The secret lives of Apple developers
Apple used its strongest Attenborough voice to poke a little fun at its 2018 WWDC attendees on Monday. The keynote’s opening video called back to last year’s mega-hit BBC documentary series Planet Earth II and provides the viewing public, for perhaps the first time, a look into the migratory and social habits of the elusive Developer tritorapsis. Nature is a cruel and unforgiving mistress, to be sure, but not nearly as cruel as Apple’s PR department is in this promotional video.
According to Apple, D. tritorapsis is a unique species of the Developer genus. They’re found on every continent worldwide, save for Antarctica, and exhibit a wide range of morphologies specifically adapted to their local programming environments. But no matter where they are found, each member of this species is imbued with a profound instinctive drive to make an annual pilgrimage to the San Jose Bay Area, on North America’s West Coast, in order to pay fealty to the organization which first bore them into existence, Apple Inc., as well as its deified leader, Tim Cook.
Though the video incorrectly references them living in caves (which hasn’t been the case since the genus Wozniaki began walking fully erect some 6.5 decades ago), Developers will actually emerge every 11.5 months from their apartments and shared co-working spaces like vitamin D-deprived, unwashed cicadas to make this trek.
D. tritorapsis are most vulnerable to predation when forced into the natural brightness of the Sun. Blinded by the light, developers become confused and aggressive in the immediate days after leaving the relative safety of their dens, per Apple, often demanding extra peanuts aboard their flights and shouting incoherent instructions about the “traffic shortcuts the guy last year used” to the symbiotic Uber drivers (Cabbiensis schlepper) which ferry them from the airport to the San Jose Convention Center. More than a few developers have bitten the hand that drives them over the years, ending up lost and abandoned in the dangerous wilds of Fremont instead of their intended destination.
But for those who can complete the initial foray into public are rewarded with opportunities to reestablish their ranks in the complex Apple developer hierarchy which impacts every social interaction for the next five days, from which breakout sessions one can attend to their place in line for complimentary snacks and soft drinks.
Under normal circumstances, the video suggests, Developers are relatively self-sufficient when it comes to feeding, their diets ranging from simple microwaved noodle cups to those more complicated microwaved udon bowls where you have to heat up the noodles and soup base separately. The species is primarily omnivorous, though individual populations run the gamut between fully herbivorial to essentially carnivorous, depending on the prevalence of processed meats in the immediate environment and personal preference.
However, as soon as the free snack tables at WWDC open for foraging, all bets and pretenses of societal niceties are off. Descending like a marauding swarm of army ants, even modest crowds of Developers can decimate an entire table’s worth of treats in mere minutes as you can see in the time lapse image above. Just as with watering holes on the African savannah, dangers are abound at the snack tables. And not just for those Developers with gluten sensitivities.
Developers take their lives into their own hands when attempting to grab the tastiest pre-processed confections in the chaotic feeding frenzy. The bellies of specimens caught after such carnage have revealed everything from paper coffee cups to unopened soda cans, buttons, and even wedding rings — with the fingers still attached.
Once satiated, the crowd will quickly regain its highly stratified social structure, with individual members relying an intricate signaling system of previous years’ merchandise, swag, and access passes to establish dominance over their peers. Much like lion prides, the video points out, younger and less experienced Developers will self-assemble into “bachelor groups” both for mutual protection from predatory Marketing Gurus (Salesforci bulshiter) as well as to gain the confidence to approach the highest echelons of Developer society, the rarely seen Silver-maned VP (Federighi craig).
And while these dominant specimens will often deign to impart a small amount of their influence on to these youngsters through ritual selfie taking, under no circumstances will they idly tolerate any physical contact with their prized hair, as you can see in the image above. Such an infraction will result in the offender immediately being ostracized from the larger Developer society and escorted off of the premises by Security (Blarticus paulie). So don’t be that guy, no matter how luscious the quaff.
But despite Apple’s sneering, dehumanizing depiction of them in the video above, D. tritorapsis remain the company’s most strident and ardent fan community, namely because, what else are they going to do, go make apps for Android? There isn’t enough microwaveable udon in the world.
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