WWDC 2009 Predictions....

Well, I did say my blogging would be "light & sporadic"

It's 12:26am here in the UK, the day of the WWDC 2009 keynote and I suppose I should really make some predictions on what will be announced later today (actually, I started writing this at 11:26pm the day before!) I've already gone on record over on the Mac OS Ken Day 6 podcast, after being asked by Ken for some predictions last week, but as that is a subscription based podcast, you may not have heard it.

In fact, I could make a completely new set of predictions and you may never be the wiser ;-)

Seems that this year, all the predictions I've heard of, seem to have an unprecedented level of assurance that they will in fact, turn up. This is always a bad sign. It usually leads to severe disappointment and an anti climax immediately following the the keynote (and a hit on the stock price), even if Apple deliver something great but fall short of the, sometimes, incredible rumours.

The thing to bare in mind for the WWDC 2009 conference and keynote is that it's a developer conference.

It's all about the software.

Yes, I know the iPhone 3G was launched there last year and other hardware before that, but it's really aimed at the software developers.

Consequently, I think there are two givens today:

iPhone 3.0 software: With the push of iTunes 8.2 last week and the fact that it supports iPhone OS 3.0, I think iPhone OS 3.0 will be launched today and made available for immediate download.

OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard: Not a launch but the announcement of the release date and the pricing.

Both these announcements could easily take up half the keynote each.

With the iPhone 3.0 software, they will already have a ton of apps that will support some of the new cool features. They'll probably already have some hardware vendors on board with some new hardware add-ons. Then there is the feature set of 3.0 itself. This could easily take 30 minutes to go through.

Snow Leopard is interesting in that they really haven't pushed this hard for a long, long time. If I remember, it was not featured in:

Macworld 2008 Keynote (MacBook Air, AppleTV Take 2, Time Capsule, updated iPhone features)

WWDC 2008 Keynote (iPhone 3G, App Store, MobileMe and Notification services)

Macworld 2009 (Update iLife and iWork apps, iWork.com, 17" MacBook Pro, DRM Free iTunes)

So for the past two years, Snow Leopard has not even been mentioned in a single major event by Apple.... and Windows 7 is in public beta and starting to get some major props when compared to Vista.

I think the event today will be the ideal venue to showcase the new OS and I fully expect a major demo of the new features in Snow Leopard, the benefits it brings to the developer and consumer and the release strategy. Although Apple have positioned it as not having any specific "new features", and it's really just an exercise in "tightening" up the performance of Leopard, I've no doubt some of the "non-features" will suddenly be re-branded as features, along with some new features, as yet to be revealed. Again, I could envisage this taking up another lengthy part of the keynote.

So what about the new iPhone hardware?

This seems to be the announcement that everyone and his mother thinks is a dead cert for today.

I'm not too sure....

Would they really want to overshadow Snow Leopard with the new iPhone at such a critical time?

Would they want to turn WWDC in virtually an iPhone exclusive event, yet again?

Would Steve Jobs really want one of the other executives to launch the new iPhone?

If you remember back to the original launch of the first iPhone, Steve mentioned he'd waited three years to announce the iPhone. He had his family and friends in the audience at Macworld 2007 (I was in the Starbucks next to Moscone, but that's another story). It seems to me that the iPhone is a big deal for Steve. Who just so happens, is back from sick leave at the end of June.

So this could go two ways, Apple could release the new iPhone today and overshadow everything else in the keynote or...

They could wait for Steve to get back in a few weeks and hold a special event to release the iPhone, and have all the benefit of an extra few weeks build up plus the return of Steve Jobs. The stock may take a hit if the new iPhone doesn't appear today, but if the iPhone 3.0 and Snow Leopard demos are good, it may only be minor and heck, it would only be for a few weeks. It might even give the stock price a double bump.

I'm really torn to say with any certainty which way they'll go, I just have a gut feeling that they'll delay the release of the new iPhone for a few weeks, and then hit us with a double whammy of a new iPhone with Video plus the fabled iPhone Nano. The iPhone Nano must come soon so they can start the strategy they adopted with the iPhone in creating models to meet a range of price points.

