Developers not at WWDC unhappy about exclusive beta
After WWDC '06, when Leopard was first introduced, developers were a little annoyed that Apple took around two months to ship out the beta copies they were promised. This time around, Apple seems to have changed their tune: they allowed developers at WWDC to walk away with a beta copy yesterday - but as Steve Jobs mentioned on stage yesterday, only developers who are in attendance at WWDC can get their hands on the hot new beta.
We're hearing from some developers who couldn't make the trek to San Francisco this week that this exclusivity is, understandably, a little upsetting. Besides the cool factor of getting your hands on something as soon as it's released, developers are in the unique position of needing time - in some cases, a lot of time - to get up to speed with all the changes in a new operating system and preparing their applications to run properly on it. With this exclusive beta being released to developers at WWDC now in June, but no release schedule for the rest of qualifying developers who are members of the Apple Developer Connection, some developers are understandably worried and slightly upset that they can't get in on the fun, but more importantly: they also have no idea as to when they'll get to join the party.
