WWDC Keynote Viewed

Well, finally got to see the keynote at last.

Why is the streaming version a lower res than normal?

Is it me or was the streaming very flaky this year - mustbe the heightened demand? Apple should definitely release a HD versionvis Bittorrent




OK, now I've seen the presentation I feel a lot happier!

The Mac Pro looks amazing.

The leopard preview was much better when you could see it in action although Time Machine just seems too good to be true The external disk drive companies must be overjoyed. The examples given of the scenaros nailed it for me and yes, I have wanted to go back in time to when I knew a file was in a folder - it actually happened again yesterday when I thought I'd backed something up but I hadn't! This will be really big if they can deliver on the promises.

Still undecided about mail stationery but it certainly looked great I coud certainly use notes and todos. Again, for the mormal man in the street or potential switcher, this will look impressive and is a further turning of the screw in helping people jump ship.

iChat looks really useful as well - I love backdrop as one on thereasons I don't use Video chat much is my office looks a complete tip!

The suprising thing to me was that I found I did like was the change of presenters although perhaps too many handovers this time round. Phil and Scott were great and brought anice change to the proceedings. Sensible move by Apple as Steve willhave to step down at some point and I don't see it as that far a stretch to have future "team Apple" keynotes.


As the vast majority get their exposure from first live blogging of the keynote and then initial reports from attendees, I wonder if Apple should go back to the live streaming of the event (if the technical hurdles can be overcome) so people can assess the full impact of the keynote first hand. I'm sure if this was to happen, then the amount of misinformation and "the sky is falling" type posts would be dramatically curtailed.

So, in hindsight, not as disappointing as first thought. Certainly hit a lot of buttons and had the "secret" stuff been announced..... Something to look forward to anyway!

Still disappointed there was no one more thing though ;-)

technorati tags:wwdc, apple, keynote, jobs, leopard

Comments

[jim Sheehan]

If the new voiceover sounds truly human as suggested this will be a huge plug for the Mac. The current voices are still too robotic and get annoying after only a short while. Glad they are only a novelty to me and i feel sorry for anyone who depends on them for accessibilty. keep up the good work Don.

[Patrick]

Yeah, a lot more still to come hopefully. One thing that intrigued me, although small, was the "iTunes screensaver" that was demonstrated with core animation. Where did that come from? I don't have an iTunes screensaver, and maybe I misheard him, but I thought he said the iTunes screensaver that we already had with Tiger.
I liked time machine too, but what if you have things that you wanted deleted on purpose? I guess you would choose not to back them up maybe? And how big would your backup have to be? I guess a lot goes on behind the scenes that we need not know about!
I had problems with the stream too. I would time out, and lose audio, and many frustrating instances too. I took me about 4 days to get through the whole thing. I thought it may have been due to high traffic volumes but maybe not.
Anyway, Leopard looks very exciting, now if I only had enough money to get a Mac Pro with an install of Leopard on when it comes out. Time to start saving I guess (especially with the new "one size fits all but you can add to it" model).
Should I start a patrick charity? ;)

[Patrick]

Quick note: I found the screensaver that was on there (I'm sure you were all worried about me ;)) but the weirdest thing about my copy of Tiger: it won't work. I am probably writing this prematurly without delving deeper into this problem, but I am starting to question the quality of my copy of Tiger. There have been certain things that don't work. When i do a fast user change, there is no cube effect of the screen turning. I have had problems with the help application working. There are graphic things in my dashboard that don't work, for example when you drag a widget to the screen from the dock, there is supposed to be a drop of water effect that doesn't work on my mac. Am I missing things, like core video or something like that?

Ok, not so much about the WWDC, but definitely spawned from it!

[Patrick]

Ok figured it out and I feel stupid. Simply, my video card doesn't support quartz extreme or core image. Silly me, but I learned something today :)

[Don]

You beat me to it!