So I'll stick my neck out and say no new iPhone today (but would not be completely shocked if it did appear- you know how these things go!).

A couple of long shots for you to mull over....

A new AppleTV? The original AppleTV is looking really old now and could really do with a refresh. Why not a new hardware platform and an AppleTV SDK for the developers to start developing some AppleTV apps or even games? Have Apple decided that the "hobby" might be worth investing in?

The fabled Apple Tablet? No. Not yet!

New Unibody MacBooks? Following the bump in the plastic MacBooks, this could be a possibility but on past form, I doubt they'd use WWDC to announce a speed bump.

No matter what happens, it should be an exciting event and I hope we all get what we want out of it, just be prepared for a little bit of disappointment, if only for a couple of weeks!

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My first 10 Twitter Commandments..

I like to think of myself as a good "Twitter" citizen and have come to rely on Twitter as an important channel of communication. There are no "rules" on using Twitter (although some people would like to think so) but over the past couple of years of constant use, I've sort of adopted a number of personal rules which I think make my usage of Twitter better for others. In no particular order:

• I will not spam my Twitter followers with the latest fad or service. Sometimes, this may be unavoidable if the third party does something it is not supposed, but I'll never intentionally spam anyone.
  
  
  
• I will not use Twitter to get a freebie. Yes, I've done this in the past but I've decided never to do this again. This is when you can get a free this or reduced price on that by sending a Tweet mentioning the product or service. Can get very messy!
  
  
  
• I will not shamelessly self promote myself or my content. This could be difficult, I suppose it all depends on what "shameless self promotion" is defined as. I will still tell people what I'm doing or where I'm going. I will also post links to blog posts and new shows as they are published. As far as I'm concerned, that's probably why a good few of my followers follow me, to find out what I'm up to. It's just I won't use Twitter as a purely promotional tool.
  
  
  
• I will not pre-prepare Tweets. All my tweets are spontaneous and of the moment. That's how I like it! I don't really like the prepared tweets that have obviously been crafted and pondered over. It just doesn't seem right. And as for people who use scheduling tools to send tweets at various intervals, do me a favour!
  
  
  
• I will Re-Tweet interesting tweets. Whilst re-tweeting (the act of replicating someone elses tweet with attribution) seems to drive some people crazy, I think it can be a very useful way of propagating information. As I have a couple of thousand followers, the likelihood is that if someone with relatively few followers posts something interesting, then the majority of my followers will not have seen it, and hence re-tweeting is perfectly valid.
  
  
  
• I will not Re-Tweet by request. It puts me in a difficult position and I'll only re-tweet if asked if I would have re-tweeted it anyway.
  
  
  
• I will not join in with #followfriday. OK, call me a misery if you like but I don't do #followfriday. However, thanks to all those that include me in their #followfriday posts. Yes, I feel guilty about this one!
  
  
  
• I will respond to any Direct Message or @message that asks a question directly or indirectly If someone takes the time to message me, I'll respond if a response is necessary or warranted. If someone just messages me a comment, I may respond or may just read it. A question will always get a response.
  
  
  
• If I need to thank more than 1 or 2 people for anything, I may send out a blanket thank you. There have been times in the past when people have been kind enough to send me comments or messages on various topics (my 1st Macbreak Weekly appearance for example) when it's just impossible to respond individually.
  
  
  
• I'll only follow Celebs who "get" Twitter. These are the people who understand what Twitter is and enter into a dialog with their followers.

So there you go, my first 10 Twitter commandments.... there may be more to follow.

Please feel free to add your own in the comments!

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Countdown....

Just four short weeks before leaving for MacMania 09 and I'm way behind in where I wanted to be.

So the next four weeks are going to take some serious planning and hard grafting. I'll need to cut down the distractions (sorry Twitter) and get some focus to make sure everything is accomplished before I can leave.

Following on from a recent blog post, the overwhelming consensus was that the world will not end if I don't publish a show for two weeks.

Really!!!

