reception; and breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

MacAdmins: July 9–12, 2019

Hosted at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center in State College, PA, the MacAdmins conference is “for anyone who deploys and manages Macs and iOS devices.” Registration will include workshops, breakout sessions, and networking events when it opens in March.

Macstock Conference & Expo: July 27–28, 2019

Macstock is returning for its fifth year in Woodstock, IL, providing one of the few conferences focused on productivity for end users. Past speakers have included Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus, videographer Wally Cherwinski, and podcaster Allison Sheridan.

FileMaker Developer Conference: August 5–8, 2019

This one’s pretty specific, but since the FileMaker Developer Conference is open to the public and FileMaker is an Apple subsidiary, we’re including it. It takes place at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida and provides more than 80 sessions aimed at helping you create FileMaker apps for mobile, cloud, and on-premise environments.

iOSDevCamp DC: August 9, 2019

iOSDevCamp DC is a one-day, one-track conference focused on iPhone and iPad development in McLean, Virginia.

360|iDev: August 25–28, 2019

Claiming to be “the leading indie iOS/Mac (and watchOS, and tvOS) developer conference,” 360|iDev happens at the Grand Hyatt Denver in Denver. It provides four days of hands-on training, sessions, and community networking, all in Swift.

iOSDevUK: September 2–5, 2019

Focused on iOS development topics, the ninth installment of iOSDevUK takes place in Aberystwyth, UK. Tickets will go on sale in March.

try! Swift New York: September 2019

try! Swift is an international community gathering in New York to learn about the latest advances in Apple’s Swift programming language. Past speakers have included Ash Furrow of Artsy, Erica Correa of XO Group Inc, and Sebastiaan de With, formerly of Apple.

Digital Book World: September 10–12, 2019

Digital Book World takes place at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Sessions cover all aspects of the publishing industry, but often with a special focus on Apple and Apple Books.

MacSysAdmin: October 1–4, 2018

The premier event for Mac and iOS system administrators in Europe, MacSysAdmin takes place in Göteborg, Sweden. Talks are aimed at system administrators in enterprises, schools, and institutions, along with technical consultants, consulting firms, and distributors. All sessions are held in English. Speakers include numerous well-known names in the Apple sysadmin world.

Macoun: October 4–6, 2019

For German-speaking Apple developers, the 12th annual Macoun conference in Frankfurt, Germany is worth checking out. Up to 500 attendees will spend three days focused on all things iOS, macOS, and watchOS.

MacTech Conference: October 16–18, 2019

Moving from November to October, the Los Angeles-based MacTech Conference offers attendees three days of sessions, seminars, and vendor interaction, plus pre-conference workshops and a pair of superlative evening activities. We’ve attended many times (see “MacTech Conference 2012 Opens Mental Doors,” 22 October 2012, “MacTech Conference 2013 Abounds with Networking and Fun,” 11 November 2013, and “Three Highlights from MacTech Conference 2015,” 9 November 2015) and recommend it highly to Apple IT professionals.

Jamf Nation User Conference: November 12–14, 2019

Much of being an Apple IT administrator these days involves device management. Jamf, one of the leading suppliers of device management systems with Jamf Pro and Jamf Now, puts on the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC) with the purpose of “empowering people, transforming business processes and making IT life easier.”

Held in downtown Minneapolis, the JNUC provides product demo and preview sessions, in-depth tech sessions, sessions dedicated to Apple services, and certification courses. We wrote about it the last few years in “JNUC 2018: How Organizations Use Apple Devices as Tools of Change” (9 November 2018) and “JNUC 2017: A Glimpse into the World of Apple Enterprise” (3 November 2017).

heise MacDev: December 3–5, 2019

In another opportunity for German-speaking Apple developers, heise MacDev is a new conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, aimed at covering all aspects of software development for Apple devices, including the Mac, iPhone, iPad, as well as Apple Watch and Apple TV.

No Details Available Yet

There are quite a few conferences that haven’t explicitly canceled or announced details for 2019 so far. We’ll update this article as we learn more.

  • /dev/world
  • CMD-D
  • CreateWorld
  • iOSDevCamp Colorado
  • MacTrack Legal
  • Swift By Northwest
  • Úll
  • X World

If we’ve missed any notable Apple-focused conferences that are open to the public and attract attendees from a broad geographic area, please let us know in the comments, and we’ll look into adding them.

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Comments About The Top Conferences for Mac and iOS Professionals in 2019

Notable Replies

  1. I don’t know if Úll (the Irish for Apple) has decided their dates but it’s a great conference - ‘A conference that sits where the humanities and the sciences intersect.’

    www.ull.ie

  2. Úll was funny in 2018—we never heard from them, they (apparently, now that I look) opened tickets for only a single week in August, and then the conference took place in late November, with nothing that I saw on the Internet about it at all.

    Hopefully they’ll post dates a bit sooner this year.

  3. Absolutely! It’s on the list now.

  4. I know that Dermot, the most public face of the conference, left in 2017, the last time I went was 2016. It was pretty interesting, lots of good speakers and chances to chat to bods you wouldn’t normally get to meet. Had a great chat with Horace Dediu about design and Apple for example and finally got to meet some people I only know from Twitter exchanges.

  5. LiveCode (aka the spiritual successor to all things xCard: HyperCard, SuperCard, MetaCard …), and compiles for every platform under the sun, is coming May 20-22 this year to San Jose!

    https://livecode.com/california19/

  6. Thanks! I’ve added it and bumped the conference list to the top of our home page.

  7. Thanks.

    mobile

  8. Hi Adam, great stuff and thanks for the collection. May I add the two events in Germany?

    1. Macoun 2019: October 4-6, 2019
      In 2019 the macOS and iOS developer conference “Macoun” will take place again in Frankfurt am Main for the twelfth time. This year again up to 500 participants are expected and for three days everything will revolve around programming Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.
    2. heise MacDev 2019: December 3 to 5, 2019
      The heise MacDev is a new developer conference and it takes place in Karlsruhe and deals with all aspects of software development for Apple devices.

    Cheers!

  9. Thanks, Frank (and nice to hear from you again—we had a nice time hanging out with you and learning about Merlin and serious project management at MacTech some years back).

    @jcenters, can you draft these up in the Google Doc?

  10. Just letting you know that the MacDeployment Conference is back this year (it is scheduled to run biennially). It’s been on the list before (thanks!). Basic Details:

    June 10-11, 2019
    University of Calgary campus (Calgary, Canada)
    Regionally-aimed conference directed at Mac admins
    Single-track
    The focus this year is on MDM and working with new installation-based deployment workflows
    macdeployment.ca

  11. Thanks! @jcenters, can you draft this up in the Google Doc so we can update the article?

  12. We’ve now added Layers, try! Swift San Jose, MacDeployment, iOSDevCamp DC, and MacSysAdmin.

  13. I am coming back to the old topic.

    Now that the pandemic has left us alone for a while, we could consider rebuilding the list for 2023. For the German events I can help.

  14. Oh wow, yeah, I hadn’t thought about conferences in years.

    I wonder if there’s a better way to do it than an article—perhaps a wiki page here in Discourse where people can add and edit entries easily. Stay tuned…

  15. OK, @fblome, take a look at the wiki page I created to hold conference listings. I started populating it from the 2019 conferences that are continuing, and will finish that up when I get time. But anything else you or others can add would be welcome!

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