WWDC 2007 Predictions

Well, WWDC '07 is this coming Monday and it should be pretty interesting. Here are my predictions:

iPhone Widget Development:

• Yes, I believe Apple will allow developers to make stuff for the iPhone, but for now, I think it will only be the Widget environment. That's a pretty simple sandbox that's easy to support and should please developers for now. Eventually, down the line, Apple will probably finish up standardizing and documenting their API's and will probably announce iPhone development sometime next year.

Mac OS X Leopard Features:

Ever since Apple announced that, along with the delay, all WWDC attendees will get to see and take home a feature complete developer preview of 10.5 Leopard, everyone knew that the developers conference would be almost entirely focused on the new OS. What might the new features be?

• Brand new UI. Okay, I don't mean something radically different that doesn't conform to current usability standards, but something far more than just the unification of the OS. As I talked about in a previous post, from the recent developer builds, it seems pretty clear that Apple's setting the stage for a pretty nice revamp of the OS' GUI. Regardless, the Mac OS X UI needs to get a revamp; it's almost in shambles as it is right now.
• Filesystem change from HFS+ to ZFS. The only reason I'm predicting this is because Marc Hamilton of Sun said it. Of course, he isn't saying that now.
• New Finder. Okay, this one's been predicted over and over. Maybe it'll finally happen this year...

Of course, there will be more features than that in Leopard, but hey, I'm not Superman.

News Contributor at iOnMac

iOnMac is a little Mac community website that's been running for the past couple of years now. It hasn't been getting a lot of traffic and the existing community there, including myself, are coming up with ways to try and attract more visitors. One of the first things that we're doing is getting the news back up and running again. As such, I've volunteered as a news contributor and will be writing news posts. I've already posted a couple of stories and you'll be seeing more, especially once finals are over.

Note: I already have a couple of reviews there too and am planning on finishing up some more to post.

Regarding the Unified Theme in the Latest Seed of Leopard

Now, I myself do not have a copy of Leopard, but the Mac-world was all in a frenzy last week when screens of the latest Leopard build seeded to developers started popping up all over the net (Think Secret has a nice gallery). However, there were quite a few people complaining as they felt that Leopard felt too dark, and that it didn't differentiate applications from one another. For instance, iCal and Safari now look very similar:

iCal

Safari

Mail's look has also changed considerably:

Mail 2.1.1 in Tiger

Mail in Leopard

In my opinion, the darker look doesn't fit Mail as well as the lighter Unified theme.

I was also intrigued about this user-interface update as it's been widely rumored that one of the 'Top Secret' features of Leopard is a new user-interface. Something that would retire the old Aqua look. One might think that this recent development discredits that idea, but I don't think so. According to Delmonte at Digg:

Many don't know that there's a major change under the hood of the UI engine in Leopard. First, for resolution independence, every interface widget is being vectorized. Second, the new interface is stored in a neatly organized modular package called "Aqua.bundle" instead of the archaic and messy "Extra.rsrc" resource file...

But also, I think chloran is on the right track. With the unification and vectorization of the interface, changing the tint (color) and/or brightness of the interface is a matter of changing a couple of variables, heck it could be done in real time, and on a per-window/per-application basis...

As I pointed out in another digg thread, Apple has been recently awarded a patent for "custom shading of a UI" that shows the possibility of smoothly transitioning from a black text on gray/white background interface to a white text on dark/black bg as night comes by.

This seed of Leopard only seems to be laying groundwork. I'm very much looking forward to WWDC.

Material:
Leopard 9A410 Gallery
Digg - New Interface in Leopard!

No-Mac Inc.

Apple recently announced they're going to delay Mac OS X Leopard. Yes, this is a disappointment, but nothing particularly horrible. Another 4 months and it should be shipping to our greasy little fingers. What seems to be getting to people though is Apple's reason for the delay:

...we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.

People's reactions can be summarized as such: "Apple's delaying their Operating System for a cell-phone?! What the fuck is up with their priorities!".

It seems to me that Apple's priorities are just fine. The iPhone is Apple's first computer-like product that heavily uses Mac OS X and it's underlying frameworks that isn't a Mac. Any improvement made to Leopard will also help with the development of the OS for the desktop/laptop. Add to that the fact that the iPhone is one of the most highly anticipated consumer electronics products of the decade and Apple has every damn reason to get this thing done well and on time. Besides, Tiger is a perfectly fine OS as it is right now and will do fine. Those who were holding out on a Mac purchase until June are actually kind of likely to just buy a Mac now instead of waiting, since they now know it's not coming as soon as they expected.1


1. There will be a decrease in the growth of Mac sales though. I just don't think it will be as bad some people are making it out to be though.


