Some thoughts on the WWDC keynote
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jun 12, 2007 at 5:56am
My crystal ball was relatively accurate regarding Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote that launched the 2007 Worldwide Developer Conference. Of course, there were some surprises.
I said there would be no hardware announcements—no new iMacs, no MacBook Thin/MacBook Thin no new iPods. I nailed that one, though I would have loved to have been wrong.
However, I predicted that Apple would refresh its display line, adding iSights to the entire Cinema Display line. Didn’t happen.
I also predicted that Apple might release some sort of software development kit for the iPhone. I sorta got that one, though instead of a SDK, Apple says developers can use Safari.
As for Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) here what’s I predicted: “I think Apple will unveil new, major interface changes that take advantage of Core Animation, which allows programmers to give their applications flashy, animated interfaces. However, I don’t think that, as some pundits are forecasting, Apple will add the ability to run Windows and/or Windows apps directly in Leopard. My crystal ball says they’ll stick with Boot Camp for those who wish to run Windows.”
I was right on the virtualization/Boot Camp note. And Leopard is getting lots of new bells and whistles, but not the “major” interface change I’d forecast.
Of course, I didn’t see the [url=http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/wwdc_safari_coming_to_windows/]”Safari on Windows” announcement coming, though it makes sense. Like the iPod, iTunes and the Apple TV, this could be one of those things that could lead non-Mac users to our favorite computing platform.
Anyway, I’ll conclude with some tidbits from Jobs’ keynote that we didn’t mention yesterday:
° In Safari 3, tabs can be dragged around and even dropped into other Safari windows. You can download a beta of Safari 3 here.
° The Apple Developer Connection has 950,000 members, up 200,000 from last year.
° According to Jobs, 67 percent of the 22 million users of OS X are using Mac OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”).
° There are more than 3,000 Dashboard widgets.
° Leopard Mail will offer more ways to customize and add personal style to email than ever before, with more than 30 stationery designs and layouts
° Leopard iCal will introduce group calendaring features based on the open CalDAV standard.
j bush Says:
I think the Windows version of Safari portends bigger things than people expect. I think the coming collaboration between Google and Apple means that Google will now have a universal portal via Safari to the Windows world as well as the iPhone, Mac computers via Leopard, Apple TV and possibly a new iPod. Collaboration can be a great thing! Google might be able to capture the attention of enterprise users as well as knowledgeable Windows user who are looking to escape the Micro$oft hegemony. Google is about to go to the mattresses with Micro$oft and who better to ally with than Apple. (Side note: AT&T;and Intel will also be beneficiaries of this move.)
Posted on June 12, 2007
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
Doug Says:
Did you see the enhancement to BootCamp that will place an item under the Apple Menu to “reboot into Windows”? It says it will put the Mac side of things to sleep and boot windows. Conversely, in Windows, there will be a “boot into OSX” item in the Start Menu that will put Windows to sleep and “start/switch” to OSX. This sounds fairly close to a fast-user switching between the two OS’s that many were hoping for.
Posted on June 12, 2007