Speakers: Hand-picked to get the conversations started

Talks

A series of presentations about building great apps.

speaker portrait

Anil Dash

@anildash

Anil Dash is CEO of ThinkUp, a new app that provides deeper insights into our social network. He is also a writer and entrepreneur who focuses on how technology affects society. When not doing all of that, he's also an advisor to Medium.

speaker portrait

Horace Dediu

@hdediu

Horace blogs at Asymco, podcasts at The Critical Path and hosts The Airshow World Tour. Horace tells stories about the technology industry using Apple as a lens. He is the epitome of an Úll speaker.

speaker portrait

Jessie Char

@jessiechar

Jessie is a former cellist who left the glamorous classical music industry for the even more glamorous Mac development and design industry. She’s put in her time behind (genius) bars, had an infamous stint at Delicious Monster, a more regular stint at Mule Design, and co-founded the Pacific Helm design studio. She now works as an independent consultant, helping companies strategise and execute new projects.

speaker portrait

Des Traynor

@destraynor

Des Traynor is a true net visionary, who helps to empower thousands of software developers through his writing and stewardship of Intercom. He is a seasoned speaker on the topic of product design and regularly delights audiences around the world. He’s also Irish, and damn are we proud of him.

speaker portrait

James Thomson

@jamesthomson

James Thomson has been an indie Mac developer for over 20 years. He’s the developer for DragThing and PCalc for Mac, and more recently PCalc for iOS. James has seen his share of frivolous lawsuits and app rejections, and is the subject of at least one Steve Jobs story.

speaker portrait

Soroush Khanlou

@khanlou

Soroush Khanlou is the developer of the iOS app for Genius (formerly Rap Genius). He writes about programming on his blog. He first took the stage with us last year at our lightning talks session, and then took the main stage at Cocoa Love. We’re delighted to welcome him back as a speaker at Úll this year.

speaker portrait

Barry Scott

@bazscott

Barry builds mobile products. He built a Foursquare app for iPad, 5 years before Foursquare did! His game for the Transformers Dark of the Moon movie – TF3: Battle Zone was going to be called TF3: Urban Warfare but Steven Spielberg made him change the name, true story. He is currently making an iPad Point of Sale system at shopkeep.com. As a disabled person in tech and a team lead and manager, Barry brings a personal and professional perspective to the topic of ability and disability. Barry occasionally blogs at bazscott.com.

The Úll Show

An evening of interviews, music and entertainment, hosted by Jason Snell and Guy English.

speaker portrait

Jason Snell

@jsnell

Jason, former editor-in-chief of Macworld magazine, is now the proprietor of Six Colors, an Apple and tech-centric link and long-form blog. Jason also hosts and guests on an infinite amount of tech and pop-culture podcasts. The force is with this one.

speaker portrait

Guy English

@gte

Guy blogs at Kicking Bear, was co-host of the remarkable Çingleton Symposium, and writes Napkin. He is also host of the Debug podcast, providing in-depth, high-tech interviews with Apple community folk.

Special Features

Non-standard presentations that take you outside the box of the main conference centre.

speaker portrait

Jennifer Brook

@jenniferbrook

Jennifer is a researcher, interaction designer, and artist from Brooklyn, NY. Last year, she stunned us with her ‘Time Machine’ visual exercise, and we’re delighted that she’s joining us again this year. Jennifer has spent part of the past year traveling and collecting pigments from El Salvador, the Iberian Peninsula, and the American West.

speaker portrait

Georgia Dow

@georgia_dow

Georgia Dow is a licensed psychotherapist and motivational speaker. She’s also a senior editor at iMore, where she covers Apple and related products, and co-host of the Isometric, Review, and Vector podcasts, where she discusses how games, media, and technology intersect with the human experience. A 2-time Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion, she lives with her family in Montreal.

speaker portrait

Oisín Prendiville

@prendio2

Oisín Prendiville is one half of Supertop, the app design and development duo behind Castro, Unread and Tokens. Hailing from Ireland, we're delighted to be able to present one of our own. At last year’s Úll, Oisín’s impressive beard meant he was mistaken for Jim Dalrymple.

speaker portrait

Dave Wiskus

@dwiskus

Dave is the designer behind Vesper. He was co-host of Unprofessional, and more recently has been building an audience at Better Elevation, vlogging about software design and culture.

speaker portrait

Serenity Caldwell

@settern

Serenity is managing editor at iMore producing columns, videos, and ebooks, speaking at conferences, and, in every way imaginable, helping people all over the world get more out of their iPhones, iPads, and Macs. She comes from a family of musicians, studied theatre and film, and worked for Apple Retail. Before iMore, Serenity worked for four years at Macworld.

speaker portrait

Rene Ritchie

@reneritchie

Rene Ritchie is editor-in-chief of iMore, provides iPhone, iPad, and Mac news, reviews, features, and how-tos to over 10 million monthly readers. He's also co-host of the Debug, Iterate, Vector, and MacBreak Weekly podcasts, has authored several books, and appeared on numerous radio and TV broadcasts discussing Apple and the mobile industry.

Coffee Guest

speaker portrait

Juanmi Cuesta

@juanmicuesta

Juanmi runs training, events, and the online store for 3FE, probably the best coffee shop in the world. Last year, Juan served pourover to the delight of every early riser, and provided stories and facts and trivia for all those interested. We wouldn’t do without him again!

Cancellations

speaker portrait

John Gruber

@gruber

John suffered a detached retina and is unable to fly, so unfortunately he will not be able to join us this year.

speaker portrait

Lauren Goode

@laurengoode

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Lauren is unable to join us this year.

speaker portrait

Jim Dalrymple

@jdalrymple

For personal reasons, Jim has had to cancel his conference appearances for Spring 2015.

Stay up to date with new speaker announcements and ticket releases. Join our mailing list!