If you’re planning on attending this year’s Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC), make sure to snap all of your perfectly angled selfies before entering the building. According to the conference’s attendance policy, there will be no selfie sticks allowed on the premises.
To be clear, Apple bans attendees from all types of photography, audio, and audiovisual recordings. But the Cupertino company specifically targeted selfie sticks in its rules, which state, “you may not use selfie sticks or similar monopods within Moscone West or Yerba Buena Gardens.” It’s just the latest place to outlaw the devices.
The decision is likely to prevent anything meant to be kept under wraps from leaking out from within the walls of the conference before intended. (We all know how much Apple hates leaks, even if it has accidentally been guilty of outing its own products in the past.)
But maybe there’s more to it than that. Maybe Apple secretly thinks the selfie stick is the scourge of modern photography and it wants to do away with it forever. Maybe the company is going to use the WWDC stage to announce its own branded Apple Stick with an iPod Classic style scroll wheel that will retract and expand the device and will allow you to use your Apple Watch as a remote viewfinder so you know exactly what you’re looking at.
Or maybe Apple just doesn’t want people taking pictures at all. It also goes out of its way to prohibit wearable recording devices, so keep your Google Glass at home and unstrap the GoPro from your chest.
Of course, when the tables are turned the rules are entirely different. In a section of the attendance policy titled “Film and Video Consent,” it says that by simply attending the event, you consent to all photos and recordings taken by Apple or third parties working for Apple. “You agree that Apple may use such photographs, audio and/or video, including those that may contain your voice, image or likeness, for any purpose on a worldwide basis in perpetuity, without any compensation to you, and you release Apple from all liability related thereto,” it states. “You agree” is not a question, it’s a command.
For attendees of the event held on June 7, 2015 (registration starts April 17), here’s your loophole: Find a spot where you and your friends want to take a selfie, then pose motionless until an Apple employee strolls by to take a picture. You can find it on Apple’s site later.
H/T 9to5Mac | Photo via Elvert Barnes/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)