Leopard Details, WWDC Summary, Boredom, and Disappointment
Posted 06/11/2007 at 8:31pm
| by Rik Myslewski
And Then There's Tiger
For a comprehensive overview of the WWDC annoucements, including all the Leopard news, check out the Mac|Live podcast #11, in which Mac|Life editor in chief, Leslie Ayers, reviews editor Roman Loyola, and I discuss in sumptuous detail what Jobs discussed during today's keynote. In summary, Jobs went through a top ten list of features to be found among what he described as 300 new features that will ship with Leopard when it's released n October.
Unfortunately, all the attendees at the keynote presentation had already heard about most of Jobs's top ten at the previous WWDC on last August 7, 2006, when he first introduced Leopard.
Let's tick off the old news, one feature at a time:
> 64-bit archiitecture? Check - a boon for addressing scads of RAM quickly and efficiently. Expect high-end apps and projects to run noticeably more snappily.
> Core Animation? Check - if it works even a tenth as well as it demos, this sytem-level animation technology should enable developers to create stunning new animated 3D and video apps.
> Boot Camp? Check - the developers of both Parallels and VMWare breathed deep sighs of relief when Jobs announced that the closest Leopard would come to Windows integration would be the incorparation of a non-beta version of dual-boot Boot Camp. Running Windows inside Mac OS X - aka virtualization - is still a "third-party opportunity." For now, at least...
> Spaces? Check - the ability to create multiple workspaces on the fly with their own dedicated apps may merely be a flashy solution in search of a problem, or it may be the next great interface advance since Expose. We're betting on the former and hoping for the latter - though, making Spaces sound quite a bit more attractive, Jobs said that you'll be able to set up as many Spaces as you want. Another reason for more RAM...
> Dashboard and WebClips? Check - widget lovers (and you know who you are) may rejoice at the opportunity to transform slices of websites into Dashboardable widgets. The Mac|Life editorial team, on the other hand, finds ourselves stifling a collective yawn.
> iChat enhancements? Check - an indication that Apple can at times try to put too much "fun" into what's really a quite utilitarian app. We're willing to bet that the iChat Theater will be one of the least-used features of Leopard. Or, even more likely, it'll end up like that cool toy you once received, played with once or twice, then forgot about.
> Time Machine? Check - system level CYA. If you don't backup regularly - and, according to Steve, you don't - you may find this automatic archiving sytem of interest and value. I'm interested, though, to see how many people actually dig into it to learn how it works before they need it to save their bacon. My guess is not many. It reminds me a bit of Spotlight - that is, it looks like a good idea on paper, but a pain in actual implementation. As a dedicated backer-upper, though, I hope I'm wrong - anything that can help folks backup their increasingly important digital assets has to be A Good Thing.
All seven of these members of the top ten are old news - not boring, useless, dull news, to be sure, but hardly earth-shattering new revelations worthy of getting worked up about. That said, they're all welcome additions to a new operating system that's sure to knock the living poop out of Vista - as I said, listen to our podcast, Mac|Live #11, for more details on each of these features, or follow the links I've added to this list for more info.
Jobs also announced three new Leopard features that hadn't been revealed last year. They ranged from the underwhelming (a new Desktop) to the encouraging (a refurbished Finder) to the truly interesting (QuickLook).
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