Simon’s Blog

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1. iPhoney « Shebanation on 11 Jun 2007 at 9:52 pm

   [...] Simon Brocklehurst says the new top secret features were MIA. Further, he points out that there was “nothing that makes Vista looked dated at a stroke (which is what I thought they’d have been aiming for)” [...]

2. Michael Tsai - Blog - WWDC 2007 Keynote on 12 Jun 2007 at 2:35 am

   [...] it was a disappointing keynote. I didn’t expect the top secret features to materialize, but it’s still a let-down after Job’s hype last year and all [...]

Comments

1. Asam Bashir wrote:

   There is a lot in the detail – as expected the focus was clearly on Leopard, new Finder/Dock/Quick Look, 64-bit from ground up. The Safari on Windows is clearly another way to get users to get the hang on Apple apps so they get a Mac next time they upgrade, make perfect sense, in addition to providing support for deploying and developing iPhone apps.

   Any opportunities for development for iPhone is a good thing, remember you where moaning about it being a closed system, we’ll its not anymore, this is a good move, that will mature once iPhone starts shipping worldwide in massive numbers…

   Waiting for the Quicktime stream to show up…..

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 7:56 pm ¶

2. simon wrote:

   I’m not saying that AJAX support on Safari for iPhone is a bad thing. It’s not. It’s a good thing. However, I suspect Apple developers will be rather disappointed: there are whole classes of application that are simple not available for them to write now.

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:04 pm ¶

3. Asam Bashir wrote:

   I don’t think most of the developers at WWDC will care that much right now, they will in a year when iPhone has sold in significant numbers. Remember this is WWDC, most developers here are writing desktop class applications for Mac OS X.

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:08 pm ¶

4. simon wrote:

   There are lots of Apple developers who really want to develop for iPhone.

   I don’t think there’s any getting away from the fact this wasn’t a good day for Apple: Leopard looked pretty dull; reports of iPhone virtual keypad demo problems will worry people; disappointing news on third-party app development for iPhone; no new hardware announced. Their stock is trending down on the back of the keynote – it’s down 3.45% (that’s several billion dollars lost in value) as I write this comment. That’s probably an over-reaction – but it illustrates that people aren’t impressed with what they’ve seen/heard today.

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:18 pm ¶

5. Asam Bashir wrote:

   Leopard looks pretty dull, are you kidding, put the 300 new features together with all the features we have already in Tiger and you have something way more advanced and capable then Vista ever was. You’re like making comments on Mac OS X and how long have you spent ever using it? You need to use an OS day in and day out to appreciate it elegance. You don’t want useless eye candy that looks good for about 5 min until you actually use. It just so happens that Mac users have very high expectations because we already have the best OS for usability. The way Mac OS X is demoed is aimed at the very basic levels of users, but why don’t you actually have a play with a Mac of a power user. Things we take for granted, MS can only hope to copy, whilst Linux users are still trying to find the right drivers…..

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:34 pm ¶

6. Asam Bashir wrote:

   Oh and all US tech shares are down today, Google down -4.15 , Amazon -2.07, so what, news and understanding of WWDC has not spread out yet.

   There’s more to it then seems, we have to wait for MacBU to make announcements about shipping date for universal Office 2008. They just made an announcement that MacBU has a new head, so obviously the last one has been removed for some reason. Apple has to wait for this before it can make annoucements regarding products that will directly compete, and longer-term remove the need, with Office, this includes further and extensive collaboration between Apple and Google.

   As Apple increases it’s market share, and generally becomes a bigger and more diversified company, it will have to change stratergy as to the way it makes it’s announcements so it doesn’t cause massive fluctuations is market prices. I think we’re beginning to see this now from Apple, more low key announcements, but more of them spread out, rather then relying on two key events, Jan Mac World Expo, and June WWDC.

   With Apple now becoming three times the company it was (Mac, iPod, iPhone), this is probably a wise move….

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:48 pm ¶

7. simon wrote:

   Asam, I’ve spent years, and millions of dollars, developing applications for Mac OS X. I actually do know how it works…

   Re: share price. Yes, some other tech stocks fell – they were dragged down by Apple! BTW Google was down just 0.81%.

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:55 pm ¶

8. Asam Bashir wrote:

   And never forget, even now, today with Tiger, feature for feature, and performance wise, Tiger kills Vista with what ever feature you wish to compare. And you’re complaining about Leopard, ha-ha, after having used a Mac for a few minutes. You’re really nor qualified to comment on any aspect of Mac OS X, unless you’ve actually used it, otherwise you’re talking from zero real world experience.

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 9:57 pm ¶

9. Asam Bashir wrote:

   Using a Mac, Simon, day in day out, have you done that with Tiger on a blazing fast core 2 duo? I’m not questioning the fact that you may have been involved in developing some niche apps on a Mac, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Using the Mac as your main machine, day in day out…

   Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 10:01 pm ¶

10. simon wrote:

    Yes – I have used the latest Intel Macs, running Tiger. Not for days on end though – they failed to convince me well before that point. Tiger feels dated to me. And the machines don’t feel blazingly fast at all. Actually they feel pretty sluggish (as do XP and Vista machines) – but that’s because of slow I/O rather than CPU.

    From what I’ve seen so far, I’m not sure that Leopard freshens things up enough – but I will reserve judgement on that until I’ve seen it for real.

    Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 10:11 pm ¶

11. simon wrote:

    BTW – it’s not just me that’s underwhelmed. From reading comments on various sites, it seems that many hardcore Apple fans are pretty unimpressed too…

    Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 10:24 pm ¶

12. Asam Bashir wrote:

    Apple fans always have very high expectations, but they’ll recover at the end of June when iPhone ships, and October, when they get there hands on Leopard. New iMacs where expected, featuring LED screens, but obviously Apple can’t get hold of them in the numbers it needs right now, in 20″ and 24″ versions. Even the MacBook Pro rev 3, only the 15″ has the screen yet…

    We where hoping to hear more announcements regarding iPhone release in Europe, but WWDC wasn’t the time and place. We might be underwhelmed with the keynote but that doesn’t mean we’re underwhelmed with Apple, we’re just an impatient lot. But we also have to remember, as Mac users there are now more in our ranks then ever before, they’re not the same kind of hardcore Apple users, they’re the new breed of iPod and Windows switchers, so way Apple presents and demos it’s technology will change over time.

    Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 10:39 pm ¶

13. Asam Bashir wrote:

    64-bit from ground up, biggest games developers returning to Mac, the iPhone with developer access, the only solution in the world where you can boot any OS under virtualization – when where we discussing these as a means for Apple to increase market share? and now that we have these real working features, with Mac sales at record levels and the only company increasing it’s market share, and you’re still complaining, and you’re not even a Mac user. Mindset, all this shows is that Apple has the mindset where other companies don’t….

    Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 10:47 pm ¶

14. Snafu wrote:

    Well, I am a daily user of Macs since forever, both at home and at my job, and I am beyond underwhelmed, plus I never saw Apple so determined to candy-coat OS X up to Windows (Vista)-levels before (that desktop background, that menubar transparency, that dynamic icon preview, etc.). What was that about, actually?

    Until I see that they have solved all the Finder’s and Aqua’s horrible, HORRIBLE latencies (my Mac Pro doesn’t feel any faster than my Pmac G4, GUI-wise, for the love of God!) and their death by a thousand cuts approach to workflow is corrected somehow, colour me rabid.

    Posted 11 Jun 2007 at 11:48 pm ¶

15. Neil Anderson wrote:

    Looks awesome to me. Can’t wait to buy the Ultimate version.

    Posted 12 Jun 2007 at 1:37 am ¶

16. Asam Bashir wrote:

    Snafu, you’re complaining about the desktop picture and you expect to be taken seriously? The desktop pic is normally the first thing I change after a new installation – there is no such thing as a single desktop picture that would please anyone, you’re supposed to customise it the way you want. I personally have geektool displaying systems logs and console with transparency as by background.

    Finder and Aqua Horrible latencies? Are you sure you haven’t messed up your particular systems? Do you actually understand how a UNIX system works? and how different processes are given different priorities? The fact that machines as old as a Pismo G3 Powerbook right up to current rev 3 MacBook Pros can run the same OS is a credit to Mac OS X. Are you by any chance comparing laptop performance with a 4200 RPM drive with a faster desktop drive? Have you tried putting a faster drive in your laptop?

    Personally I love the fact that the dock has gone transparent, I’ve been using a transparent dock since about 10.0 using Unsanity’s Clear dock. If I could have made my Finder bar transparent I probably would have.

    Regarding comments on Vista, ha-ha you have to be kiding, it’s a well known fact that Vista development was put on hold and reset after Leopard development was announced. So who’s copied who?

    Being someone who’s been using Macs forever (what exactly is forever?) you should know very well that there is a huge third-party Mac app development community who do a great job in providing zillions of apps that allow you to customise the Mac to work in the best way for you. Personally, I think browsing by files is so 20th Century, the only time I use Finder is when I’m backing up and need to tidy some things. For most files activity I use QuickSilver with text and gesture shortcuts…..

    Posted 12 Jun 2007 at 2:40 pm ¶

17. Asam Bashir wrote:

    New Finder seems even better then it sounded, watching the keynote now. The dot mac tie in with remote access looks great. We’ve been able to do this with Remote Access but with it built-in to the Finder seems a great idea. Would be even better to tie in some Google apps with dot mac and this does seem to be a good stratergy for improving Apples cloud computing. Being able to turn pages of a PDF document looks great as well, those are exactly the kind of little things that increase productivity so I think Quicklook is as big a step forward as Spotlight searching.

    Posted 12 Jun 2007 at 8:21 pm ¶

18. simon wrote:

    Asam, I’ve watched the keynote now as well. After watching it, I still think Leopard looks just “OK”. That’s not saying it’s “bad” by the way, it’s just saying it’s “OK”.

    I had been hoping for more of a revolution in terms of the desktop look and feel, to really differentiate it from Vista. That hasn’t happened. Maybe it doesn’t matter – I’m not sure.

    Posted 13 Jun 2007 at 11:23 am ¶

19. Asam Bashir wrote:

    You must be blind then if you can’t differentiate Leopard desktop to Vista. You also forget the dynamic nature of the Mac OS X desktop, you forget Expose, Dashboard, Application switching, and now, Spaces, Quicklook, Stacks, the new Finder, Spotlight. The beauty of Mac OS X is the little details, the kind of details you only get to see from daily use, the way the icons change to represent activity, the little indicators on the Finder bar.

    Posted 13 Jun 2007 at 1:02 pm ¶

20. Hari Jayaram wrote:

    The slides for the KeyNote talk are on slideshare courtesy Guy Kawasaki
    at http://www.slideshare.net/GKawasaki/wwdc2007/1

    I am also very disappointed at how ignored Java 6 is on the Mac platform. This whole iphone thing better pay off!

    Posted 14 Jun 2007 at 4:53 pm ¶

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