Apple Displays Its Networking Prowess at the 2011 WWDC
Posted by zduncan | Posted in Computer | Posted on 08-06-2011
Tags: Apple, iOS 5, Mac App Store, Mac OS X Lion, Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC, WWDC 2011, Xcode
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Apple just recently built a temporary network of WiFi hotspots in order to provide full wireless coverage for WWDC 2011 and all its 5,200 attendees, and after doing so, the company decided to set up a graphic visualization of the network itself.
Shown off in the Moscone West conference hall, Apple’s display of their WiFi statistics showed everything like available bandwidth statistics, a heat map of active hotspots, an animated depiction of network performance over time and even ongoing stats of all of the visible WiFi networks.
This presentation of displays highlights the efforts of Apple’s network engineers. These engineers have installed more than a thousand wired Ethernet jacks in the building for WWDC so that all the developers inĀ attendance were able to set up super fast connections suitable for downloading the 4GB new build of Mac OS X 10,7 Lion and new developer builds of iOS 5 and Xcode. Xcode is Apple’s integrated development environment for the company’s desktop and mobile platforms.
Unlike past WWDC events, Apple is exclusively distributing all of its new software builds to developers as digital downloads as opposed to an optical disk. This gives people a sneak peek at Apple’s announced plans to deliver Mac OS X Lion as well as Lion Server to customers as a digital download this fall exclusively via the Mac App Store.
Apple announced the Mac App Store last fall and jumped right into active production at the beginning of this year. Apple also noted that the Mac App Store has already become the number one source for Mac software and is largely making optical media a thing of the past in terms of distributing new programs.
WWDC is one of the biggest Apple events of the year and it shows, especially in terms of networking.
Source: Apple Insider – Apple shows off its networking savvy at WWDC