Material:
Apple announced Leopard delays due to the iPhone - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

You Know Hell Has Frozen Over When...

MacWorld 2007 Outcome: The New Apple

This was a bad year for my predictions. I was just as bad as last year. :p

Regardless of my predictions, this year's January Macworld was a stunner. It marked the end of Apple Computer Inc. and the beginning of Apple Inc. Beyond further iterations and cheaper versions of the iPhone, and actual Apple televisions with integrated Apple TVs, I can't actually think what else Apple might make. The next 5 years should be very interesting. :)

As usual, I shall give my thoughts on what was announced in bullet-point form.

Macs

• The Vista ad is a good addition to Apple's current lineup of Get A Mac ads. Plus, it's considerably funnier than the last batch they introduced a month or so ago.
  
• No iWork '07? No iLife '07? Fucking Christ, the sky's falling. (I'm sure these will get released later in the year)
• Absolutely nothing on Leopard. Man, I want to know what some of those "top-secret" features are.
• Oh man, the new AirPort Extreme is sweet.
  
• Something that alot of people haven't talked about in the wake of the iPhone: 50% of the Macs Apple are selling in the United States through all channels are new to Mac. Pretty damn sweet. I'm definitely looking forward to 4th quarter results.
• Aside from the above comments, Apple didn't say anything else about the Mac. For some reason, people are unnerved by this.

Apple TV

• The solution they came up with is not the best solution, but is alot better then just streaming the video. Essentially the device has a 40GB HD inside of it, and that's used to send content to it from one computer using iTunes. Then, with the Apple TV you can just traverse through the content. The Apple TV can also sync with the computer much like an iPod so that it constantly stays up to date according to your specifications. On top of that, it can also do streaming from up to 5 other computers.
  
• I wonder if OS X is running on this, like the iPhone is.
• What's the use in an HDMI-out when there's no HD content on iTunes. I'm thinking we'll see HD content on iTunes one month after Apple TV starts shipping (in February) at the very latest. Well, there's another prediction that'll die I bet. :p

I'll have more on the iPhone in a later post.

Macworld January 2007 Predictions

I don't have any insider information or anything, but I'm just going to give my predictions.

iTV
Of course, Apple won't be calling it that, but it's the one thing I'm absolutely positive about for this Macworld. At this point, there are so many product rumours regarding Apple that I don't have a damn clue as to what's going to actually be released instead of just announced, only to be released at a later date. iTV seems to be a safe bet on the release part, as Apple announced the product September of last year. As for the whole Google Video/YouTube integration, that I'm not entirely sure about. Although that doesn't sound like such a bad idea (although how you would search around for videos is beyond me).

Movie Store Announcements
First Apple had to prove to the rest of the industry that it could sell movies. Now that they've done that, they need to expand. I only really expect a couple of new studios to be added. And I guess there's also the possibility of higher quality (720p) and expansion into other countries.

Apple Cell-Phone
To me, it seems like this is inevitable. I'm thinking it will get announced at Macworld. I don't expect this thing to blow us away, like all the rumours have suggested. I think Apple's going to play this safe. First they'll release a nicely designed cell-phone that features integration with iTunes and some innovative new features (like dual batteries: one for music playback, the other for the rest of the phone). But this is definitely not going to be the shape-shifting, do-it-all phone that others are expecting.

iLife '07 and iWork '07
Okay, so these are coming out, no question about it. However, this year, we might just see a tables application debut in iWork.

Update and Preview of Mac OS X Leopard
This one seems likely. I do hope that Apple does preview some new features of Leopard though.

New iPod Speaker
Yeah, maybe something like a cheaper, smaller version of the Hi-Fi.

6G iPod
This one I'm not really sure about at all. Refer to my previous post on the 6G iPod for more info.

Well, let's see how right I am this year. :)

My First Widget

Using Apple's Dashcode beta, I made my first widget: an rss feed updater for i use this. I call it: i use this. :p


For those oh so many OS X users who read this blog, you can download it here if you want. :)

The Greatest by Cat Power from the album:
The Greatest
4 stars