Oh well, that's a good thing then! It relieves the pressure somewhat in that I don't have to double production leading up the trip, besides which, even if I did the shows for the weeks I'm away, there is no guarantee that I could publish them remotely. I've got a house sitter organised who will take on some of the membership related emails and queries, so I should be able not to worry too much about that side of things.

One thing I will take seriously over the next four weeks is to try and get in shape for the trip.

I could do with losing at least two stone (28lbs) to bring my weight down to a reasonable level. I appreciate that it's not going to happen in four weeks but I'll try my best to at least make a dent in that. Nothing dramatic, just a bit more exercise, no chocolate, reduced portion sizes and no alcohol midweek (a definite cause of midnight snacking!). I'll also be trying out a regular course of JuicePlus to supplement my eating habits. It just so happens that one of my regular ScreenCastsOnline viewers is associated with JuicePlus and he has kindly sent over some samples for me to try out - Thanks Curt!

I'll not bore you everyday with an update, but I'll try and report back at least every week to let you know how I get on. Going public may help me stick to a sensible regime. Just for the record, as of today I'm, 14st 10lbs (206lbs or 93Kgs), if I can loose at least 14lbs in the next 4 weeks, that would be a start!

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GPS & Geotagging update

Well as mentioned, I did give the Wintec GPS dongle and the Canon G10 a spin when over in the US recently. See previous blog posts here and here.

On the whole, the Wintec did a good job when it could acquire a GPS signal. It didn't pick up a tour I did around Hollywood, but then I did leave it in my friends car boot as we drove around, so no surprises there then!

My main issue was workflow - how to use the GPS tracking data from the Wintec successfully with getting the photos off the camera and into iPhoto. As it transpires, I missed a trick by not installing the supplied Canon software to retrieve the photos off the camera, before importing them into iPhoto. Once the photos are in iPhoto, it's a major pain to update them with GPS data as iPhoto won't let you update the photos in situ.

Unusually, I can't "see" the Canon G10 from the Finder, so I couldn't access the memory card directly and extract them natively, or point HoudahGeo at the files on the camera. I had to use iPhoto to get the photos off the camera.

Then I ended up having to export them from iPhoto, updating them with HoudahGeo and then re-importing them into iPhoto.

Not the most sensible way!

Had I installed the Canon software, I could have just imported the photos to a "staging" area, updated them with the tracking data from HoudahGeo and then imported into iPhoto.

HoudahGeo and the Wintec WBT-201 worked seamlessly together by the way. I just turned on bluetooth on the Wintec and HoudahGeo just sucked all of the track data across just fine. I didn't bother changing the timezone on either the camera or the wintec, I just left them as GMT.

I have to say though that I've started to wonder if Aperture isn't the way to go?

As far as I'm aware, you can update photos with GPS info directly in the Aperture library with HoudahGeo and there are a number of GPS plugins now available to display and manage your map data directly in Aperture itself. I've installed Aperture onto my MacBook pro to give it a spin and I'll let you know how I get on.

I'd be interested if anyone could share their proven workflow with updating photos with GPS tracking information using either iPhoto or Aperture. Please feel free to share via the comments!

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Light & sporadic...

Well back into the swing of things now and I think I'm just about over the trip!

In case you missed the "live" appearance on MBW, Allison captured some video of the event : http://bit.ly/cxe5Z

Now I'm into organising and planning for the trip in July to China, South Korea and Japan as part of the Mac Mania 09 event. I'm going out ahead of the cruise to take part in the pre-cruise tour which is an week long tour of inland China. This means I'll be away for the best part of two weeks, which equates to three ScreenCastsOnline shows. So in effect, that leaves me with six weeks to prepare and record 9 weekly shows and 6 x 90 minute presentations.

I may even decide to skip a weekly show (or even two) whilst I'm away, as even if I prepare the shows in advance, there is no guarantee I'll be able to publish them on time from such exotic locations?

Do you think people will mind?

It may give people a chance to catch up?

At least I had the good sense to not take on any commissioned work for the same period.

So things are going to get a little busy round here, and you'll have to excuse me if my blogging becomes light and sporadic. Somethings gotta give!

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