James Tauber's Blog 2007/06/12
WWDC Keynote
So I watched the keynote this morning and, like many people, was underwhelmed.
Maybe I was expecting too much after Steve's amazing performance announcing the iPhone but there was just nothing to get really excited about. The best part was John Hodgman at the start. Steve's high point (which isn't saying much in this talk) was his faux announcement of all the different versions of Leopard.
Nothing new was revealed about Leopard that excited me. The interesting stuff for me is mostly hidden away at http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/technology/unix.html: Terminal 2 (with tabs), Python 2.5, Scripting Bridge support for Python, DTrace support (including for Python). Time Machine and iChat Theater are cool but we already knew all about them.
All evidence continues to suggest Spaces will be application-centric rather than window-centric. i.e. it's not clear to me you can have different Safari windows in different spaces. All the demos talk about having different apps in different spaces but not different windows from the same app. Hard to see how you could divide up activity areas without allowing more than one to have a browser. But maybe that's supported and I just haven't see it yet.
Regarding the "Web as iPhone SDK" announcement: I have no problem with that (and actually talked about it when the iPhone was first announced). It's actually my preferred way of developing applications for the iPhone. But I think Steve presented it the wrong way. It felt too much like "sorry, it's the best we could do under the circumstances".
Am I still looking forward to Leopard? Absolutely. Do I still plan to buy an iPhone at the end of this month? Of course.
I just don't think this was one of Steve's best.
by James Tauber : Created on June 12, 2007 : Last modified June 12, 2007 : Categories apple mac iphone : 3 comments (permalink)
Beautiful App
On the weekend, I came across a piece of software that is so good-looking, it makes me minimize all my other windows just so they don't distract from the beautiful UI of this one.
It's Midnight Inbox from Midnight Beep.
I haven't started to use it yet, so can't comment much on its functionality. But it sure looks nice.
And sorry PC guy—unlike Safari, it's Mac only.
by James Tauber : Created on June 12, 2007 : Last modified June 12, 2007 : 2 comments (permalink)