Photos from Live Near WWDC26

James Dempsey and the Breakpoints performed twice the week of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, 2026.

The first was on Wednesday at the Apple Developer Center, and marked the first time he’s performed at an official Apple event since his last show at WWDC in 2011. This was an intimate and acoustic performance for select Apple third-party developers, with only Breakpoint member Ron Napier on stage with James.

James and Ron performing at the Apple Developer Center with a photo of James from WWDC 2001 on the screen.

While I didn’t get a (golden) ticket to the main keynote on Monday, I did secure one to this event. I noticed that the presenters held clickers and were generally reading from large teleprompters behind me. They could have used my Action Phrase app to help advance their slides using just their voice!

The next day, James’ annual Live Near WWDC concert was held at the X-Bar in Cupertino. X-Bar was a new venue for the band; the previous two years, they performed at the Art Boutiki in downtown San Jose. Art Boutiki had to close down at the end of 2025, but there are rumors that they might be coming back later this year? X-Bar is located inside Homestead Bowl and the place was surprisingly (to me) packed on Thursday evening. A relative of mine bowled 300 twice over the past year. I can’t even break 100! Kudos to him!

A series of events forced me to do triple duty during the evening, handling the stream, camera switcher, and photography duties. It was a bit stressful, as I’ll explain in the next section. For 2027, we’ll make sure to have get some backup to assist with setup and running the show.

We had a slight technical mishap during the show where either the camera overheated or the battery ran out. Somewhat appropriately, it happened while the band was performing Goto Fail. Unfortunately, that camera was on program, so the live stream audience saw a black screen. It wasn’t a total loss, they could still hear the music since the audio stream was coming into the ATEM switcher via the mic input, not via an HDMI audio embed to that camera.

An actual shot of me working. Credit: Ed Arenberg

I was busy taking photos, and I only noticed the problem after the song ended. I looked at the live stream on my phone and reacted with horror at the black screen and the comments asking me to fix things. I confirmed it when I got back to the ATEM and MixEffect, which used its direct connection to the ATEM to provide me with a live multi view of the switcher. I changed to the alternate camera for the rest of the evening, since I didn’t have time to troubleshoot the camera. Next time, I’ll do a couple of things before the show:

Make sure all cameras are powered by external battery packs or use a DC coupler.
See if I can get Remote Webview working so I can see and control the switcher from the stage.
Have a backup camera operator to monitor the ATEM.

MixEffect in View Only Mode, so no one could interact with the interface unless they used FaceID to unlock it.

I’ve been helping out with the photography (and more recently the video) for James Dempsey and the Breakpoints for over a decade now. I don’t play a musical instrument, so I never considered myself a true Breakpoint. This year, however, James bequeathed upon me the title of Symbolic Breakpoint, which is so apropos for me. I humbly accept my new title!