Why doesn't Apple send their software developers to Scientific Conferences?
By grandinetti at Fri, Aug 3 2007 6:21pm |
I remember one day, when I was a post-doc in Berkeley, that a representative from NeXT came to the chemistry department and not only gave us a demonstration of NeXT OS, but showed us the developer environment and gave us some ideas of the possibilities.
It's a shame that Apple doesn't show up at scientific conferences and do the same. I'm really impressed with Core Data, and think it could have a big impact on the scientific community, if they only knew about it.
Re: Why doesn't Apple send their software developers...
Apple certainly has a presence at a number of conference. Typically that presence is more in terms of marketing and sales than with regards to sending internal Apple developers. As an example, Apple (and MacResearch.org) will be at the American Chemical Society meeting later this month (Aug 20-22). If you, or any other MacResearcher, will be at the conference I'd encourage you to stop by their vendor booth.
I'll be there (and Geoff Hutchison will probably be there, at least as an attendee) and would like very much to talk to any scientists who are using Mac's in their research, visit the site, or want to simply know more about using Mac's in science. Also, a number of scientists at Apple, who work as part of the marketing team (Pro and Higher Ed) will be at the booth. So it's a great opportunity to meet with them, share your thoughts, requests and concerns.
In general I'd say that Apple takes science very seriously (even if Steve Jobs is focused on revolutionizing the world via the iPhone). This can appear to be lost in much of the current marketing (Science isn't always as sexy as iPods and digital entertainment). But the people who work in those markets take their jobs very seriously and would welcome the opportunity to relay information back to internal developers.
Killer app
The users will follow the applications.
If Apple really wanted to make a splash in the scientific communities, they are going to have to find those rare groups that successfully collaborate with computer science departments in developing code for new and novel applications. Typically most scientists in the bioscience or physical sciences do not have enough resources or computational savvy to appreciate what environments like Core Data can do for them. And even if they did, implementing those resources would be the next step.
We've been fortunate over the last year and a half to be able to have good scientific problems in terms of data management and computational image based analysis and processing combined with an incredibly productive relationship with one of the most accomplished computer science departments in the nation. In a relatively short period of time, we've been able to build code that not only solves particularly difficult problems, but it is also generalizable to a number of different communities. It would not take much for Apple to find projects such as this at a number of institutions and help foster a growing base of scientific software and get advocates for Apple in at a number of influential scientific meetings such as the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience.
Apple doesn't publish at conferences
IBM developers attend scientific conferences to present papers. As a side effect you get to rub elbows with them. If Apple published more they also would have more exposure.
Good question! Apple, why dont you?
I have been in Berlin at the German Neurologist Conference (DGN). People, mainly medicals, go there. They would love to use apple hard/software, i guess. Further, they (medicals, engineers, etc.) are busy constructing Brain-Computer Interfaces. I wonder if Apple is going to control future computers with brain waves... It is not toooo far in the future...
Best, Michael