Main image of article Survey: Which Tech Events Excite You Most in 2019?

It’s Spring, which means endless tech events! Every large tech company (Apple, Google, and Microsoft, most notably) has one. Which are you most excited for?

This week, both Google I/O and Microsoft Build are kicking off. Microsoft began its celebration a bit early; last week, it announced the developer edition of HoloLens 2 was ready for pre-orders, and launched a machine-learning framework that seems geared more toward citizen coders than developers and engineers. Build will likely bring improvements to Visual Studio, and Microsoft will likely push the boundaries of VS as an IDE for a wider variety of languages.

Google loves machine learning, too... and I/O is (again) in direct competition with Build. Our ‘what to expect’ breakdown suggests there’s not a lot Google has planned for its multi-day event. We expect some machine learning, and the Stadia streaming-game platform looms large. There’s the Pixel 3a and Nest Home Max hardware most expect to show up, but there’s not a ton of intrigue. We’re hoping for a surprise announcement, but we’re not holding our breath.

Apple’s annual WWDC conference is next month, and casts a large shadow. We’re expecting a lot of news on augmented reality (AR), and the company's cross-platform app scheme is highly interesting to developers; how and where Apple draws the line with AppKit and UIKit is the proverbial line in the sand we’re waiting for. We're also expecting iOS and macOS updates, and let’s just go ahead and assume everything is going to be a subscription service from now on because why not, right?

There are also a ton of other tech events this year. E3 is the week after WWDC. Red Hat Summit takes place in Boston the week of Build and Google I/O. Agile + DevOps West is in Las Vegas during WWDC week. TechMeme has a list of all tech events through the year, and it's exhaustive. Some are niche, and likely not well-subscribed, but there are some under-the-radar events for specific audiences that actually get a bit of play. GitHub Satellite and Universe come to mind (but are oddly missing from the TechMeme calendar).

But we want to know which you’re excited about. This isn’t about your actual attendance, necessarily – it’s about your work. Do Microsoft’s various tweaks and launches drive your products and services, or are you all-in on TensorFlow? Will Apple’s cross-platform apps open up a new avenue for you and your company? Does augmented reality rule your roost? Whatever your answer, it probably colors how you feel about these various events throughout the year.

Let us know in the survey above. All answers are completely anonymous, and we’ll be publishing our results next week!