A Quandary?

As we all know, even though Apple releases information and code via its developer forums, ostensibly via an Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), it soon becomes common knowledge.

Countless blogs republish the information, pick apart its significance, and even scour the code for clues to future releases or devices.

I've been a member of the Apple OSX and iOS developer scheme for a few years now, and have never released any information that would breach the terms of the NDA, even if it's been common knowledge and splattered across every other Mac blog.

I like to think that I'm fairly old school, and if I've agreed to an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) then I'll abide by it. Reputation and integrity count for a lot in my book, and I really would not want to risk or damage either by doing something foolish!

It amazes me when I get an email from Apple advising of a new seed release of an OSX version with a strongly worded warning about disclosing pre-release software, and then in a hour or so, see it plastered all over various blogs.

However, OSX Lion Developer Preview seems to be a different beast (pardon the pun!)

Announced via Press Release on the same day as the new MacBook Pro range, the new preview of Lion came as a bit of a shock in its timing and content. Lots of the features had already been pre-announced by Apple but the preview included some new extra features. Apple announced these official new features publicly via a new webpage on the Apple site Mac OS X Lion.

As you might expect, the Apple blogosphere exploded with features about Lion and many sites covered both the officially discussed features, but also some leaks about features not discussed in Apples webpages.

So I'm in a bit of a quandary!

I'd love to do a ScreenCastsOnline segment of the official published features of Mac OS X Lion, for those ScreenCastsOnline members who haven't had chance to see it in action.

But even though the features are disclosed and published by Apple, I fear that the Developer Preview is still under NDA and I'd be opening myself up to the wrath of Apple if I recorded some screencasts, even if it was just covering the published features.

I think it safer to err on the side of caution in this case, so I'll probably need to wait for the official version to be released in the summer.

Shame.

Bodes well for next week!

First full ScreenCastsOnline show under my belt following the recent trip. It's all about the awesome Apple Remote Desktop. A very impressive app! - SCO0286 - Apple Remote Desktop 3

I'm conscious of the fact I've not been blogging, but lot's to catch up on. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog more going forward.

I just wanted to mention a couple of things about the Apple announcements yesterday.

New MacBooks Seems like an impressive upgrade across the board. I had thought the new range may take some styling pointers from the MacBook Air but it looks like Apple have stuck to boosting performance.

Sandy Bridge Processors As expected, Apple have been able to incorporate these into the new MacBooks, including a new 4 core processor for both the 15 and 17 inch. Looks like performance is through the roof - Primate labs have done some initial benchmarking using their GeekBench app - MacBook Pro Benchmarks (Early 2011) The amazing thing is that the new base 13" i5 model is just as fast as the previous top end i7 models. Even more astounding is the fact that the 4 core i7 machine is showing a higher rating than my existing MacPro (early 2008) with 8 cores and 16GB ram. Amazing. But it doesn't stop there.

Thunderbolt I made a tweet earlier in the week asking if anyone thought that Light Peak would make an appearance as I was highly doubtful. But, here it is in the form of Thunderbolt. You can learn all about it on this post by Dan Frakes and Dan Moren at Macworld.

This is huge!

So huge, I haven't quite got my head around some of the possibilities yet, but believe me, it's huge! Wait until we see this across all Macs with a wide range of supported peripherals. Can't wait!

Upgraded Graphics The speed of the GPUs in these things keep going up - now 3x faster than in previous models.

Now although we were pretty much all expecting the new MacBooks, there was an announcement out of left field that no one was expecting.

Lion Developer Preview Oh my! I never realised they were so far advanced with it and the preview was made available via the Mac App store for developers. All the features previewed in the last keynote were available plus some new features..

New Features Versions, Resume, Mail 5, Safari 5, AirDrop - all new features, worthy of note. Apple have also done a great job at some subtle (and not so subtle) interface tweaks. Gestures play a big part of the new OS and it's certainly a big Back to the Mac direction with the adoption of so many iOS features.

Lion Server Also included in the distribution, with an emphasis of ease of setup.

Delivery via the Mac App Store Apple issued individual redemption codes to developers via the Apple Developer connection site and then allowed Developers to access and download the preview via the Mac App Store.

Very, very neat!

Bye, bye Software DVDs

The download was 3.6GB is size and downloaded and installed flawlessly. Apple delivered a full OS upgrade via the Mac App Store. Impressive.

I'm sure there are many other things that got announced yesterday that I've skipped over, or more things about the items I've mentioned here I could have elaborated on, but there is one thing that is really telling about all these significant announcements.

Apple didn't deem them important enough to hold any one of them back for the Apple special event next Wednesday!

By using the Apple website and press releases (and the inevitable rumour mill and speculation), Apple were able to get the messages across and leave next week for the really big announcement - the next generation of iOS and the iPad.

I know Apple don't like to dilute the message of these big events, but the changes to the MacBooks, the launch of Thunderbolt or the new features of Lion might have warranted their own special event in previous years, heck, all three would have brought the house down at Macworld!

I'm Back!

Arrived safely back at home yesterday following a long, but thankfully uneventful, trip from Santiago.

Seems like much longer than three and a half weeks since we set out to travel to Macworld and then on to South America.

Luckily, I was able to keep on top of the bulk of the emails remotely, and I was able to publish the shows due for those weeks, whilst out and about. There were some emails that I couldn't handle remotely, so have been diligently filing those in a "For Action" folder for when I got back.

I didn't quite realise, just how many until I opened the folder this morning!

Anyhow, I'll be spending the next few days in catch up mode as best I can, trying to reach inBox Zero nirvana and trying to schedule all those little tasks that I thought it best to leave until I got back.

Normal service will be resumed very shortly!

Whilst I'm Away….

I probably won't be updating this blog with much Mac stuff.

If you'd like to follow my travel posts and various images, etc, I'll be posting them to:

http://screencastsonline.tumblr.com

so feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Don

iDeveloper.TV Prize Winners

Despite being away, I was still able to pick the winners of the iDeveloper.TV video training competition that's been running for ScreenCastsOnline Extra members in January.

And the winners are:

• Michael Anderson
• Jonathan Isaacs
• Tony Watkins

We had 420 entries into the prize draw and three random numbers were generated via random.org to select the winners. Emails have been posted and Scotty has been informed.

Thanks for taking part and thanks to Scotty over at iDeveloper.TV for the most generous prize.