DigitalSandbox

Okay so WWDC has come and gone and we got some good things and some disappointments. We got our first taste of Leopard and I already know that I have to have it. We got new Mac Pros, which was really no surprise. New XServes which was also pretty obvious. But there were no new MacBook Pros. And not much of anything else.

Here’s what I think of what was announced…

New Toys

Mac Pros and XServes are nice to have. I would love to have one of those Mac Pros under my desk, but that is about as likely as me sprouting a new appendage at this point. The dual optical drive bays is a nice addition to an already strong product. If they are really as fast as they claim then, “Whoa baby!”

Leopard

The real announcement was our first look at Leopard. At first glance it doesn’t seem like much more than a bunch of updates to existing features lik Mail, Dashboard, Spotlight, etc. There were a few new features announced like Time Machine and Spaces, but overall not much. Steve did say though that they were keeping a few things under wraps a bit longer. Don’t want to give Redmond any more “inspiration” than they already do.

Mail

The updated features are kind of nice. Mail is looking pretty good. Stationery is nice for the home user that wants to pretty up their email. I don’t much care for it, but I can appreciate that others will love it.

I do like the notes and to-do features. Finding a way to keep track of that kind of stuff has always been a bit frustrating. I have been using Backpack for a while and I like it, but sometimes a desktop application is just easier to use. The integration with iCal for the to-dos is nice, too.

iCal

Speaking of iCal, I am totally excited about that update. They didn’t mention anything about it during the keynote, but the website indicates a feature that I have been dying for. Finally we will be able to publish a calendar and not just show off what is happening, but also make changes to it.

My dream would be for Google Calendar to incorporate this feature and be able to have one set of calendars on my Mini, my (soon to be acquired) MacBook Pro, and online (for those times I have neither) and be able to update one of them and have the others all updated as well.

Dashboard

Dashboard looks alright I guess. I suspect that there will be more updates to it before we see it in stores. The ability to create your own widgets is nice and stuff, but I think we will just start seeing a barrage of crappy widgets. I like Dashboard in general but I only use a handful of widgets that I find useful. Having to wade through a mountain of ho-hum widgets to find the useful ones will be more difficult once this feature hits.

Spotlight

Spotlight updates will be nice. I especially like that you will be able to search other computers and volumes on the network. As I am soon to join the ranks of the more-than-one-computer club, it will be nice to know which system the files are on.

iChat

iChat has some awesome new features, some unanswered questions, and some “well, that’s neat, I guess,” features. The things I am looking forward to are the tabbed chats and especially the screen control option. That will be invaluable to those of us that play the family tech. The iChat theater is an interesting idea as well. I like the idea of being on a video chat with my parents and saying, “oh hey, check out these pictures/video we just took of the kids.”

The background changing thing is cool from the sense that they make it easy and I suppose could be somewhat useful. I can’t really see myself using it other than to try it out.

The things I am really interested in is whether or not they will be ditching AIM for Jabber. I think that what Google is trying to do with GTalk is the right thing. One standard protocol (XMPP if I remember right) that allows anyone on any network (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, etc.) to talk to each other. Also you can set up your own server and still be able to talk to all of your friends. I wish the other companies would get behind this idea more. But until the kids (because it is mostly kids that use IM) figure out that company lock in is dumb for a communcations tool, I don’t have much hope for it.

Spaces

As for the new features, I really like Time Machine and Spaces. Spaces is not really anything new. You can do this already with a few different applications. Having it tied to the OS will be nice, but it isn’t exaclty revolutionary.

Time Machine

The thing that will make me buy Leopard on day one will be Time Machine. That is one feature that I have been think about a lot lately. As we get more and more of lives digitized I realize that very few of my most precious events exist in any real, physical sense. I have a collection of 1s and 0s that could be gone with the next hardware failure.

Having the OS automatically back up is great. Having it not only back up, but also keep track of past deletions and such is awesome. My major concern will be hard drive space. You are going to need a big drive to back up all that info through time like that. But I have a whole other post on that that I have been thinking about.

I am not sure if I like the interface that they have going there, but it is just a prototype. I have no doubt that Apple will refine it before final release.

Undelivered

While I am saddened that no MacBook Pro updates were announce there remains a glimmer of hope that they will announce something soon. The Merom-based laptops of several PC companies are supposed to start shipping in a few weeks. I can only assume that Apple is working on the finishing touches of their own and that it will be announced soon.

I think the absolute latest will be the Paris Expo which will suck for me because I will have gotten mine only a few weeks before. I still hold hope that they will announce something just before school starts and make it shipping that day. Of course that doesn’t mean that the deal my school has worked out will extend to the new model, but you have to have hope.

As for things I was wanting to see in Leopard but didn’t, I think the lack of a refined UI is the most disappointing. I am almost certain that they will refine the UI before release, but I was hoping for a taste of what was to come.

These other features that Steve mentioned that they aren’t talking about yet have me intrigued. They must be pretty big to not even mention them. Or maybe they are just being cautious since Vista announced a huge amount of features that have been scrapped. They wouldn’t want to say we are going to do X and then not deliver since they are giving Vista such a hard time about it.