I probably saw only a handful of non smart phones and those with smart phones, probably 60%-70% were probably iPhones. I’m thinking I only saw one other person with a Motorola Droid. During lunch and during all the breaks, a good majority of people were on the phone checking back with the office or on their phone checking their twitter feeds, Facebook accounts, rss feeds, etc. These times have been traditionally to network with other people, pitch their company to new people.
I think the biggest change that I saw at this conference was the amount of laptops. It wasn’t too long ago that only a hand full of people had laptops because they were so expensive. I remember getting my first laptop… a Pentium 200 Mhz generic brand. It probably had 30-45 min of battery power. Even in the last few years, the advancement in laptops has change dramatically as well. People with laptops that were only bought a year or two ago were searching for plugs because their batteries couldn’t last that long. I even heard someone say, “Can I plug this in for a second while I swap out my battery?” Those with newer Macs or Netbooks were good for the conference.
As I mentioned before, I only saw a handful of people with iPads. I imagine, next f8 conference, there will be a whole lot more.