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Leopard Details, WWDC Summary, Boredom, and Disappointment
Posted 06/11/2007 at 10:31:39pm | by
Rik Myslewski
If you believe that today's WWDC Keynote presentation was a barn-burner, I've got a bridge I want to sell you.
It was a quiet morning in San Francisco, my home town.
Steve Jobs's keynote presentation at today's Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference provided precious little additional information about the upcoming Mac OS 10.5 (aka Leopard), introduced no new Mac or iPod hardware, extended fast-but-finicky Safari to Windows users, and walled third-party iPhone software developers off into a Safari-bounded Web-app sandbox.
Sometimes even the much vaunted reality-distortion field could use an infusion of fresh dilithium crystals; today was one of those days. Still and all, however, the future looks bright - albeit evolutionary, not revolutionary.
But before I explain what today's announcements might mean to you and your Mac life, allow me to freely admit that I'm jaded. If I had a buck for every keynote I've attended since 1984, I could afford a down payment on an iPhone. Exhibit A: The notebook in which I scribbled my notes during today's event bears the logo of WWDC 1991. You'll have to forgive me if offering Safari to Windows users didn't inspire me leap to my seat and shout "Hurrah!"
But forgive me my Marvin the robot whining - let's talk Apple...
First, the Good Gaming News ... Maybe
Like the cicada, reports that Apple is about to make a major advance in the gaming arena emerge on a regular basis. Also like that unfortunate Auchenorrhyncha, such news makes a bit of noise, then disappears yet again.
This time it might be different.
No lesser lights than Bing Gordon, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts, and the legendary John Carmack, Owner and Chief Technology Officer of id Software, had their individual moments in the spotlight on the Moscone Center stage today.
Gordon admitted that the current Mac-games landscape is more than a bit bleak, but that EA was going to help "rectify the situation." In support of that effort, he enumerated four EA games that will soon be available for the Mac: Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In August, Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 will be added to that list.
Carmack demoed his company's seriously impressive id Tech 5 technology, which gives games artists unprecendented control over 3D environments without mucking up the game structures painstakingly assembled by the game's engineers. What's more, it frees environment designers from the pesky texture-memory limitations that have in the past caused many games to look far less than realistic. This id Tech 5 technology will be fully Mac-native. Carmack also said that we should expect announcements from id at QuakeCom and the upcoming E3 Summit in July.
Unfortunately, neither Gordon not Carmack spoke about whether the benefits of their new games and new technologies would be available for pre-Intel Macs. Transgaming Technologie's website claims that its Cider technology is what's enabling EA to bring the games Gordon mentioned to the Mac, but the same site also explains Cider as a "an interpreter between the game's original code and the Intel Mac." Our prediction is that pre-Intel Macs will be S.O.L. in the brave new world of Mac gaming. We hope we're wrong.
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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 04:32
You don't mention the "Back to the Mac" feature that is part of .Mac - I understand some sort of DynDNS through .Mac? Genuinely useful and will finally give .Mac some real added valu. By the way, the Leopard pages on the new Apple site refer to .Mac but don't let you click through yet - work in progress apparently!
Submitted by Ken (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 05:11
I was disappointed at first, but then I realized that Apple, though a large company, is hardly a behemoth. They are getting ready for a monumental iPhone launch in three weeks, so there aren't many corporate resources left for other stuff. Anyway, anything they introduce now would be completely overshadowed by the iPhone.
And that brings me to another thought. Steve Jobs said there would be a lot of product announcements in 2007, but f I were him (which I am not) I wouldn't shoot all my ammunition at once. I'd spread out the announcements over the year to get the best publicity.
It would be unwise to introduce a new iMac or a ultra-portable Mac or for that matter a flying car, because it would get trompled in the media stampede to the iPhone.
So I'll sit quietly with my hands folded and wait. For now.
Submitted by Ben (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 06:18
Well then I sure can't wait for the iPhone launch if that means it gets Apple's focus back to the computers.
Submitted by ptervin (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 06:52
Safari's indoctrination into the Windows world is very closely tied to the release of the iPhone: the iPhone connects to both systems. In that light, we'll be seeing Mail on both platforms before the 29th. The Window's Outlook (Outlook) is dead, long live the out look (Mail).
Submitted by Crumpy (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 07:22
Nice write-up, but:
"..Windows guy; it may be that I'm a simple, dyed-in-the-wool Mac head ... but I could care less. "
Rik, it's "couldn't care less." :)
Submitted by Rik (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 10:34
Good call - fixed 6/12 @ 10:30.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Submitted by Savdedbybloodsteven (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 10:44
I am so dissapointed... I have been waiting for a new iMac and Steve didn't reveal anything... I depserately need a mac, and I can't wait much longer. The apple site WAS updated, and it seems that the imaces have brighter screens and metal base, maybe I was hoping for something new soo badly that I didn't remember the metal stand before.
iMacs had the metal base already.
Submitted by Susie Ochs on Tue, 2007-06-12 17:08
:-(
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 11:25
Just a quick gripe. It's bad enough that the new layout of maclife wastes an entire column of your home page for huge oversized buttons. Everything between "This Month's Current Issue" and "Next Month" is wasted space. Why make me click to read these articles when you've got so much wasted space in the layout where this column could go? It's just poor design.
But now I have to click past a full page ad?
I love your magazine, but I think it's time to get my news elsewhere.
Submitted by rmyslewski (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 12:55
Just an FYI: We're in the process of reworking that right-hand column to include links to features, news, and other prime-cut articles -- we just haven't got it together yet. Hang tight, and stay tuned.
Submitted by Dr. Who (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 16:35
So, any word on ZFS replacing HFS+? With the "pre announcement" from Sun, I would have thought it would be worth mentioning in the keynote. Since it wasn't I'll assume no ZFS...yet. Just like iMac's and lightweight MacBooks/Pro's...maybe before October launch. One can hope.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2007-06-12 21:04
First of all let me say that I own a MBP and I'm a big fan of Apple products. But here's something that I don't understand...
So what makes Leopard an OS that will kick the poop out of Vista? Transparent menu bar? Sounds like Vista's menu bar. Unified UI? Vista already has it. Stack view? Oh boy Vista has that, too. So what's new? Time machine? That's just a fancy name for a backup program. Really, what's so innovative about Leopard that will kick the living heck out of Vista? Is it because of CoverFlow? Something that looks very fancy but takes up a lotta desktop real estate and is sure to take up a ton of processing cycles (my MBP doesn't even run coverflow very smoothly in iTunes).
Believe me, I'm excited about Leopard and will likely get it when it comes out. But I can't help but feel really disappointed by its lack of innovation. I really don't see how this is going to be better than Vista. They look very similar to me.
I'm a dual user and I really can't understand why there's all this windows bashing going on at MacLife. I was a subscriber to MacAddict and got totally tired of all of its anti-windows attitude. Considering that a lot of Mac users now also run Windows, I really don't think Mac writers need to bash Windows.
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